Friday, June 22, 2007
Page 15
AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)
Growth in Garage Remains Unsolved Mystery
By J’AMY PACHECO
There are many mysteries in life.
We’ll probably never know with certainty, for example, who killed President Kennedy, where the lost colonists of Roanoke ended up, or what exactly happened when the screen went black on the series finale of “The Sopranos.”
There is another, less publicized mystery. It’s one that haunts my dreams, and makes it really hard for me to park my car. That is, of course, the unexplained growth of stuff in my garage.
If there is one thing upon which humankind can depend, it is the annual need to clean out the garage.
One look around my neighborhood on a recent Saturday was enough to convince me that the need for an annual garage sale has become as predictable as the migration of the legendary two-banded plover. They’re everywhere!
Frankly, I don’t know how it gets like this. Each spring, I invite strangers in to pick through cast-offs in my garage, and to exchange them for the crumpled up dollar bills and assorted change they keep in their pockets. They haul away junk, I stick money in a metal canister, and we all go home happy.
It usually takes a few months for the empty spaces in my garage to start to fill. It begins with something small, like a terra cotta pot no longer needed in the yard, or a few toys that are outgrown.
By about September, the walls of the garage start to look narrower. Mysterious boxes filled with unnamed items begin to pop up here and there, along with discarded science project boards, miscellaneous yard tools, obsolete computer monitors and other items.
By the time the Christmas decorations come down, the garage is out of control. The deer that graced my lawn until early January, for example, continue to graze – fully assembled – in my garage today.
Even worse – I’m pretty sure the stuff is reproducing.
I held two garage sales last year. It’s not that I like them. In fact, the opposite is true. I hate watching people pick through my old stuff. I especially dislike the ones who think the best way to get me to reduce prices is to insult me.
I’ll never forget the woman who quibbled with me over a large blue serving plate. It would have been a beautiful plate, if it hadn’t had a big image of a rooster on it. It was given to me by someone who knew blue was my favorite color, and who was unaware of the trauma inflicted upon me at a tender age when a rooster latched onto my hair and beat me up with his nasty wings. (Sad, but true.)
Anyway, there was no way I could keep a rooster plate, so I put it out with my yard sale stuff. The woman glanced at the price tag and said scornfully, “Nobody’s going to pay you that at a yard sale.”
Under normal circumstances, she would have offered a buck, and I would have said, “Take it.” I’ve been known to give things to people who look like they really want or need something I have for sale, like a toddler car seat or a baby jacket. But this woman’s attitude offended me to the point that I took the plate from her hands.
“Then I guess I’ll keep it,” I said, cringing at the thought of a rooster in my kitchen. But there it remains, to this day.
Despite having held two of these wonderful events last year, I feel the garage walls closing in on me. I know it’s time to haul out the metal canister, and all my old junk, once again.
My daughter loves garage sales. She sells lemonade, and occasionally, those little individual sized bags of chips. She really cleans up at garage sales. Financially, anyway. It’s my husband and I who drag the rest of the junk back into the garage to await a trip to the thrift store.
I have friends who pull out the barbecue and sell hot dogs while they’re having their garage sales. They swear it’s a good time. I suspect that could be profitable as well, but I’d sure hate to have somebody show up and accuse me of operating an unauthorized restaurant in my front yard.
Regardless of how it happens, the stuff in my garage has multiplied to the point that I need to put it all on display in my driveway. Fortunately, my neighbors have all held their sales, so they probably have plenty of room to cart some of my stuff home. And if there’s anything you need, let me know. There’s probably one in my garage.
I’m pretty sure if I look through enough boxes, I’ll even find a two-banded plover…
Copyright 2007, Metropolitan News Company