Garage sale enlightenment

In an effort to find creative ways to pay the bills Kate and I had a garage sale at her parent’s house on Morse Lake. Forecast for the weekend: Thunder Showers, Tornado warnings, and a chance of snow. Good Times!

Wednesday night we went through our closets, pulled all the boxes out from behind the bed, and opened every cupboard, nook, and cranny to scrap together what we could for our meager garage sale.

Thursday we drove our treasures up to Cicero and started setting up shop in the garage. All my Cali garage sales were actually yard sales were we grabbed a cooler of beer and sat out in the sun playing cards until someone bought the slightly used kitchen table with the one short leg out from under us. This time we were limited to the two car garage so we had to set up our wares in small logical departments. Toys in the back, clothes in the front, and lovely pictures of ducks in mid flight scattered around the edges. Tom and Kris donated a living room set and King sized water bed which made me thank of the Monty Python skit about Photography (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

Unlike my West coast experience, Midwest garage sales start on Friday so Kris pulled the first shift in the morning as Kate worked and I stared at my computer in a Benydril induced haze wondering why it was taking so long for the screen to refresh and realizing we had lost power 20 minutes earlier. Kate called me to say we had taken in over a $100 so far this morning and I need to get over there as soon as I can to give Kris a break. A $100! How many quarter frames did she sell this morning? I arrived just before noon and Kris handed over the crazy wad of money as more and more people braved the Tornado warning. I was hoping for $100 total, thinking we would probably get about $40 if we were lucky. Here we were half way through the first day and exceeding my expectations already.

Towards the end of the day Friday this 75 year old guy came in to look at the boom box stereo that was currently playing the smooth vocal stylings of The Pneumatics, I hear their huge in Japan. he was in earlier but we didn't have a power cord for the stereo so he came back to see if we had found it. He told me he had some CDs but every time he tried to play them they wouldn't play. I showed him how it worked, shiny side down, and we went through some of the finer points of the purchase. He talked to me about the history of the area and what he did after the war. I poured him a cup of coffee and grabbed some cookies so he wouldn't leave. As we sat down on the living room set he asked about my family and my job, and when I told him I was getting my IT certs he said he was sorry he didn't learn about computers. He told me his generation heard that computers would replace people and it made him fell as if he wasn't valuable. If a machine could replace him then what was he really worth as a person? He rejected technology because of that and it has been tough getting past those deep seated fears. He told me to never let fear keep me from learning. He told me that a machine might be able to do my job, but it will never replace me because I am valuable, I have the ability to love. I showed him again how the CDs go, we listened to the new Killers CD, he didn't much care for it, but he thanked me for the coffee and said he would let me know how the stereo worked out for him.

Saturday led to more sales and more sales led to more garage space. My friend came back in for another cup of coffee. The stereo worked great for him. Shiny side down was all it took. We talked some more about Jazz and technology and he went on his way. When all was said and done the Tornado never came but the snow did, we made just under $400, and I shared a holy moment of coffee, Killers, and computers with my new friend.