There once was a girl named Maren who lived in a time not so long ago.  She continually accumulated junk in a bin designated for Goodwill, and didn’t have a house big enough to store too much junk.  This had it’s pros and cons.  On most days, it was to her advantage because having a small house caused her to relieve herself of her junk quite regularly.  As a result, she didn’t have too much to put in a yard sale.  Yet, she still thought that it would be beneficial to have one–allowing her and her friends the opportunity to get rid of unneeded stuff.

Ads were placed in the newspaper to entice people from miles around to come to their sale.  Some participants (KW) prepared while others procrastinated (MB).  The Thursday of the sale, six families brought their junk to Maren’s house.  The junk seemed to appear continuously, with no end in sight. AND because Maren had no garage, her entire living room was filled from floor to ceiling with crap-o-la.  The junk made Maren’s house SMELL like a Goodwill, and about sent her to the loony bin! Yet, thanks to the help of her husband, she survived.  She didn’t have much time to look for junk to sell for herself, but as previously mentioned, she was on the verge of a breakdown, and it was probably better that she stopped looking.

The garage sale was set for Friday morning, with hopes that the impending rain would not appear.  As Maren’s husband and helpers set up for the sale, the downpour came, but  lasted only briefly to allow Maren’s husband and helpers the opportunity to continue in the process and prepare for the chaos.  The ads worked, and people from across the world (or so it seemed) came to the garage sale.

There were good things about the sale: A LOT OF JUNK SOLD that day & the comradery was joyous.  As a general rule, however, Maren and her friends found the day too stressful for enjoyment…and this was even taking into account that Maren could only get off of work for the afternoon part of it!  (Hats off to those who stayed the entire day! KW) When Maren arrived home from work to join in the garage-sale-ing, she realized that the neighborhood signs she had made had never been placed–so, she set out to terrorize the neighborhood with bright orange signs to attract even MORE people to the sale. 

One of the ladies in their sale had priced most of her stuff exorbitantly high, but how does one rationalize with another that their junk isn’t better than anyone else’s?  One shopper handed the money-taker a dime for a tupperware, only to discover that the high-asking-price lady was asking $10 for it! (I can understand why they lost THAT customer…)  At the end of the day, about 1/2 of the junk had sold, and it was toted back into Maren’s house to await being sold the next day.  Most of the high-priced lady’s items came back in or was stored in her van for the night.  Otherwise, everyone sold quite a bit of their junk—and as a result, that evening, Maren’s home only smelled like HALF of a Goodwill.

Saturday came bright and early, and the madness resumed.  Maren left at 11:00 to prepare for her Ultimate Frisbee games as the sale was continuing in a chaotic kind of way.  ***This was a welcomed break to the madness, even if she had to play the team that made her feel like crying a few times back.  It was nice to expend the garage-sale-stress in an aggressive, physical sports activity.  Maren’s parents & Michael cheered her on to an ‘almost’ victory, and left after her first game…where they came back as the sale was just wrapping up to hit the ground cleaning.***

When Maren arrived back to the house after all 3 of her games, the house was cleaned throughout, the yard had been raked and looked nice again and Maren almost forgot about the madness (THANK YOU Michael, Dad and Mom)  But not before saying, “Never again!”

(Special thanks to Krista who worked so hard throughout the weekend ~  Also, because of her accounting skills, we were 100% accurate in divvying out the $!! BONUS!)