The Almost X-Rated Garage Sale (Part 2)

In the last two weeks, the Hubs and I have engaged in the energy-sapping double-whammy of “garage sale” and “kid party” over back-to-back weekends. The kid party, complete with margaritas and a bounce house, was a blast.

Disney Princess Bounce House Extraordinaire

The garage sale? Oh, the garage sale…

It’s taken me more than a week to recover from that one. Seriously. I was traumatized.

It wasn’t just the cleaning, although that was enough to throw my back out and send me running to Facebook for back remedies (thanks, y’all).

It wasn’t the manic husband, although he got that MacGyver look in his eyes: Ooooh, a box. I could take back eight square inches of garage floor by selling the contents of this box!

His brother helped him, and he was even more driven: If it is in a box, it is for SALE. My head is down and I will not notice those were my mother’s silver candlesticks, or that these frames have my niece’s baby pictures in them.

I was minding the kid when they finished Friday night, so I never got to review the sale items. Then those two scamps decided to let me sleep in (you know till 7:30 am). They got started two hours before I got out there on Saturday.

Silly, silly me. I should have booby-trapped the freaking front door.

When I opened the front door (before coffee), the first thing my eyes landed on were my mother’s angels. They are sweet ceramic kissing angels that had been packed lovingly in a box until the Little Bean was to the age where she wouldn’t accidentally break them.

Only now they were balanced on a pile of garage sale crap with someone asking me how much they were. That was the first time I said the words that scared the crap out of the men by the end of the day:

“I’m SO sorry. Those are not for sale.”

This was usually followed by a pissed off remark from the customer, mad that I took the (insert family heirloom) off their pile.

I didn’t get to that first cup of coffee till almost 10, and it’s a wonder nobody died.

It was a lo-o-o-ong day.

I have no idea how many heirlooms walked away, but I personally saved the angels, some silver candlesticks, two signed art works, three birthday presents, tons of family photos and some incredibly expensive custom-made items my husband was planning to sell for a buck.

Then there was the X-rated part, which thankfully happened before I woke up. 

Note: Some of you might remember the Almost X-rated Garage Sale thrown by my mother and the Aunties in small-town Missouri. There were no “red covers” involved in my not-so-small-town SoCal garage sale. (Click that link for more on Red Covers.)

However, there was an incident with a box. A personal box, that was clearly labeled “MEOW.”

I didn’t expect to see the MEOW box tucked behind some charcoal on the front porch. I didn’t actually notice it until I got coffee in my hand. (I’d been living under the delusion that this box was tucked into the top of my closet.)

And before we go any further, you should know that I don’t own a cat. I’m allergic to cats.

The MEOW box is the toy box. The single-girl sexy pie box. The box you have your best friend grab and hide in the event of your death. There was no good reason why the MEOW box would be on the front porch.

So this conversation happened:

Me: [Taking deep breaths so as not to take the Hubs’ head off. Again.] *sips coffee* Honey, thanks for saving the MEOW box. I’d have died if anyone like your brother saw that.

Him: I don’t know if my brother saw it. It was chaos this morning. But two Latino men saw it, because one of them asked me how much it was.

Me: *shakes blood back into head* WHAT?

Him: Yes, one of the men waved me over, wiggled his eyebrows and said, “Es for the girls, yes?” I didn’t know what he meant until he started waving one of the vibrators.

Me: He waved— *covers face* Ohmigod. Ohmigod. Ohmigod.

Him: I thanked him, folded up the box and tossed it on the porch. His friend offered me ten bucks for the whole box, but I thought you might want to look in it first.

Me: Oh. My. Lord. DID YOUR BROTHER SEE ANY OF THIS?

Him: It’s been a madhouse out here. I don’t think he looked at anything. He just kept unpacking.

Me: I’ll be back in a minute. I need to add some liquor to this coffee.

I don’t know if I’ll ever recover from this garage sale. I do know we won’t be having another one unless I take a more active role. However the Hubs is happy because his garage looked like this when we were done.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever bought or sold at a garage sale? Enquiring minds love to know these things here at More Cowbell!

~ Jenny

p.s. Have y’all be tweeting in the month of May with the #ChooseThisDay hashtag?

Also, Jess Witkins and August McLaughlin (GirlBoner) are up for different categories in the Badass Blog Award from Indie Chicks. Click here to vote for them – voting closes tomorrow (May 15)!