The Last Garage Sale Ever...for now

Finally, after putting off our second garage sale of the season because of busy schedules, heart surgery, heat waves, smoky air from wild fires and a nasty virus of mine that just would not go away, we did it. We shed the stuff. We trashed the trinkets. We moved the mess. We finally managed to get all the KonMaried garbage, um, er, items out of the garage, onto tables, priced and sort of sorted to sell. It was warm but not hot, I was between antibiotics and drum roll please...it also happened to be right after payday. Which for getting people to buy your garbage, um, er, items, was the perfect weekend.

The goal was to get all this stuff out of the garage and out of our life, with some money to show for it. Where did all this stuff come from? From inside our house. Yikes. The garage became our "staging ground" for the entire decluttering process. That term "staging ground" made it all seem so civilized. The movers, the shakers, the beautiful people - if you listen closely, their conversations are peppered with the phrase "staging ground".

We had not one, not two, but three staging grounds. Here is what the room off the kitchen looked like while we were moving and shaking. It was a sea of big blue Ikea bags. How did I ever get through one day of life on this planet before big blue Ikea bags were invented? Ikea bags spark joy. They also hold laundry and ironing, but I don't hold it against them. And they are perfect at garage sales when someone buys a particularly large amount of your stuff, hands you their hard earned money and you get to put what they bought in a big blue Ikea bag to make them not feel like a sucker when they get home and look at the items they purchased. It's all about the whole experience, that's the joy of garage sales.

And at this point I need to bring up hard cider. We opened our sale, as is our custom, on a Friday night and got the items sorted. I normally don't drink hard cider at any garage sale, mine especially. But this night was different. Because I did a very bad thing. I sold all our crystal to a hoarder. I did. I knew he was a hoarder, and I shamelessly sold him an Ikea bag sized amount of crystal. He came back and bought more, And then he came back with his wife and got even more. When he was wondering what he would do with some glass punch cups my neighbor was selling, I reminded him eggnog season was quickly approaching. Shame on me. Then as he and his wife were discussing where they would put the glass punch cups in their already too full china hutch, I suggested installing cup hooks. Double shame on me. I even went to look for some cup hooks for him in our newly organized garage, but I think I KonMaried them. He bought every last glass punch cup and most all the crystal I was selling. He paid full price, because it was the perfect weekend for a garage sale, being held just after payday. Triple shame. Hence the hard cider.

After the sale was over, the money counted and the garage sale signs ripped down, it was time to deal with all the items people didn't buy. (How dare they.) Ernst piled up the back of the car and took trip after trip to our local Goodwill. No regrets, that stuff is gone and gone for good. I swept out the garage, and for the first time in months parked the car back inside. I danced in the garage. There was room, even with the car.

The remaining Ikea bags are all neatly rolled up in the newly improved place for rags and bags. Now the question is, how many Ikea bags makes one a hoarder? Maybe I should ask the guy with the eggnog cups, he should know.