The Yard Sale

The yard sale went well. When I got to Mary Lynn's about 7:30, still fairly dark, her husband was already driving sale items that were loaded in the trailer attached to his John Deere down to the slope in front of their house. It was much colder than I expected, and I continued to freeze much of the day. That's what I get for not checking the weather. The sleepy sun crawled out of bed eventually but never did reach its full warming potential as far as I was concerned. Overall however, I can't complain. It was a lovely day to be outside and greeting strangers, some of whom were kind enough to pay a glad penny for my discards. One thing I was glad to see go was a heavy upright carpet cleaner I bought a couple of years ago that had frustrated me to no end. I couldn't figure the darned thing out. The instructions were imprinted in the clear plastic parts and even with my strongest glasses I could not read them. It seemed as if some jokester Chinese factory worker was playing a trick on me. After spotting it from the street, one couple came to inspect. It didn't take long for them to do some of the same manual gymnastics with it as I had. I offered them to just take it and figure it out at home, but being principled and wanting a trade, they wouldn't dream of it. Eventually they paid the five dollars and I loaded it in their truck. Whew! Maybe Mary Lynn's most interesting giveaway was her roosters. An older man who was milling around looking at stuff heard crowing in the background, and I assume asked if the noise was coming from her roosters. Yes indeed, and they were just what he needed. Into a box and covered with a dark tarp, off they went to torment some new hens. The biggest ticket item I sold was Trip's hot dog steamer and after subtracting that, I made about fifty dollars, about enough for a visit to the Japanese steak house.