This weekend was our community yard sale. Depending on where you sit in our household, this was an event that’s been eagerly anticipated or anxiously dreaded. After last year’s fun adventure of skipping around our neighborhood looking for treasures, my son has been dreaming about raking in the big bucks by getting rid of his old junk. I even used it as a bribe to clean house before Christmas, with a promise from the kids that anything that didn’t sell would be donated, no take-backs.
But, as the “BIG DAY” quickly approached, we had a number of reasons to not participate. School work, soccer, doctor’s appointments. We were way too busy, I protested. A promise is a promise, my son reminded me. I gave in, tempted by the thought that there would be a nugget of some lesson for the kids in the experience.
I was happy that I didn’t have to pester our kids about pricing their items, but I did have to keep reminding them to price things to sell, and keep it to the nearest quarter. $4.92 for Bat Man? Let’s review.
We also took the opportunity to go through some of our old baby stuff. Dad got a little misty over selling the “Little Sailor” crib set. I was happy to have it go to a good home, but for some reason, I couldn’t part with the lamp that went with it. Our babysitter had a hard time saying goodbye to the double stroller that had served her well.
We had to stop ourselves a few times when the kids unemotionally tossed toys into the “sell” pile. “Didn’t you just get that dinosaur for Christmas?” my husband asked our daughter as she shrugged.
“Kayak Joe? …Really?” I asked my son, about the souvenir I got him from our Whitewater Center trip last summer. “How does $1.25 sound?” was his response.
Forward to 6:00am the morning of the big sale and we were up and at ‘em. First came the serious “sale-ers,” followed by the more leisurely families, then the bargain hunters. Near the end of the sale, a little girl held up Kayak Joe and a crumpled dollar in her hand.
“Would you take $1.00?” Before I could snatch Joe out of her grubby mitt, I sadly agreed.
The day brought a valuable lesson for me: I need to stop buying so many toys.
