SALE! SALE! SALE!

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There is something quite rewarding with cleaning closets and a garage in preparation for a yard sale.

Granted, the reward is a sore back and a cranky disposition, but it’s a reward nonetheless.

We started the process of yard sale item isolation 10 days before the actual sale, because we knew he had an exorbitant amount of stuff that we needed to unload. We had a yard sale a few years ago, at which time I thought we had disposed of all of our unwanted junk. But, in those few years, some of it has apparently gone Incredible Journey on us and found their way home. A lot of the stuff we don’t ever remember actually owning, so there is the possibility that people are sneaking into our home and leaving their yard sale items for us.

Truth be told, identifying what to sell is the easy part. My logic on it is simple: you take an item and look at very closely. Ask yourself if it’s something very important to you. If you answer yes, then ask yourself why you had shoved in a cardboard box behind the lawn mower. And into the sale it goes!

There were a few items that we didn’t exactly see eye to eye on, though. For example, my wife came out with this big bowl she found in a storage closet. I gave it a quick look and said, “Two dollars?”

My wife turned on the look, the look that says, “Please, oh, please, don’t let our poor child have any more of his genetics than necessary.”

She held the bowl at arm’s length, showing it off to me. “It’s a Tiffany bowl.”

“Three dollars?” I asked, thinking we were getting into rare of yard sale pricing.

“It’s hand painted! It was a wedding gift!”

I thought about going all the way to $3.50, but something told me that she was saying something different. “So, it should go inside?”

DING! DING! DING! Mike got one right!!! Apparently, this hand-painted Tiffany bowl is the missing link in our life, despite the fact that there is zero functionality for a big hand painted bowl. Crunch Berries fit fine in a regular cereal bowl, thank you very much.

But just as I didn’t understand the importance of wedding gift knick-knackery, my wife doesn’t understand historical significance. We recently got a new microwave oven, replacing one that I had since college. While I agreed that we could part with it, I was not on the same page – I was not even in the same book – with her on the pricing of it. After all, this thing is a collector’s item! We went through the following haggle session to determine a price:

 WIFE: So, what do you think, five dollars?

ME: WHAT!?!?!? For the microwave? That thing is awesome! I had it since college. Fifty.

WIFE: It doesn’t really even work any more.

ME: Forty.

WIFE: And it blows hot air from several spots. Probably radioactive air.

ME: Thirty.

WIFE: We may need to get someone to sign a waiver to buy it, or else they’ll come back and slap us with the third arm they grow.

ME: Five it is.

But despite a few hiccups along the way, we are pretty much in agreement. Our home was filled with lots and lots of stuff we didn’t need, and we are looking to move it on out. And all we’re asking you to do is pay us some hard earned American money for the right to take it off our hands. That’s right – from our hands to yours – all three of them.