Yard Sale Reverie

The day didn’t go as expected. I thought we’d set out the things we had collected and then spend a leisurely morning chatting with an occasional customer while wandering in and out of the house looking for anything else we might be ready to sell. The girls were prepared, but my husband and I needed time to discuss exactly what we planned to lay out. Instead, as I stood barefoot in the driveway at 8 a.m. in my terry cloth bathrobe, I was astonished to see two large vans cruising the neighborhood. Could it be “yardsalers” already? We had advertised for it to begin at 9 a.m. Oh well, the other families weren’t ready yet either, so, while my husband and girls continued setting up, I went to take a quick shower.

It wasn’t quick enough. My husband’s voice pierced through the spraying water as he called from the bottom of the stairs, “ How much do you want for the bureau?” The bureau? Does he mean the bureau that was in the children’s room when they were small: the pretty maple bureau with the six narrow drawers stacked high, with shallow drawers just right for fuzzy plastic-footed sleepers and corduroy coveralls?” That isn’t for sale.

“I’ve got a man here who wants it,” my husband shouts.

It’s upstairs in the garage. I can’t believe it. What are they doing poking around there? Isn’t anything sacrosanct? “Tell him ninety dollars!” I yell. That’s what we paid for it years ago. I’m not psychologically ready to let it go, but a decent price would help.

“He’s offering forty dollars. How about fifty?” my husband shouts back.

“Ninety! If he wants it so badly, he can pay ninety!” I scream out through the shower curtain, knowing full well that it’s out of my hands at this point and just hoping that my husband won’t let it go too easily.

My younger daughter is next to call up the stairs. “Mom, do we have any dishes you want to get rid of? A lady’s asking.”

I’d better get down there fast. “I’ll be down in a minute,” I call out. I turn the water off and scramble out of the shower, dripping wet. I dry off, pull some clothes on, and dash downstairs and outside. My hair is wet. The warmth of the shower is quickly dissipating. My daughter turns the customer over to me, a wide-hipped blonde with a friendly smile, a purple fanny pack full of cash, and a van.

Dishes, yes, I have dishes. I open the doors to the bulkhead, and we go down into the dark basement, the blonde customer at my heels. Let’s see. I glance along the crude wooden shelving on one wall, wondering just what I might have to sell. The woman stands at my elbow in the semi-darkness, waiting patiently There are these white pottery dishes with thin blue stripes along the unglazed, earth-tone borders, plastic dishes decorated with Beatrix Potter illustrations, and a few clay pots. She examines the few plates that remain from the original pottery set and holds them against her chest. She looks to see what she wants; I look to see what I feel I can let go.

“Elissa, do you want this?”

I turn to look at my husband. The man who wanted the tall bureau is nearby. They’re on a tour of our basement. He’s a dealer. My husband has sold the bureau for seventy-five and an old fishing rod is thrown into the bargain. Enlivened by the action, my husband is on the prowl. He’s pointing to a small, blue desk with spindly legs.

“No! That was my father’s desk.” Doesn’t he know that? Actually, he does, but it doesn’t have the sentimental value for him that it does for me. He’s putting me to the test. He smells blood, and it’s up to me to say “No”. I turn to the matter at hand.

I remember the Vermont potter who made the dishes for me after I saw a similar set she had on display at the Sunapee Fair. I recall the look of them on our table as the family gathered round, their heft as I set them down, cleared them off, and put them back on the cabinet shelf ready for the next meal. My children’s voices come to me, and I see myself lifting their small slippery bodies out of the tub, dressing them, hoisting them into the highchair beside the table. I wipe food off their faces. They grimace and turn away in protest. I help them down and they toddle away.

Just the other day, my fifteen-year-old received notice that she was a “winner” in the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes. They probably got her name from the record club she belongs to. She won the “opportunity” to pick from a list of $250 items on sale at “greatly reduced prices.” She asked if we could go halves on a set of luggage reduced to sixty dollars.

“I’ll need my own suitcases when I go to college, Mom.”

“You’re thinking about how to get your things to college already?”

“Yes. It’s not that far away, you know.

“Well, I guess not, but…”

“I think about what my room will look like, where I’ll put everything.”

“Really?”

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