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The Great Giveaway
Some people rid themselves of excess possessions each year and call it “spring cleaning.” Other people purge their homes of surplus belongings every few years and have a garage sale. At my house, I walk around weekly and say, “We don’t use this,” or “You don’t wear this,” and put the object in a plastic bag to give to charity at a later date. Routinely my husband warns, “You’re not giving away any of MY things, are you?” “Of course not, dear.” I chirp back. Early in our marriage, we survived the Great Butter Tub Crisis. Not knowing that butter tubs were sacred vessels, I unceremoniously disposed of my husband’s lifetime collection of opaque yellow bowls with snap lids. Since then I have, been careful not to throw anything of his away…. at least not things that he would notice. Though I love to attend garage sales, I found that I don’t much enjoy working one. Last summer, my daughter and I assisted my parents with a 3-day garage sale in Omaha. My sister-in-law and parents had already done the cleaning and gathering. The only thing I had to do was to take the money and do my best to make sure that everything left the premises. Though some people love the socialization of garage sale days, I decided I didn’t want to try this at home. But as we cleared our downstairs last month in anticipation of refinishing our wood floors, we found we could easily cut down our “things.” An ad in the paper got rid of the out of tune upright piano. Furniture in disrepair didn’t make it back in the house. To top it off, we liked the “spare” look of the rooms instead of the cluttered look. “Gee, we’re getting rid of all these things, I hope no one thinks we’re planning to commit suicide,” joked my husband. It made me laugh and I wanted to remember the line, so I wrote it down on the closest paper, which happened to be my “to-do” list. A few hours later, my 12 year old came up to me solemnly and said, “Why does it say ‘suicide plans’ on your list?“ Once we solved that misunderstanding, I declared that with our new pile of discarded property, I could have a garage sale. But I didn’t want to spend a day to monitor it, so I proposed that we would have a self-service give-away. Arrange it all nicely in the front yard and then go read a book indoors. My husband shook his head. ”People don’t believe that free things have value at garage sales,” he explained. “You have to charge something. Maybe you could put out a jar and have people donate to a charity. And by the way, you aren’t giving away any of MY things, are you?” “Of course not, dear,” I said. “However, I don’t know why you’re saving that reel-to-reel phone answering machine.” “We might need it if our other one breaks down,” he said, ignoring the fact that the four-prong phone jack wouldn’t connect to our current equipment. “Well, what about all those books and magazines in the basement from the 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s?” “I’m planning to reread some of them,” he assured me. “Oh,” I said quietly with a nod. Because really, what else can you reply? He’ll never miss them. I don’t know the date of the Great Giveaway yet. It will be
some sunny day when the spirit moves me. So if you see merchandise on my front
lawn, please stop by. But if you see my husband’s car in the driveway, just keep going.
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