‘Talk to the nice woman with red hair’

Sometimes you do things because a friend asks you to and that’s how you find yourself at a motorcycle ice track race, zip lining across a canyon, getting a tattoo, eating churrasco de curacao (basically a Brazilian chicken heart shish kabob) or spending three days working at a garage sale.

I have, in the name of friendship, done all of these things including the last which I did this past weekend.

I wish I could say my friend held the sale to get rid of the old and musty to make room for the new and jazzy or because she just needed to clear space in the garage to make room for, you know, the car but that wasn’t the case. She was having the sale because she has to move. Her beloved husband passed away last October, her son more than a year before that and she needs to be geographically closer to her daughter and away from the home that holds too much of the past.

Sorting through all her “stuff,” all the memories, in preparation for the sale had been hard enough for my friend. Exchanging these memories for a quarter or a buck was more than she or her two daughters, who were also on site, could bear. And so, selling fell to me. This meant all they needed to say when asked about an item and its price was, “Talk to the nice woman with red hair.”

They said that a lot and a lot of people talked to me. Some of them were just odd ducks more interested in telling me about all “deals” they’d gotten in their many years of garage sale shopping than they were in making a purchase. Others were ruthless bargainers. Some bargained with flare and I appreciated their moxy and usually cut them a deal. Those who were whiny or just kept trying to hustle me were stoutly met with a “take it or leave it.” About 80% “took it.”

The first day was a bit rough. It was very cold. How cold was it, you ask? Well, it was so cold that when I took my first bathroom break, the toilet seat actually felt warm. I dressed smarter for day two.

I also met some charming folks, a few neighbors, old colleagues of my friend and a little boy named “Maverick” who, when we met shook my hand and when he left, hugged me. That was the best deal I made all weekend.

People from our church also stopped by with hugs and smiles. One who came was our church board president. A dear man who gave me a hand getting things down from a top shelf in a garage cupboard I just hadn’t gotten to. He lifted down a very old plastic grocery bag and, as he handed it to me, looked inside. He didn’t really say anything after looking. He just quickly closed the bag and just as quickly handed it to me then turned his attention to some concrete tools nearby.

I wondered at his abruptness so I looked in the bag and found my answer. The old bag was filled with “vintage men’s entertainment media.” I blushed for the first time in 40 years, tossed it in the nearest garbage bin and began chatting with him about prices on the concrete equipment. What the heck else could I do?

While I worked hard to stay in the spirit of things, chatting, wheeling and dealing, it wasn’t always easy. I thought about the memories with each sale and my heart ached after selling an outdoor set of table and chairs. As the happy new owners were loading it into their pickup my friend’s daughter quietly said, “We had a lot of good times around that table.”

It was hard too when people asked about and marveled at all my friend’s husband’s tools — shelves and shelves and shelves filled with them floor to ceiling — and his audio cassettes and VHS collections of old western books, movies and TV shows stacked a foot high on tables.

“He must’ve been an interesting fellow. Sure wish I’da known him. I would’ve liked him,” one man said. Others remarked on how skilled my friend’s husband must have been to have known how to use all the tools. And on it would go so that all I could do was swallow the lump in my throat, slap a smile on my face, nod my head and sell another memory.

There was one moment when I was helping a man load tools in one box and a huge pile of sheet music he was purchasing into another box when I suddenly couldn’t think or breathe.

My mind just went blank and my lungs forgot how to work. I don’t know why I felt the memories in these particular items at that particular moment but I did. And as I stood holding the cash in my hand watching him walk away with his “new” treasures, I had to remind myself that I couldn’t stand in my friend’s past, but I could stand for her future and with every transaction that’s exactly what I was doing.