Yardsale’s Over...and I lived to tell about it!

About twelve hours ago, my eyes popped open from a long night’s sleep. Ordinarily when this happens on a Saturday, the first light of day brings a sence of euphoria, the thrill of possibility. But today, the first murky strands of thought were of impending doom, of grave foreboding. For, today was...Yardsale Day. Of course, by the time I awoke, Pam had already been up for an hour planning...strategizing, plotting out her steps. She had already struck several items off of her To-Do List, affixed to her game-day clipboard. She shot me a piercing side eye as I trudged down the stairs for my morning coffee, already disappointed with my inadequate sence of urgency. She had already placed our bagel order with the Mechanicsville Panera and we needed to be there at 6:45 sharp to pick it up..and she was not enthused with my lollygagging. Despite her early concerns, I rallied and we made it to Panera with 30 seconds to spare.

The same could not be said for the rest of the set up crew. When we pulled into the driveway at ground zero, only Ron was there. At 6:55, we only had 15 minutes to get 17 fully loaded tables out of the garage and into place before the early worms started stumbling, ghost-like out of the Mechancisville mist like a pack of bargain hunting zombies. Apparently, two of our crew had overslept...having not heard their alarm. Another had fallen victim to that rarest of all occurrences...the 7 am traffic backup on 295. Still another when she arrived, reminded us that she is not a morning person. An inauspicious and uninspired beginning.

But before you could say...What in the Sam Hill is going on around here?....the floor displays were all in place and the first of a nearly five hour wave of shoppers had descended on the place. They proceeded to pick over our merchandise like hungry jackals. 

Every year there’s this one item that baffles us all. Where did it come from? What the heck is it? Surely, nobody is going to pay real money for this, right? This...thing...is this year’s item. How to describe? It sort of looks like an attempt at a honey comb, or bee hive, maybe? It is festooned with an array of shiny little yellowish pieces of faux diamond knock offs. But, upon closer inspection, there appears to be a face at the top, the little pink ball nose of either a cat or a bunny, with darker pink eyes. Whatever this creature is supposed to be...he/she is carrying some sort of flower basket without the benefit of any discernible appendages. Adding to the mystery, the creature’s insides have been hollowed out in order to hold a string of Christmas lights, which, once stuffed inside, make it glow brilliantly, as if he/she had just eaten some radioactive gruhl. Well, I’ll have you know that somebody did pay real money for it. She even asked us to plug in the string of lights to make sure they worked...as if this was crucial to her decision. When the lights flashed, she was sold!!

To make this story complete, I must reveal that at the time of sale we discovered that the creature had...a hat. This piece of the ensemble added nothing to our understanding of what had just happened as we watched this delighted customer leave with her treasure.

Then there was this.

Ok, my sainted mother used to have this wall clock which every hour on the hour would emit the shrill call of a different bird. It always freaked me out whenever I was over there for lunch and that dreadful hoot owl would scare the crap out of me at noon with his entirely too loud and synthesized HOOOOOT. I couldn’t imagine any wall clock being worse than the Hitchcockian nightmare that hung in my Mom’s kitchen....until I was introduced to...Divine Time. This beauty, which comes with handy, glow in the dark minute and hour hands, and speaks two different languages, features the booming voice of the spoken word belting out passages of scripture to herald the arrival of each new hour. It is described as the Scripture reading time piece, which is misleading and, in fact, not true at all. This plastic clock with bonus fake wood stand does not read anything. It bellows out prerecorded scripture every hour, all through the night when most people are trying to, you know...sleep. But, before I could wrap my head around the existence of such a thing in our universe, it had vanished, scarfed up by an eager Spanish-speaking woman...

...the fastest two bucks we’ve ever made.

Of course, no yard sale would be complete without a few mishaps. Early on, I heard the faint sound of breaking glass, but by the time I made it over to the scene, the customers had disappeared. Clean up on aisle three!! A little mercury poisoning never hurt anybody!

At the Dunnevant Yardsale, even our plastic bags are organized and neatly folded...

One of our youngest family members was given cash register duties this year and performed like a champ. She was exposed to enough give and take, hustle and bustle, and wheeling and dealing to last her a lifetime. She was a natural. I can actually see her becoming a trader in the pit on Wall Street one day. This particular customer doesn’t appear convinced, however. Her side eye suggests that perhaps she thinks we should have a more experienced huckster at the register. To which I say...Well, how is the next generation going to learn how to make money selling worthless junk to the public unless we give them a chance? We can’t all work at Walmart, you know!

They kept coming. In long, relentless lines, they came. Even when we were tearing everything down and packing it all up for a run to GoodWill and then the dump...they still came, one dude paid us six bucks for a bag of crap that was in the going to the dump pile not fifteen minutes before we were about to leave.

We even got a van load of church ladies who all wore orange t-shirt uniforms on a day trip from beautiful, down town Hayensville.
They were on a mission, their leader told me...a mission from God.

Well, I said, have I got a wall clock for you!!!

And just like that...it was over. The numbers are still a bit murky at this hour, but the estimate is that we netted somewhere between $850 and $1050.

God. Bless. America.

An Invitation

My family’s biennial excursion into the murky depths of unregulated, unrestrained Capitalism has begun. Last night, Pam and I loaded up the car with tables and as much inventory as we could squeeze in and made the first trip over to ground zero. Today, I will make a mid-morning trip over with load number two, followed by a third trip tonight. This year’s fare seems promising...plenty of worthless junk to compliment enough bigger ticket items to make it interesting. I’m thinking we might make a run at our all time record haul of $1100. If we do, it will be because of my salesmanship...

Customer: Do these remote controlled Formula One cars work?

Me: Maybe. Maybe not. 

Customer: Why would I want two Formula One remote control cars that don’t work?

Me: Look man...if you want two Formula One remote control cars that work, go to a toy store and pay a hundred bucks. Or, you could come to this yard sale and take a chance on these babies for 5 lousy bucks. What’s it gonna be??

Customer: But, shouldn’t you have tested them before hand to see if they work?

Me: (turning the car over to show customer the missing 12 volt battery). That would have required the purchase of a battery, which would have driven up the price. We thought it best to keep our cost down. Look Mack...you look like a decent guy, probably pretty good with your hands and stuff. Even if these things don’t work, a real man like you could figure out how to fix ‘em, am I right? Sure I am! Now, take these cars over to that good looking blonde at the cash table before I raise the price!

In a hundred such exchanges, merchandise gets moved at the Dunnevant Family Yard Sale. It is a dizzying display of audacious claims, dubious fact-free sales pitches and blatant hustling...

Claim: This sequined jacket was once worn by Elvis himself!!

FACT CHECK: false

Claim: This baseball glove never made an error in over 100 little league games!!

FACT CHECK: Technically true since gloves don’t make errors...players do.

Claim: Mrs. Williams, if you don’t buy this bejeweled purple statuette of Dolly Parton, you will regret it for the rest of your life.

FACT CHECK: false

Despite mountains of unverifiable statements, exaggerations and hyperbole...I am able to move more knickknackery than all other family members combined. It’s not even close.

So, if you’re looking for a fun and entertaining way to spend your Saturday morning, I want to extend a personal invitation to all of you to come out and see what all of Mechanicsville will be buzzing about. I look forward to seeing all of you at:

7105 Peach Orchard Lane

Mechanicsville, Va. 23111

8:00 am to 1:00 pm

Pending Yard Sale Panic

If you are a regular reader of The Tempest you will be familiar with the biennial Dunnevant family..(cue the suspenseful music)...YARD SALE. I have written about it many times, most notably,  here...https://doug-thetempest.blogspot.com/2015/06/enduring-my-biennial-beat-down.html. And here...https://doug-thetempest.blogspot.com/2016/11/dunnevant-family-yardsale-116-fall-2016.html. Well, once again, the dreadful thing has reared its ugly head. E-mails are flying around featuring raging debates on everything from the proper price point for children’s clothing to how many tables we need and who is bringing them and when the heck we are supposed to show up both Thursday and Friday evening for the crucial pre-sale table prep. This year, if e-mail trash talk can be believed, there will be a new feature adorning the sales desk...a Square App on my wife’s iPad!!...a huge update from that worn out abacus we’ve been using. Of course, we still employ a cash box and strictly enforce our No checks, No credit, No dang way policy.

This week was supposed to be the week that my wife was going to clean out the attic and haul down all of the candidates we would offer for sale. But, each day when I come home from work, the pile doesn’t seem very large, and my wife doesn’t seem too concerned about it either. She seems strangely calm, sedated even. There has been no fevered activity, no agiated mumbling, not even one word of profanity. Moreover, despite the looming deadline, there hasn’t been the slightest trace of panic in her eyes. This has been a disturbing development. When she acts this way...calm, serene, and unhurried on yard sale week, I start to worry. What is going on? What possible explanation could there possibly be for the complete absence of drama?

1. Is my wife using illegal narcotics?

2. Is she gravely ill?

3. Has the thick pollen coalesced in her brain causing it to short circuit, dramatically altering her personality?

A more likely explanation is that, having just finished packing up her room at school, combined with being on the road to Nashville and back last weekend, she has simply been unable to rouse herself to action due to mental and physical exhaustion. Sometime either this afternoon or tomorrow, it’s going to hit her. Who knows what might trigger it? She might glance at the calendar, or she might stumble upon some worthless piece of junk in one of the kids rooms and it will hit her...Dear God in heaven...THE FREAKING YARD SALE IS TOMORROW!!!! AGRGGHHHHH!!!!

When it happens, I want to make sure I’m home and ready. She’s gonna need some muscle...some dumb, cheap labor to do her bidding. I know just the guy!!

I Object!

I have lived long enough on this planet to know that having a positive attitude is the most productive and happy way to live. Perceiving the glass as half full makes all the difference in the world. Instead of devoting all of your energy bemoaning what you don’t have rather than being grateful for what you do have has served me quite well during my 61 years. However, every once in a while, it can be therapeutic to howl at the moon, to vent one’s spleen at life’s injustices, to allow yourself permission...briefly...to succumb to an airing of grievances. What follows is my current list of objections. They are in no particular order. I offer them randomly, as they come to mind.

1. Preachers Who Flaunt Their Wealth.

Recently, a friend of mine sent me a link to a story about which he wanted my opinion. It was about some Instagram channel called PreachersNSneakers, and it featured several mega-church pastors who were going about bragging about their expensive kicks...

       

I have written about prosperity gospel preachers before and my disdain for them is well known. But, there was something especially grievous about this sneaker business. While I can find nothing virtuous about poverty, and nothing necessarily evil about wealth and success, seeing alleged ministers of the Gospel wearing $5000 sneakers and bragging about it strikes me as about as close to heresy as it is possible to get. The fact that there exists in this world a pair of tennis shoes that someone would be willing to pay five grand for is horrible enough...but that the purchaser in question would be a guy who professes to be devoted to matters of the soul is the sort of thing  that makes me want to scream. These two preachers above...neither of whom I have ever heard of...probably drove their Bentleys passed at least a hundred homeless people on the way to pick up their shoes. I object.

2. The Design Flaw of Spring

I love Spring. After a long and dreary winter full of snow, ice and freezing temperatures, the warmth arrives, and with it the joyful chirping of birds, the dazzling color of a million flowers and a spectacular array of greenery. Driving home from Nashville on a gorgeous day was a treat. The glory of Spring was on full display all around us. As soon as we got home and I had a chance to cut the grass, it occurred to me that last night would have been a perfect night to eat our dinner out on the deck. Except...that would be impossible...unless we wanted our food served with a coating of thick yellow pollen. Additionally, our plates would have needed to be fitted with little plate umbrellas to protect the food from the downpour of oak tree strings which were falling all around us like some sort of Old Testament plague. 

In my opinion, this is the design flaw of Spring. The most delightful temperatures of the year are accompanied by rampant flower and fauna copulation, which, like all public displays of affection, makes everyone exposed to it sick! I strenuously object.

3. .500 Baseball Teams

Mediocrity has always annoyed me. There is nothing quite so tiresome than being in the middle of the pack. Sure, no one wants to finish last, but sometimes being really bad at something can be endearing...the1962 Mets come to mind. We even have a name for really, really bad teams...loveable losers. Nobody comes up with cute nicknames for mediocre teams. Even our Lord and Savior agreed...”You are neither hot nor cold, therefore I will spew you out of my mouth” Having said this, I offer the current rendition of the Washington Nationals. Through the first month of the season they are 11-11. They are in the unique position of not being able to serve as either a good or bad example...of anything. Either suck, or be great. But with that roster, mediocrity is an insult. I object.

4. Mail Fraud

So, yesterday I got my giving statement from my church in the mail for the 1st quarter of 2019 with a form letter asking me to consider systematic giving through me checking account, via auto-withdrawls. Apparently, my church has been having difficulty with checks being lost or fraudulently cashed. When I checked my giving statement I noticed that my February contribution was missing. I looked at my bank statement and saw that it was cashed, so I emailed the lady who’s name was at the bottom of my letter. She informed me that the church had been the victim of mail fraud. If I obtained a copy of the cashed check from my bank I needed to check the back of the check to see if the Hope Church stamp was there. If not, there was a procedure I would need to go through, an affidavit to sign..etc. etc. Are you kidding me?? What kind of dirtbag comes up with a scheme to fraudulently cash checks made out to churches? How does this even work? I will be calling someone at church today to find out the details, but honestly...is this the worst thing ever? I angrily object.

Well ok...there you have it. The first four objections that come to mind today. Now that I have shared them with all of you, I feel much better. Now, I can go back to being positive and grateful for all of the bountiful gifts of life.

Nashville

Four days in Nashville managed to shut down The Tempest. 1350 miles later, I am ready to reintroduce myself to my profession, but grateful for the chance we had to visit with our son and daughter in law. Just a few weeks ago, we spent 36 hours with our daughter in Myrtle Beach. When your children live in far off places, this is what you are forced to settle for. Of course, it could be much worse. They could live in Sri Lanka.

Here are some cool pictures from our trip:

The Nashville Sounds baseball team (Triple A affiliate of the Texas Rangers), play their games in a beautiful ballpark which features a giant guitar shaped scoreboard. Instead of Racing Presidents, they feature Racing Country Music Stars. This picture shows from left to right...Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire, and Johnny Cash. The fourth place Star had a bad night and was so far behind he didn’t even make it into the picture...poor George Jones!

Patrick’s church is West End United Methodist. It is a beautiful structure with glorious stained glass windows and a thunderous pipe organ. The place was packed to the gills and when the organist employed the deep bass pedals on Christ the Lord is Risen Today, I half expected our Lord and Savior himself to appear before us for the organ solo. Amazing.

Sarah managed to whip up this amazing spiral-wrapped ham, encrusted with a heavenly mixture of pecans, orange zest and brown sugar, and other stuff that’s bad for you. It was fabulous. 

Not to be outdone, Patrick made this loaf of bread from scratch. Yes, it was as delicious as it looks. When Sarah then presented a small bowl filled with her butter...which she had whipped up homemade from scratch...the thought came to me that the kids are gonna be alright.

Here’s Pam, completely dominating her first encounter with a virtual reality video game. Hilarious.

Jackson, My Grandpup

Practically every morning when I open Facebook, I am treated to pictures of my friend’s grandchildren. I love everyone of them. They make me think of how incredible it will be someday when I have grandchildren of my own. When I do, many of you will eventual de-friend me because of all the pictures that I will be posting!! However, even though that day has not yet arrived, that doesn’t mean that I have nothing to share. After all, I do have a...grandpup.

This is Jackson, and his brand new stuffed elephant friend. He is very excited about this new friend and couldn’t wait to show the family. Jackson knows us as Lolly and Pops, and whenever those names are spoken, he gets very excited and walks towards the door expecting us to walk in. He is especially fond of Lolly, but does seem to prefer Pop’s ear scratches. He is a very good boy. Unfortunately both Jackson and Lucy share one dubious characteristic...exceedingly low intelligence. Whereas, our beloved Molly was the Einstein of dogs, with a better vocabulary than the current occupant of the White House, Lucy and Jackson are more like that sweet, kind hearted, slow kid who reached his mental apex in 5th grade. And while our Lucy is the most gracefully athletic dog we have ever had, Jackson is about as athletic as a tree. Watching him run is quite hilarious, all four paws flailing around at discordant angles, inefficiently pounding the ground like a jackhammer with a faulty hydraulic. While Lucy is like a speedy wide receiver, Jackson is more like a flat footed offensive lineman who rides the bench because he never can remember the snap count.

But...Jackson is currently my only grandpup, so I love him to pieces. Whenever Kaitlin and Jon send me pictures of this lovable guy I stop whatever I’m doing and smile. Dogs always do that to me. They always remind me that is possible to find incorruptible things in this life.

Wow! Look What I Won!?

When I woke up yesterday morning I immediately consulted my handy dandy weather app. I was to be fielding a team in a charity golf tournament at noon and wanted to know how to dress for the event. Sunny with high temperatures in the upper 60’s, it boldly stated. I chose shorts and a short sleeve golf shirt and only at the last minute decided to bring a long sleeve pullover thing just in case the wind picked up. This last minute decision probably saved my life. In my forty plus years of playing the game of golf, I have never played in wind like we had yesterday...the kind of wind that had flagsticks bent nearly at 45 degree angles...the kind of wind that had hats and trash scattered all over the place. In other words...a normal day in Scotland.

As one would expect, the conditions played havoc with my game. I have the kind of golf game that requires nearly perfect weather conditions, the precise alignment of planets, and the proper convergence of karma and feng shui to flourish properly. Needless to say, yesterday, my feng shui had left the building. Essentially, my team only had three functioning players, and luckily for me, I chose wisely. Mike, Scott and Renee were all on top of their games, and the 62 we shot was good for a tie for fourth place out of 22 teams.

Then, it was time for that hardy perennial of charity golf...the raffle. I had purchased two tickets and was unduly hopeful, considering my miserable golfing performance. But, perhaps since I was so unlucky at golf, I would strike raffle gold. Sure enough, my number was called, but in all the chatter and clanging of a hundred wind-crazed golfers, I didn’t hear what it was that I had won. I had my eye on that shiny new Titleist driver, and that set of Ping irons. I bounded to the front with great expectations, only to discover that I had won this...

Imagine how ecstatic I was to discover that I had won...a pair...of really high tech hearing aids...or maybe two nasal probes...or perhaps a couple of remote controlled quarter notes? No, soon I was informed that I was the proud owner of AirPods. As soon as I got home I presented them to my wife as an early birthday present, since there isn’t a way in hell I was ever going to be caught dead with these things dangling from my ears. She was thrilled and informed me that these things are quite expensive and currently all the rage.

Oooo-k.