Selling in the Rain

This morning as I woke, Mother Nature winked at me with a sly smile and said, "Good morning, money grubbing miser." It then proceeded to hail, and downpour.

With dim prospects for a successful opening day of the Berst clutter liquidation sale, I slipped on a fuzzy warm sweater and snatched up my coffee and a book to brave the garage. I even lit cinnamon roll candles and placed them around the garage to help dispell the gloom and hopefully engender a spirit of trade. This is the second garage sale I've held in my life, so I'm definitely not a professional at this...but I think the candles are contributing more to my hunger than anything else. Mmmm...cinnamon rolls....

Immediately as I rolled up the garage door three cars pulled up. As one lady put it, "A little rain doesn't stop us die-hard garage-salers!"

As an introverted, stay-at-home mama, it's easy for me to hide from the public...but not always healthy. There's a part of me that misses the connections made with random people while I was at the register in the grocery store, or while assembling pizzas that hopefully brought a little bit of joy, or even in selling credit card protection or roadside assistance from a call center. There are always stories, and I love stories.

Already this morning I heard a touching statement from an older lady who, in a shaking voice, explained that she couldn't pass up buying dolls because she was never able to play with them as a child. This begs for an explanation, but I didn't want to be rude and probe. I'll now be spending the rest of this week thinking up various and sundry reasons why that woman could never play with dolls.

And then there was the adorable little boy, full of questions, being pulled along by his harried looking mother and accompanied by two other tiny tots. "But Mama, I'm looking for the perfect toy!" he protested. Little man was shuffled back into their vehicle sans perfect toy while his mother explained there was nothing they needed, and quietly dealt warnings while avoiding eye contact with me. I wondered how many times I had ventured out with the boys and had been seen in the same way, visibly at the end of my rope.

It has quieted down since the flurry of activity this morning, and the sun occasionally peeks out. It's rather peaceful, and I got to watch a squirrel eat his breakfast. It's going to be a good end to the week.