I am thinking of a big garage sale we just held. Orcas Islanders love garage sales. Furniture and rugs and decor accessories. Most new and lovely, that came from the end of a staging gig we did. The sale was held out of our storage space which was chock a block with great stuff. It was interesting to watch people as they 'experienced the stuff'. Some chemistry begins and the energy shifts when you put people in a space that has stuff for sale priced way under retail. I know it has had it's effect on me.
There was an estate sale about a year ago. I offer to help set it up for a friend of a friend. At first I am all about the presentation, merchandising the heck out of a life time of goods. There is some really nice possessions being sold.
As a thank you for my efforts and to those others who are assisting we get first dibs on the stuff. I don't really needing anything but my curiousity is piqued and bit of the ancient hunting instinct comes allive. And I look, and touch and pick up and put aside somethings with my name on it to purchase . The next day is the sale.
I arrive and decide to wander around the tables to see what was laid out after I left. At first there are only one or two other people wandering around. But soon I have ten people, twenty people joining me in the hunt, hunting for that perfect thing, what it is is yet unknown but when seen, I know I will want and I will discover a need for it I never knew I had. It is obviously affordable because it is at a garage sale. Yippee!
So I am picking up this pot and that frame. I wonder what I could do with another set of beautiful 700 count sheets. I pass over the kitchen towels in stack all nicely tied with a ribbon. I am falling in love with some beautiful wind chimes. As I look back someone else picks up the stack of towels. This creepy feeling of avarice comes noodling up from the bottom of my unconscious. Someone else made the kill opportunity I passed over.
Adrenline surges, my arms begin to fill with trophy's.
Soon I am going out of the garage sale with a load of stuff and a smile on my face which after awhile begins to melt in to a look of vague confusion (like Benjamin does on the bus when he finally gets Elaine to come with him in the movie The Graduate). The satisfaction wears off pretty quickly. It was fun. I would call this a diversion, an hour of sport. Affordable fun sport.
Not all garage sales are equal. The one we held was like that and if I was a shopper and not a seller I would have gone all wonky in there.
Hmm. We still have some stuff for sale! I wonder if that chair will fit in my office......