When Do You Have Too Much Stuff?
July 10th, 2010 by Bob Proctor, under Travel and Leisure. No Comments
My brother, who is four years my senior, used to be what I termed a garage sale junkie. Living in California where the weather is almost always nice, most Saturdays would find him prowling the neighborhoods for the frequently displayed garage sale signs. I was staying with him at the time and was amazed at the collection he was amassing.
One Saturday when he came home with, among other things, a couple of leaflet holders I questioned the wisdom of that particular purchase. His answer was (you guessed it), “They were an unbelievable bargain!” Really? Yeah… they were FREE.
Asked what he had planned for these advertising aids designed to hold brochures he had an answer ready. He was going to use them to advertise his OWN garage sale. He was planning to get rid of some of these things he had accumulated through his garage-sale addiction. It sounded like a good plan.
Well, before too much time had passed he met the love of his life and moved out of his house and into hers. She already had all of the furniture and appliances they needed so I was fortunate in having all that left behind for me to use. I also inherited the garage full of garage sale castoffs, which he guaranteed he would deal with as soon as he could.
A man of his word, it wasn’t long before the truck showed up and started clearing things out. He had to rent two large storage lockers to hold all the stuff (and they were packed right to the ceiling). When he was done I was actually able to pull my car into the space. The California sun is harsh and was causing my beautiful British racing green paint job to fade before its time.
I appreciated the fact that he saw fit to leave some of his well-maintained clothes in one of the closets, all hung with care on nice wooden hangers. Our being the same size when growing up was always a bonus for me. Both of my brothers provided me with quality ‘hand-me-downs’.
Today, five years later, I live halfway around the globe, having relocated from Sacramento to Cebu. Before I moved out he had to come to the house and cart everything to ANOTHER storage facility, where he rented two more units. Maybe it’s finally time for him to have that garage sale of his own!
Bob Proctor has been writing articles since 2002 and is an expert on wooden hangers , however he also likes to write about snowball microphone
categories: appliances,product reviews,shopping,home,family,travel,communication
