Leave Her At Home

It's that season again... garage sales are everywhere. In fact, biking home from the park today after a playdate, Mister Man and I went past a neighbor who appeared to be sorting items for an upcoming garage sale. Generally, I stay far away from them. I really don't need anything, and taking the wee ones is always a dicey proposition.

However, before the playdate today, my mom happened to be with me at Mister Man's t-ball game, and we took her car. As we drove past a garage sale on the street before mine -- so close, yet so far from the friendly confines of my garage -- my mom spotted one and asked if I wanted to stop.

Before I could answer, both the wee ones piped up enthusiastically. I sighed and agreed.

The good news is that the people holding the garage sale apparently don't have children. Phew. I didn't have to do any replacing of objects that absolutely were not coming home with us regardless of the efficacy of the puppy dog eyes thrown my way.

On the other hand, my mom found something she couldn't live without. The glasses she has at her house are an angled blue glass. She's had them for years, and I doubt there's a full set remaining.

These people were selling a similar, albeit narrower, blue angled glass set. In fact, there were eight water glasses and twelve juice glasses. They were asking six dollars for the set.

My mom looked at me and whispered whether I would ask if they'd take five instead of six. Now, keep in mind that my mom is banned from setting foot inside a car showroom after she told the salesman that they should ask more for car X because it had a built in car phone (this was wayyy back in the day). They finally bought my mom's current car after she set off the alarm while sitting in it, and it took a good twenty minutes to find the appropriate set of keys to turn it off. My mom was so embarrassed that she insisted my dad purchase that exact car for the sticker price.

I sighed and said I'd ask. Then I noticed that the wee ones were picking up some random Halloween items, placing them on the bar stools and then spinning the bar stools until the Halloween items went flying off. Needless to say, I took a detour to explain to the wee ones what appropriate garage sale behavior looks like.

When I turned around again, the garage sale lady was placing half the glasses -- ok, technically less than half, since it was only the water glasses -- into a box and handing my mom some change.

I hid my smile of congratulations at my mom's acumen in getting what she wanted -- forgetting for the moment that when we were in China, I was the one who had to wade into the sea of trinket salespeople at each stop our tour bus made to rescue my mom because man can those people smell a sucker at 50 yards.

She walked up to me and proudly showed me the glasses. She had decided that she didn't actually need or want the juice glasses and had bargained for just the water glasses. And instead of paying the full six dollars, she happily announced that when the woman asked what she'd pay for them, she announced she'd give five dollars.

I was afraid to ask. I'm not sure if the five dollars was stuck in her head as a good deal because that's originally what she was going to ask to pay for the entire set of glasses or whether she thought that breaking up the set and leaving only twelve juice glasses meant that she should pay more than half the asking price. Or whether the bats flew out of her belfry and her tongue got tangled up as they escaped via her mouth.

Regardless, I'm so not taking her with me the next time I go to a garage sale.