This Weekend Only!

It's that time of year again....the beginning of summer vacation and my favorite of people watching events.....garage sale season!

I'm sure many of you have seen the signs popping up all over town....neighbors awakening from their winter cocoons and suddenly cleaning out garages, or large piles of broken chairs, disheveled looking Christmas decorations, and TVs circa 1980 mysteriously being stacked up by the curb on bulk pick-up day.

If you live in the suburbs, like me, I'm sure many of you have the same love-hate relationships with garage sale season.  For those supporters who argue "you can find great deals," I hear you, but for me, I find the overall event a baffling concept for many reasons.

And before I proceed, let me first say that I have held two garage sales in my life.  Although I found it to be lucrative, it was a beyond exhausting and experience like no other I've had.  Seriously, people argued with me over 25 cents.....twenty-five cents! Having gone through this, I now feel that conducting a garage sale should be an event all engaged couples should be required to participate in prior to marriage as part of a premarital counseling class.  OMG is all I'm going to say!

Now where was I?  Oh yes....living in "The Bubble", as I so affectionately refer to it, we are never at a shortage for these events.  And in "The Bubble", we do it big!  Forget just the simple garage sale, oh we have those.....but we also have Neighborhood Sales.  Look out!  The concept here is that if one person clogging the streets with carload upon carload of people wanting to dig through all their crap lining their drive-way is enticing, then an entire neighborhood simultaneously lining the streets with all their crap is Nirvana!

You'll always know one is coming, by the way, because each neighborhood, when built, apparently came with it's on "NEIGHBORHOOD GARAGE SALE THIS WEEKEND ONLY" banner.....I said yes banner. These banners serve as a beacons to all Saturday morning garage sale enthusiasts.

The reason I find this so peculiar is that it isn't an annual event that happens "this weekend only". I could understand that, but after three years of "Bubble dwelling", I'm noticing the same neighborhoods have four or five of these events a year. You have to kind of wonder about these neighborhoods, don't you?  I mean, what kind of folks do we have living here that could possible have enough junk to create a lucrative garage sale four or five times a year?  Seriously, I think if I were a casting agent for the show "Hoarders" I'd be staking out these neighborhoods because clearly, there is gold in this here Bubble!

So as this season begins let me dust off my lawn chair and get a good seat out front to watch and raise my cup to offer a toast of congratulations to my neighboring subdivisions.  Congratulations on providing me with hours of people watching astonishment and entertainment.  And congratulations for having the ability to absolutely block major streets with your semi-monthly parade of drive-way lining crap that manages to turn my beloved Bubble of sugar-coated happiness and solitude into a Walmart for "this weekend only!"