Maybe it's junk, but it's my junk.

In spite of Antiques Road Show appraising old pots and junky furniture found at garage sales as thousand dollar collector items, I don't have the patience to go to garage sales. Or as they are referred to in the Midwest, rummage sales. Or as they are called in the Northeast, tag sales. We call them garage sales because it is always raining around here. Calling them 'yard sale' is misleading or soggy.
If the garage sale is in my neighborhood, I sometimes can't resist stopping by to snoop through what other people feel was too valuable to throw away, but then I'm embarrassed to walk away without buying something. Not that I haven't found and bought useful things that my neighbors stored for twenty years until they decided to downsize. Like the teach yourself to play piano books that I scored just weeks after my nephew gave me his old keyboard because he could now afford a good one, but couldn't stand to throw the old one away. His address is still taped to the edge in case I don't want it anymore.
But back to my topic. On a quick run to the grocery store, I saw a woman putting up a orange glow, three family garage sale sign on a electric pole at a busy intersection. For some reason, I decided to check it out on the way home. I followed the arrow down several blocks until I saw another neon orange poster directing me farther down the road. This one was not attached as carefully, but a few blocks farther I saw another one, then another, then I lost the trail.
While I was trying to track the big orange sale, I started noticing smaller florescent green posters. They were closer together and more clearly marked, so that was the sale I settled for. After weaving through the neighborhood, I was determined to find some Antiques Road Show worthy treasure.
But instead, what else? Old baby clothes, dusty strollers, and boxes of well used toys. No treasures there. So I started toward home when I saw another sale sign. Like the first, it was clothes that children had worn out and grown out of. Very worn out. But what was really strange was the tubes of lip gloss and make up. Lip gloss from a yard sale? That has got to go in the oddest item ever file.
Seeing the stuff that other people felt must be worth something to somebody got me to thinking about the treasures stored in my closets, spare bedroom, window sills, pantry, spare bathroom and garage. If I had a garage sale, there would not be any clothes, but real stuff. Stuff that I have been storing for years because it is just too good to throw away.
Maybe I should have a garage sale. I'll never use any of that stuff again. If I could just tape my address to the side of it so, just in case, I could have it back
Nancy Sherer