Please, anything but a rummage sale

By Debbie Irmen (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Thursday, May 15, 2008

With the snowy month of April having given way to the cooler days of May, whispers of people cleaning out closets, garages, cupboards has grown ever louder.

That can only mean one thing — rummage sales.

The thought of such brings a shudder to my spine as I recall last year's rummage sale season - my husband decided we should jump on the bandwagon and have one of our own.

Naturally, I resisted.

I like to visit rummage sales, but I'm not a die-hard rummager. I have enough of my own junk, I don't need to begin hoarding others' stuff, too.

From the get-go, we were at polar ends — he relished cleaning out the junk, I couldn't bear to part with the treasures accumulated over 14 years.

On top of all of our own stuff, he had helped move his mother from her long-time home into an apartment and also brought some of her stuff home, thinking it would sell on a rummage sale.

As I looked at the old, dusty items, I wondered what screw had loosened. There was no way we'd sell this stuff.

Wanting to get caught up in his excitement, I started hauling the dusty collection into the house for washing.

I have learned over the years that presentation at a rummage sale is everything.

He watched me carry a box inside before asking what I was doing.

"I've got to wash this stuff; it's all dirty."

He snorted and said not to bother. I listened to him. I shouldn't have.

From that moment on, our normally happy relationship went downhill.

I've heard it said that if a couple can survive building a house, they can survive anything.

We built two houses together and got along fine.

Not so with the dreaded rummage sale.

Each evening I reluctantly trekked to the garage with adored husband to price our items and arrange everything on the tables we had borrowed from our house, friends and neighbors (you can never have too many display tables).

Each night we exited the garage in silence. We had quit speaking to each other after the first five minutes.

The kids knew better than to enter the garage, or speak to us for about an hour if they valued their lives.

From the cleaning of his mother's stuff, to pricing, to displaying, we couldn't agree on a single thing.

I priced everything to sell — rummage sale veterans know what that means — nothing costs more than 75 cents, but most everything is priced at a quarter.

He gave up asking what I was pricing everything, and simply went behind me and changed it.

The day of the sale dawned and he was up earlier than the birds, and in the garage making last minute adjustments, rearranging this and that. I was in bed with the covers pulled over my head, dreading getting up for the day.

More than 45 minutes before we opened the big door at 7 a.m., our first rummager arrived.

Randy was so excited, he opened the door half-an-hour early. I wasn't ready so he sat in the garage chatting and drinking coffee.

Despite my misgivings, rummage-sale people, came, they rummaged, they bought.

I hope he never, ever suggests we have another rummage sale. I'm not sure our marriage could surive another such event.

Give me nearly any other marital tribulation — I just can't go through another rummage sale with my beloved.

Debbie Irmen’s column appears Thursdays. A version of this column was published in 2004.