The Belove-ded Annual Garage Sale

Yesterday, Saturday, was the annual (semiannual, biennial? Something) y-rad sale at the Bittermans. Lynda E.started the whole thing with wanting to sell her couch. It was starting to have trouble with the springs and she decided it had to go. She also decided the two armchairs, coffee table, and HUGE, ugly, hideous lamps had to go as well. Basically her whole living room! Val really needed to make some money, so she collected and sold junk from me and Grandma. Christine E. brought stuff as well.

Friday was the day where we really had to work to get ready (as y'all well know!). Lists, signs,

makeshift tables,

carting stuff out of the house, arranging junk,

 shooing the cat off the tables, making lots of iced tea--all had their place.


Saturday we were out on on the carport at 6:30 and we pretty much had steady customers all morning. Between the 3 families, we made around $600! And the crazy couch that started it all did NOT get sold, because Lynda suddenly decided she still liked it!

We had a few characters to come through as usual, but no real creepers or anything. The only real negative to the day was Christine E. had a very expensive pair of prescription sunglasses stolen. Annoying! The sweet thing about the day was that Lynda E. was so happy. I have not seen her like that in a long long time. It actually made me cry with happiness as I thought back on how truly happy she was on Saturday.

Now for the really funny thing. OK. Grandma L. cleaned out a few shelves in her basement and gave Val the junk to sell. She had about 8 copies of our Aunt Bertha's  torrid self-published "novel" (it is really a thinly veiled autobiography of herself, with all sorts of fanciful, fictional details added) about a country gal's love affair with the local doctor. The crazy thing is she uses actual names of the real people in the book, and on her dedication page, she dedicates the book to the doctor that she had the affair with! Yep--she was one looney lady!

Well, a lady at the yard sale picked one up and asked us about it. Grandma L. was out there and she and I tried to respond politely about the book. The lady actually bought one! We all got to laughing about it, and scarfed up all the other copies, and flipped through them. Val started reading it out-loud and we howled at the "steamy," racy stuff Bertha had written. It was hilarious and embarrassing! Check out everybody digging into this racy read:

Your dad and Michael spent the day working on the zip-line platform. Smart guys to stay away from the crazy garage sale people and the racy novels written by relatives!