Let's talk trash

It has oft been said that one man's trash is another man's treasure. Here in northwestern Ohio, proof positive of that adage can be found in a well established rite of summer...garage sales. Come Thursday every week, the local newspaper is chock full of classified ads touting junk sales being held the upcoming weekend, and people flock to the events like crazy.


I use the term "junk sales" rather loosely as, in many instances, the sellers are simply trying to unload unwanted items that are in perfectly fine (or even new) condition. In some cases, though, the wares for sale are more than a bit past their prime. In either instance, however, I applaud the activity. Buyers can find tremendous bargains, while the sellers make a little cash on possessions they no longer desire or need. Garage sales are free to attend, fun to browse through, and, from an environmental perspective, the whole ritual promotes the reuse and recycling of goods.

Last winter, when I delved into my annual clearing and organizing of our closets, attic and garage, it became apparent that we owned a good stock of various items for which we had absolutely no use. A bit of bedding, some decorative accessories like lamps and pictures, certain small kitchen appliances, an older TV, extra luggage...the inventory of things we needed to dispose of was larger than I had anticipated. This situation, combined with the fact that my mother's basement storage area was overflowing with old, junky furniture, led me to the conclusion that a garage sale was definitely in order for the following summer.

We held our sale last weekend. As expected from prior experience, the time spent organizing it in advance was a general pain for all involved (perhaps most of all for Scott, who had to lug the furniture pieces from basement to garage at my mom's). However, the crowds arrived early on Friday morning, and picked the place fairly clean by mid-afternoon. A few stragglers snatched up a few more of our things by five o'clock that day. We hoped that we might get rid of the rest by having a two-day sale but, after we had sold nothing else by eleven a.m. on Saturday, we closed up shop. A quick trip to Goodwill disposed of the leftovers, which barely filled the back of the Volvo.

The good news is that our house and garage are now clutter free, and my mother's basement is much closer to that goal. Six hundred extra bucks is another nice benefit, and we made a charitible donation to boot. Thus, over the past weekend, we indeed went from trash to treasure.

Or so I thought, until Scott decided that prowling garage sales ourselves might be fun, in order to look for bargains. If he gets his way, I have a feeling our home may again be cluttered with more junk in no time.

Though, on second thought, perhaps checking out a few garage sales might actually lead us to discover some new treasures. I suppose that just depends on one's perspective.