Reason Number One and Counting Why I Will Never Have a Yard Sale

Oh my God, you guys. I can't believe I haven't told this story already - and just when I was starting to think I'd run out of stories to tell. Okay, well, so today I went to the bank which I almost never have to do thanks to that beautiful invention - direct deposit. But I had a handful of checks the kids had received for Christmas and I figured it was high time to cash those suckers. That is all really here nor there except that it explains where I was and why I was parked in a spot that had a lot of cross traffic happening behind me; besides which, it is a better set up than today I was backing out of a parking space. Maybe. I dunno, whatever. Welcome to my stream of consciousness.

Anyway, so I'm backing out -real slow like- because it's busy and the black Toyota Sequoia parked next to me has the blackest tinted windows on earth and I quite literally could not see through them to determine if a car was coming. Or pedestrians. I get just far out enough to see a woman with a shopping cart waiting for me. So I halt to let her go what with that whole pedestrians have the right of way thingy and we do that whole she waves me on and I'm all no, no, after you wave to her and she's like, no really just go so I start to go at the same time she decides to stop waiting for me and we both do that immediate halt thing and she is all PISSED. And by this time I really do have to wait because there is a car speeding by but she thinks I'm still waiting for her and her teeth are all clenched but she still mouths the words just go lady or something because whatever she was muttering under her breath it was said with plenty of seething. So I just GO and I'm kind of hoping I take out her cart with my SUV on the way because I hate her a little bit at that moment and -what the hell? I was just trying to be nice and all law abiding. Screw that chick. And she reminds me of this lady who came to my door once.

Is she finally getting to the story? Yes, I believe she is. And you know what? I think she's realizing it's not really that great of a story. I hope she tells it anyway because I've gone this far. Oh, look...we're taking a trip in the way-back machine! Yay the way-back machine! I LOVE the way-back machine.

It's early summer of 1997, and Mr. Farklepants, a nine month old Boy-Child#1, and I are about thirty days away from our escrow closing on the house in which we currently live. During that time we lived in his mother's house and paid her mortgage and property tax while she lived in another location. We had a great deal with her and it was a perfect arrangement. Except that it was her house and it was always her house and that part was a little hard for a new wife to live with but...hence, the waiting for the closing of escrow on the current house.

Before moving we had a giant three day estate sale. I say "estate sale" because we pretty much sold anything that wasn't nailed down. That included a car. Much of the stuff belonged to my mother in law but the rest of it was what happens when two single people come to live together: a mash up of two separate dwellings, mismatched, mishmash, much of it second hand, most of it HATED. And none of that was coming into our brand new house, save for Boy-Child#1's nursery furniture and our bedroom furniture. Everything else went. And if that meant we had to live with a metal picnic table and folding lawn chairs in the dining room, so be it -but that is what happened- and totally a story for another day.

The estate sale was a success, except for not selling the car, haggling with some woman over a quarter for the dress I was selling FOR A DOLLAR, and getting conned out of ninety dollars. [Editor's note: That was the most authentic looking counterfeit one hundred dollar bill I have ever seen. Lesson learned, no bills over twenty dollars will be accepted, that is if there was ever going to be another yard sale, which there isn't] The following Friday the relatives are all gone, Mr. Farklepants is at work and it is just Boy-Child#1 and I at home when there is a knock at my front door. I answer, and on the other side is a pleasant looking woman...there for the estate sale. I explain that it was the previous weekend thinking maybe she had seen the ad my mother in law had placed and got the dates confused. And she? Was PISSED. Her pleasant demeanor fell away quicker than a drunk cheerleader's underpants at a frat party. "I READ YOUR SIGN" she yelled at me. My sign? "THE SIGN OVER ON THE CORNER OF BLAH BLAH AND BLAH BLAH BLAH". Oh, I'm sorry. My mother in law and her friends took the signs down but I'm guessing they missed one. Well, it was last weekend. "I DROVE ALL THE WAY OVER HERE AND TOOK TIME OUT OF MY DAY BECAUSE OF YOUR SIGN".

By now you'd think I'd be a little afraid and worried about this obviously crazy person on my front porch but the whole time I'm starting to get mad and I'm thinking, I've got a good twenty pounds and four inches on this bitch. I can take her.

BRING IT. I was kind of done being nice and all soft spoken and she actually flinched when I finally lost my shit "SO WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU WANT ME TO DO ABOUT IT LADY" screaming with flecks of spittle flying over my threshold. And she just looked at me. So I continued "THIS IS MY HOME NOT A STORE I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO SELL TO YOU WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME".

She looks right at me and screams "I WANT YOU TO TAKE YOUR SIGN DOWN SO NO ONE ELSE WASTES THEIR TIME".

And I finish with: SO FAR YOU'RE THE ONLY IDIOT WHO THINKS IT'S THIS WEEKEND SO GO TO HELL. And with that? I slammed the door in her face.

The end.