Day One of Sell My Life

Art and I arrive at the warehouse and open up the garage door. We proceed to clean up and price the last few pieces of furniture for our experimental going out of business/estate sale across from the farmers market. I call it experimental because the farmers market is opposite our warehouse and there will be a captive audience outside our door every Saturday. We really have no idea how to have a garage sale or estate sale, and we are not looking to make any big dollars at this, we just want to recycle what we can. So here begins day one of trying to unload 130 years of family stuff...

I drag some stuff onto the loading dock and stage an attraction: an old trunk, an antique typewriter, old basket, Chinese rug draped over the edge and a cattle skull. Art drags out a stereo, also for sale, to get some tunes going. We are noticed for sure. People start walking in yet I feel a bit uncomfortable with this whole thing. Art talks to a few people but no sales with the first few browsers. Then the cattle skull does it job and draws in the first potential buyer. An Antique typewriter and a wagon wheel are sold.

While Art is busy setting up a windsurfing sail for additional affect, I start filling in the history behind pieces to potential buyers. I tell them I am closing my family business dating back 130 years, selling a family estate and I realized I was selling a life-time of family stuff and all the memories that came with them as well. Every piece had a story, some accurate and some that may have been a tad fantasy enhanced dating back to my childhood. As soon as I told people where stuff came from, and the history behind it, they started buying stuff.

The skull sold too fast and I had to pull a broken stuffed fish out of the garbage can to replace the hook. Even the broken fish had a story: Citation king fish caught in the Florida Keys by my little brother in the 60’s on a family fishing excursion.

In a few hours, we recycled some stuff, made a few dollars and a lifetime of stories spilled out of my head. Day one as I sell my life was a good one. A lot of stuff still left to recycle, so I may do this again.