Years ago when I was still living with Bob, we often spent Sunday afternoons hitting the tag sale circuit. I would map out a route, circling ads in the local paper that claimed Blowout Sale! and Great Stuff! One particular Sunday we stopped first at a house with a For Sale sign in front of it. Everything that had been inside the house was now in front of it, each item artistically arranged and dearly priced. There were several tables covered with lovely cloths, nice make up mirrors, piled high with books, dishes, electronic equipment, lamps, plants and assorted doo-dads.
At the next stop, a barn filled to overflowing with things, Bob found a make up mirror he liked. He held out his two dollars to a woman with an arm full of newspapers. “Oh no, dear,” she told him, taking the make upmirror but not the money. “I just wrap things. You give your money to her,” and she nodded her head at another woman at the far end of the drive. Bob’s eyebrows went up another notch. At this rate they’d soon be crawling right off his forehead.
A quick glance around our last sale told us these folks were finally getting around to letting go of some of their treasures. We wondered what had taken them so long. Most of the stuff for sale looked like they’d bought it years ago at someone else’s tag sale and had just now realized it was useless. Bob held up an object. I looked at it—a 1986 nickel. With a wicked gleam in his eye, Bob approached a laconic fellow who heaved himself up out of his lawn chair. “Will you take four cents for this?” Bob asked.
The fellow turned it over and over in his hand. “Well, no,” he said finally. “It’s worth five, you know.”
Bob’s eye brows were still in his hair as we headed home.
