For Skilly’s 12th birthday, B kidnapped all of her friends (which included Scout and Navy) and took everyone to breakfast.  It was really fun.  On our way home, I said to Scout, “I never have you this early on a Saturday morning….let’s figure out something really fun to do.”  He started thinking right away.  After about a mile, I saw a sign that said “Community Garage Sale”, and asked Scout and Navy if they knew what a garage sale was.  They obviously didn’t, so I told them we were going to go garage sale-ing.  We drove up and down the streets, and Scout was fascinated.  He saw a couple of things that we “looked” at (nasty, old, used stuff), but I told him that we had to find a real treasure in order to buy it.  We were having the best time when we hit a serious gold mine!
Before I elaborate — let me take you on a walk down memory lane.  When I was in elementary school, I was walking home and found a garage sale.  It was in the backyard of a little old lady.  I went in to see what it was all about, and realized that I could literally shop right there and then — and better yet — for great prices!  I only had my milk money which was 15 cents.  I started browsing, and I settled on two fabulous items.  To my great excitement, the little lady let me have both for my small offering.  I took both things…put them in my book bag…and skipped the rest of the way home.  When I got home, I ran in to my mom to show her my loot.  As I was pulling everything out, I was telling my mom that there are these really cool things called “garage sales”.  Imagine my surprise when my mom started yelling, “KeeKee KeeKee” (our family word for gross).  I still can’t understand why a sheer nightgown and a coffee-stained mug were so “KeeKee”.
Hopefully it is pretty easy to understand why I am kind of snotty when it comes to garage sales.  If there is any sort of “KeeKeeness”, I steer clear.  Actually, if you want to know the truth, the last garage sale I attended, might just be in the backyard of a little old lady.
So back to the goldmine…in an attempt to teach Scout about the garage sale culture, I was determined to buy at least something.  And like it was Heaven-sent, I stumbled across the rep of Little Tikes — one of my favorite toy makers.  Everything in her garage was pristine, and completely packaged.  She is single, has no children, and doesn’t have anywhere for her samples to go after she receives them.  So she decided to put them up for sale.  I ended buying about 3/4 of everything she had to offer.  I even duplicated things I already have because the deals were too good to pass up.  Scout and Icka were thrilled, and I ended up with over 30 brand new perfect toys.
Everything was great until my snot of a mother looked at my find.  When I showed her everything, I made her guess how much I paid for EVERYTHING.  (At this point, I reminded her what I had paid -retail- a month before, for the exact same toy in the exact same packaging.)  She thought for a while and said hesitantly, $100.  My steal was for $120, so I told her she was crazy.  She was not only clueless on what these toy’s retail prices were, but she clearly didn’t know how nice the garage was from whence they came.  She then said, “I don’t care how nice the garage was.  I wouldn’t have paid two cents.”
SNOT!
Don’t ever touch one thing I bought.
EVER!