The Economy Of Space

When the clock chimed seven o’clock, my wife rolled over and said in a voice thick with sleep, “I’ve already done this thing four times in my dreams.” The bad news, I told her, was that we had to do one more time for real in just two hours. We tumbled out of bed and made our way outside to prepare for our much-anticipated and often put-off yard sale.
About the time we rallied enough to get ourselves some juice, our son was ready to join us and we two boys went out into the neighborhood to post signs and walk the dog: promotion and evacuation in one motion.
By the time we made it back home, there was already a customer in the yard. The guy from the corner dropped by to pick up a few stray items for six dollars. It wasn’t even nine o’clock and we were already making a profit.
After an hour and a half of pacing around in the wake of the various friends and strangers who came through our gate, we had collected a few more dollars and raised a few eyebrows with what we thought were reasonable prices. Mostly we were looking for help carrying our stuff off our property, and if people were willing to pay for that honor, we were happy to oblige. I moved the laptop inside after a bird registered its opinion of our display on my lap. The computer was not for sale or target practice.
At noon we were doing as much weeding of the lawn as we were selling anything, and so I took the dog out for a walk around the block. She appreciated the opportunity to stretch her legs, as she had been stuck inside watching other kids and dogs in her territory. We also agreed to send a great portion of our hard-won cash up to Subway for our working lunch. We hoped that the next two hours would bring the windfall sale of our big ticket items.
At two o’clock, we started packing in the signs and began to reconsolidate the piles of merchandise that had begun the day so carefully sorted and categorized. We sold off our last few items to a pair of little girls and their mother who was very pleased to receive our going-out-of-business special. It took us another hour and a half to haul the remnants of our stuff back to the garage and into the basement. We won’t be heading to Cabo anytime soon on the money we made, but we are richer, and lighter, for the experience. My son, meanwhile, has already planned his trip to Target to buy new toys to replace the ones he sold. Supply and demand.