Return of the childhood trauma

I wanted to share with you the latest traumatic experience to plague my existence.  I'm fairly certain that this stems from some deep-seated childhood memory.  I know, you're probably all shocked by that because really how would growing up in a household filled with toothless, trucker, not-sure-who-my-baby-daddy-is siblings possibly cause mental anguish and/or trauma.  I just realized that sort of sounds like I grew up on the set of Jerry Springer, I promise you my family is way more Deliverance (but no Teresa I did NOT grow up in Arkansas) than Jerry Springer, but I digress.   Now I don't generally think I'm a snob.  Bitch, sure, but snob eh, not so much, however, when we bought this house I really did think that we were pricing ourselves away from the undesirables (not that the teenagers having sex on the trampoline behind my house was "undesirable" (Side note -- my only regret is not actually turning the hose on the horny little bastards) and I don't actually have any proof that the house at the end of the block was a meth lab (unless the foil on the basement windows and the owner with black teeth and nails are any indication) but yesterday the horrors of my childhood (and apparently from my old neighborhood) reared their ugly, cheap, bargain-priced head.  Yesterday was the Community Yard Sale!  AAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHH

Let me begin by saying I HATE Yard Sales!  I know this stems from my childhood because we were POOR and I actually got a lot of my "new" school clothes from yard sales, so since I've evolved (and yes I do consider my current state of arrested development an evolution) I've developed an aversion to the act of dragging crap that you don't want out on your lawn and haggling with random strangers over the price of used tennis shoes (eeeeewwwwwwww) so I DO NOT participate in the festivities.  However, this year we had some crap that I wanted out of my house and since I patently refuse to dither with "yard salers" my approach is to haul my shit out and slap a sign that says FREE on it and quickly retreat to the comfort of my house and my espresso maker.  

The crap I wanted to get rid of was an old BBQ grill (the next episode may cover the adventure of me hauling said grill from the deck, through my house and out to the driveway BY MYSELF because Ray said he would help me on Friday night, but then he was tired, so he decided we should do it in the morning, but he sleeps a lot later than I do I wasn't willing to wait.  Shocking my lack of patience there, huh!) a broken lawnmower and a bread machine circa 1999.  There's plenty more crap I could and should have hauled out, but frankly I was so pissed (see grill reference) and so annoyed (see dithering comment and editorial below) that I couldn't be bothered, but again I digress.  Three items, three signs, three trips and DONE no dithering required, right.... WRONG! 

Here's how the morning unfolded, grill out (still not happy that I had to do it myself, but pretty damn proud that I did it), sign made and attached -- trip #1 successful.  I then made my broken lawnmower sign (I should have taken a picture the sign because it was pretty spectacular and included the words, "but the shit is free, so you can't argue with the price") got tape on the sign, grabbed the bread machine and headed out to get the mower from the back yard.  Just as I get the sign taped on the mower and I'm ready to retreat a woman starts walking across the street and asks what I've got.  UGH, I've been captured (BTW this was just after 7:00 am and I hadn't had any coffee yet) I tried to politely (wink wink) just say an old grill and mower then continue with my plan to retreat, but she wanted to know what was wrong with the grill, I told her that the grill worked fine, but the drip pan broke, so she would just need to figure out how to get a new drip pan and it would work fine.  Then she asks me why the mower doesn’t work, at this point I wanted to say if I f*ing knew why it didn't work I would probably have fixed it, but I just said I'm not really sure, it just didn't start last summer, so Ray bought a new one (BTW that is a true story, this may have been as simple as replacing a spark plug, but it wouldn't start, Ray couldn't figure out why, so he went to Lowes and bought a new lawnmower.  Don't ask......)  This whole interaction seriously took about a minute, but I really didn't want to deal with it and I really needed some coffee, so I again tried to retreat when she asked if I could "Hold these things for her."   Oh hell no she didn't!  I just hauled this grill through my house, by myself and put a free sign on it to make it go away and now you are asking me to hold it for you.   In my most polite, uncaffeinated voice I said, no I am sorry I can't hold anything.  I want to get rid of this, so whoever shows up to take it gets it.  She insists that she wants it, but just needs to go home and call her sister, who is probably still sleeping (I did consider suggesting that we introduce sleeping beauty sis to the snoring giant upstairs, but I refrained - chalk one up to exercising good judgement).  At this point, wanting to end this conversation I offered to push it down the block to her house.  She said no, she would call her sister then come get it in a few minutes, just then a man pulls up in a Toyota truck, sees the free sign and rolls down the window to ask what's wrong with the grill...........  For a moment I really thought I was going need to get a shovel to start digging holes to hide the bodies, but fortunately the lady told Mr. Toyota truck man that she was taking the items and she began pushing my old broken lawnmower down the street to her house and yelling for her husband to come get the grill.  I was finally able to retreat to my house to get my coffee (and sweep the floor and vacuum the carpet where I hauled the grill through the house).   You probably think that's the end of the story, but no about 20 minutes later there is a knock my door, it's the same lady asking if I have the instruction book for the bread machine.  F* my life!

I guess the moral of this story it that sometimes it doesn't pay to give something away and reaffirms that I will likely always be a snarky, stubborn pain in the ass that has a visceral reaction to yard sales. 

Until next time.....

XOXO