Bag Lady

Folks stared that day. I waddled as I walked. My legs threatened to collapse. I did not care. I was having a grand time at my first ever sub-division garage sale Saturday.
I’d heard about these events. I received an invitation to attend one last year on a weekend when I had other plans. A month ago, I simply could not go to the one near my daughter’s home. She went – and then called to ask my opinion about an excellent baby bed and stroller she found (and purchased) for her expected child.
It just was not the same as being there.
So I embraced my first experience with a neighborhood’s organized weekend of multiple garage sales.
The senior daughter-in-love told me we had to walk in and out. I looked at her askance. Walk around a neighborhood from one yard sale to the next? I would have to carry everything I bought?!
Well, so much for the new furniture I had on my list of things to find. I would have to think carefully before I bought something to haul around afterwards.
Since, we had just cleared out the excess in our home, I accepted the self-imposed guidelines. I sternly told myself to just look for necessities and small items on my list of things to buy.
I did pretty good. On the first street, I only bought a medium-sized, matted and framed picture. It fit into one of those perennial, plastic pouches department stores provide. I resisted the Home Interior picture of a boy and his dog. Other than that I only purchased a book or two and a few small items – all sold to me in plastic bags.
I hate juggling bags while I’m shopping. I needed an alternative. I began looking for a belt, any kind of belt, big enough to fit me and strong enough to hold a few articles.
A couple houses later I found a blue canvas belt. I threaded it through the plastic handles, hitched it up around me like a gun slinger’s holster and cinched it up tight. Freed of my burdens, I could do some serious shopping.
Within the next half hour I bargained the seller down seven dollars for a sack of new baby clothes, found a book I really want to read sometime and agreed to purchase a small plastic sled for the one grandchild who came with us. She promised to carry it herself, but after a block or two of watching her struggle, I relented and agreed to carry it – even though I could not strap it around my waist.
My belt sagged under the load of five or six overly full sacks.
Sagging right along with them, I watched my hostess purchase a ceramic canister set for $3. She looked at how far we had come, how far we had to go, and asked, “Can we leave it here and come back for it later?”
The one-day proprietor agreed.
We took advantage of his good nature and left my stash, hers and the child’s sled and purchases in a corner of his garage.
I grinned. “I have no bags to hold me down. Let’s shop.”
By the time we finished our tour and returned to retrieve our purchases, I had loaded up my belt again with more books, a heavy baking dish, disposable aluminum pans and a wedding planner for the first granddaughter’s wedding and very serious plans to do it all again next year.

(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times.)


Posted

in

by

Tags: