Vultures at Dawn

Tomorrow is the big Garage Sale. We are unloading a sizable amount of crap valuable household items. Included in the sale will be parts of the massive Sarcastro compact disc collection. Most of which has either been loaded to iTunes or was not a very rewarding purchase in the first place. Come and get me recording industry goons! I’m reselling your precious intellectual property that in many instances I paid full retail price for the pleasure. Nevermind your faulty premise that you are somehow still owed money once you have already been paid for the product you have brought to market. If the auto industry used the same idiotic business model, Toyota would expect payment for someone borrowing my car. So bring on your hired guns and rat-faced shysters. Your threats are meaningless. I have enough bullets and food to start my own FLDS compound! Well, I will once I sell all these goddamn CDs, DVDs and pointless VHS tapes.

So, I’m trying to get stuff quasi-sorted and arranged this morning so that tomorrow is just a matter of pulling it out into the driveway and watching the money roll in. That was my first mistake.

The first “buyer” screeched to a tire burning halt in front of the house and asked if the thing we trap Sarcastro Junior in when we can no longer tolerate his vandalism and just want to hear him keen like a banshee was for sale.

I had no idea.

She asked about price.

I had no idea.

Nevermind that I had told her that we weren’t going to have anything ready for sale until Saturday. She was undeterred by my lack of interest in being thrust into the merchant class.

I was forced to call higher headquarters.

Mrs. Sarcastro informed me that the jumper thingy wasn’t for sale and it would be the repository for Junior during the garage sale. I then relayed this info to the buyer.

But, the Mrs. vacillated and said, “Well, if she wants to pay $15 for it, sell it.” As soon as I looked up to give this woman a renewed chance at it, there went her car in a screech of tires and a cloud of dust up to the next yard sale.

No sooner did I turn back to sorting through junk sentimental family heirlooms, than another minivan pulled up. Out staggered a woman who had not heard that tube tops with horizontal stripes had gone out of style for forty plus year old obese women. Her makeup looked as if it were put on with a wooden spoon. She smelled like a half empty bottle of beer that has been used as an ashtray half way through a college party. Not to be too cruel, but she looked like a clown smuggling inner-tubes.

Again I tried in vain to explain that we were not, in fact, having a garage sale for another 24 hours. She acted as if I was speaking Chinese and proceeded to stagger into the garage while telling me her life story. Sadly, she was not speaking Chinese. It would have been easier to conceal my disinterest. After some inquiries about some useless shit in a pile of even more useless shit treasured possessions we are reluctant to part with, she stumbled down the driveway seven dollars poorer.

As she did so, three carloads of hatchet-faced broads came cruising up. All demanding to know prices of items that may or may not be for sale. Again, I explained that the yard sale was not until the following day. They looked at me if I were wearing a conical hat and building a Great Wall.

One particularly dessicated nag looked through my CDs and inquired, “Do ya have any Meatloaf?”

At that point the youngest one chimed in, “What’s Meatloaf?”

“It’s a group” came the stupefying reply.

At that point, I turned on the hose and chased them out of my yard. I quickly closed the garage door, went in the house, closed the blinds and made plans to be heavily medicated during the actual garage sale.

Y’all be sure to come on by!