Yard Sale Tale
Posted on July 15, 2007 - Filed Under General, Life, Tacoma
My wife turned our front yard into a flea market this weekend, inviting strangers onto our front lawn to buy the junk we no longer wanted. It’s one thing to hold a yard sale, it’s another thing to hold one is South Tacoma.
Toni hauled in a decent amount of cash, got rid of stuff that we will never use and, as a bonus, we met lots of interesting people over the weekend.
Here are the highlights.
A special needs man, appears to have down syndrome, approached my wife while shopping for a boom box and asked here if she was married. She told him that she was happily married, much to his disappointment, and he eventually purchased the boom box. Before leaving, he wanted to tell Toni that she probably “makes pretty looking babies” which is about the highest compliment you can give a woman if you think about it. He came back later, with his caregiver and returned the boom box. His caregiver told us that he had sneaked out of the house and wasn’t supposed to be buying things. I think he just wanted one more look at Toni.
We were selling all of Alexander’s baby clothes that don’t fit anymore and hoped they would be big sellers for the day. A woman asked Toni if she could negotiate a price for the entire rack of baby clothes. My mother recognized her and after some talking it finally clicked. This is a woman who came to the US from Uganda and my mother was involved with the Habitat for Humanity group to build her a home in our area. This woman’s daughter still lives in Uganda, and suffers from HIV/AIDS to the point where she is unable to have a steady job. The mother wanted to buy all of the clothes so she could ship them to her daughter in Uganda, where the daughter would sell them in a street market to make a living. It was an amazing story and we were happy to cut a deal on the clothes.
Lots of pregnant women and teenagers came to the sale and picked over all of the maternity clothes that Toni no longer needs. We met a neighbor with an 18 year old daughter that is expecting a child in December. They live just across the street almost on the same block, and we had never seen or spoken to them before. They were a nice family and it was great meeting people that live in our area, and are normal. :)
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