It is Thursday morning. Saint Patrick's day is over and no green beer for me. But I didn't get pinched and that was good. "I" and I are up early as usual. She did a silent yard run this morning. Slipping through the yard, listening to the sounds that drifted to her. Stopping, listening. I watched her from the door. I need to be better at doing that, listening.
I wasn't sure if I would do anything for Saint Pats day and I guess really I didn't. But I did go somewhere. A huge, I mean really huge rummage sale. Its a yearly event they have at the First Methodist church. It's planned on Spring break so the Youth group of teenagers can help. It's how they raise money for Missions. Its a massive affair. I love to go but each year I found it a little harder to navigate around in it but I do not see giving up going. Its held in their large hall and is filled to capacity with items of every imaginable object you could think of and then some.They have been having this sale for years, people watch for it, they wait for it. They turn out for it in droves.
It runs two days and starts at seven AM and closes at six PM. There must have been at least two hundred people already milling around when we got there at eight. They have tables full to over flowing, they have boxes full and a announcer encourages you to go through the boxes. People were doing just that, clothes were flying everywhere.
Joan and I have did this before. We know the drill. You find a empty box and start loading it. Now since there are so many people, someone everywhere you turn. And I not seeing too well, I constantly was running into somebody. It did not slow me down. It is exactly like being in a war zone. I kid you not. Someone says to someone else, :"Oh look at the pretty cookie jar." Fifteen sets of hands reach for the jar, the woman who first saw it is pushed out of the picture. Did I tell you there is lots of pushing and shoving.
People have this hard as steel look in their eyes , they have been here before. The early bird gets the worm. So every one of those birds have bargain on the brain. I grab a empty box, circling the room. I grab at things, stuffing items in my box. I am not sure what I am getting, it matters not. I forge ahead. I kick my box with my foot. I gave up trying to carry it fifteen minutes into the ordeal. I kick it ahead of me. If it slams into someones feet I mutter sorry and hurry on. People all around me are doing the same. I reach for a throw pillow and another woman does the same. We glare at each other. She gives it a hard yank and I feel it loosen from my grip. I shoot her a mean stare and hurry on.
I pass Joan once. "Are you okay," she asks? She has a full box, her eyes have a funny almost glazed look in them. "Some woman tried to take my robe," she whines. She points to a bright flowery robe. She smiled. "She didn't get it though." I wondered what happened to the woman. Was she still on her feet?
After awhile I heard one woman say to another, "I feel so overwhelmed by all this." I want to say, "If you can't stand the heat sister, get out of the kitchen" I finally make my way to the front to pay. The announcer keeps coming on saying there is new boxes in the front. Feel free to check them out. My eyes fall on this tall box. Full of wonderful items. And right on the top lays this beautiful picture frame. A wide gold frame, new with the tags still attached. I reach for it, smiling. Just as my hands grasp it a vise like claw grabs my arm. Now maybe it wasn't really a claw but a very irate woman's hand. She spoke in a voice that sounded like "Luke the sky walkers," real dad, "Darth Vader." I jumped a foot as she tightened the claw. "That is my box," she hissed. I gladly handed back the frame to the shopper from He--. I"m sorry I tried to tell her but she was having none of that. Giving me the meanest look I have ever gotten. And believe me I have received some bad ones. She stalked away, kicking her box, glaring at me. I felt like people were staring at me. Frame thief was running through their minds.
We finally got paid up and out too her 4x4. We had had been through the war zone and made it out alive.. Our hair was disdelved, we had on no lipstick. My arm hurt from the claw lady but we made it through in one hour and a half. We were proud. Our four boxes sat together in the back seat. Together we had only spent fifteen dollars. What a morning. We headed home.
She called me late in the afternoon. She said the two pair of shoes she had fought so hard for were both split down the side. She had to throw them away. Her rooster was chipped. I said the lovely curtains I had been so proud of were in reality four valances and not curtains at all. The two tops I bought were too small. But really it didn't matter, we had met the enemy and we had survived. I just love rummage sales.
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