I love garage sales.  Over the years, I've found treasures on their way to the trash that I cherish: A set of eight highball glasses etched with a silver-plated "G."   A cheerful vase with painted butterflies and ladybugs.  A Queen of Hearts pin that I've fixed to my raincoat.  When I see these things, it brings me a smile. 

Much to my husband's consternation, I gain equal pleasure from holding garage sales.  He doesn't understand the joy of waking up super early on a Saturday, stapling balloons and signs to major cross streets, and unpacking boxes of used items to display fetchingly on card tables.  He hangs back while I talk to perfect strangers, telling them the story of that particular necklace, punch bowl, or gee-gaw. 

My favorite buyers are the senior citizens, who engage at such a deep level, that a part of me just wants to tell them to cart it all for free.  I wouldn't want to deprive them, however, of the fish tale they'll tell to their sibling or grown daughter of the one that didn't get away. 

At last weekend's sale, an elderly gentleman held up a necklace with palsied hands.  A disk of dusky orange carnellion swayed from his gnarled fingers.  "How much?"

I knew that I'd paid around fifty dollars for the necklace, but when I saw that he was trying to hide the purchase from his wife, who stood admiring my old dishes, I said, "Five dollars."

"Four?" he asked.  When his wife turned towards us, he shoved it into his pocket.

"Sold," I said.

"Honey," he said.  "Come on over and meet this nice lady."

When she reached us, he pulled the carnellion necklace from his pocket and held it out to her.  She beamed.  I pointed out how the orange in the disc picked up the paisley in her blouse.  I knew that if his hands could work the clasp, he would drape it around her neck, so I reached for it instead.  She stood very still, head held high, while I adjusted it to fall perfectly.

"I know I'll wear it every day," she said.

When they left, I watched his old Buick bounce into the curb, then right itself down my street until they were gone.  I dropped his crumpled bills into my cash box and stood considering the mound.  There lay the ones I garnered from the lady who bought my daughter's Beanie Babies to give to her church group.  They met monthly to pack stuffed animals into overnight bags for children who'd lost their homes.  She almost cried when I sold them for only a dollar. 

And then there was the quarter from a little boy who was spending his allowance on a doll for his mother.

The clouds gathered and a drop of rain hit my cash box.  Time to fold my tent and count my take.  I looked at that money and wondered how I would spend it.  Usually, a spa treatment would appeal or copious amounts of sushi.  But when I saw those old bills and shiny quarters, I knew I couldn't fete myself.  Closing the lid, I vowed that I would give it all away--a dollar here, a five there--to new owners, where the true treasure would be the smile on a stranger's face.

Mid-Week Mantra: I am a money magnet and the more I share, the more I attract.