Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Give it away Give it away Give it away now

Last week, a very unpleasant smell was wafting from our garage, or so we thought. I was convinced that some small animal had made his or her way into one of the boxes in our garage and never made it back out. I told Jav that our garage was a rat-trap (possibly literally), and we really needed to get it cleaned out. It turned out that the smell was a dead possum that was in the monkey grass on the side of the house. We assume that the direction of the wind that day made it seem like the smell was coming from the garage. But the wheels are in motion in my head now, and I want to tackle that garage.

The problem is, I know we could make a little extra money if we had a garage sale. But I have never had a garage sale, and the thought of having to clean up all of that junk, er, I mean stuff, set it out on card tables or whatever, and ruin a perfectly good weekend of my life makes me a little sick to my stomach, just like the smell did. I really want to start taking it in batches to Good Will. Or better yet, let someone come and pick it up. But then I know I'll feel guilty about not contributing in my small way to making some income for us.

And then there's the Ebay argument. Jav thought it would be great if I could try to sell some of the nicer items of junk, er, I mean stuff, on Ebay. I started with a really pretty Bombay Company jewelry box, which I originally paid around $40.00 for, and was in really good shape. I ended up selling it for my starting bid of $10.00, and then proceeded to spend $20.00 on packaging supplies to get it shipped to the buyer. Then I realized I didn't charge him enough shipping cost, and the 2.50 balance came out of our $10.00. This all made me so mad that I swore I'd never sell anything on Ebay again. Jav thinks this first time shouldn't count in the formation of my opinion, keeps pointing out how much I learned, and wants me to try something else before I completely give up on the idea. So I am going to try again, with an antique pewter twin hurricane lamp. That doesn't work, but is really pretty. And will cost an arm and a leg to ship because it's so fragile.

And if anything goes wrong, I will load up my car the next day with everything I can fit in it, and they will not be able to unload it fast enough at the Good Will drive through.

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