Yard Sales

It is not possible to completely explain the importance of yard sales in the Rose family history. Besides being the source of most of our possessions, they are also an enduring tradition and shared passion. I think the best way to begin to explain how deeply Yard Sales delve into our shared identity is to give a quick description of our yard sale game. 

I believe it was started by Mom. She would have a yard sale upstairs, close to Christmas, giving us a chance to buy eachother and our parents presents for just a few cents. We apparently became enthralled with this idea, because one day some older sibling went around announcing that they would be having a yard sale at the door of their bedroom later that day. This caught on quickly, and soon our bedroom hallway was a veritable, thriving market. The most popular items were pogs (the slammers were especially valuable), Chapstick (Dr. Pepper flavored), and trinkets and Gideon Bibles left over from Mom Bedzyk's Christmas boxes. 

Probably the most disastrous yard sale I ever had was in Elmira. Dusty and I, along with Matt and Mitch found a bag of oranges and decided to juice all of them and sell the juice on the street, along with some snacks from the church basement (this was the main source of funding for our secret club). We were having a rather successful morning, when grandma came running out of the house, furious. Apparently, the oranges we juiced were bought in Florida during grandma's recent trip to the Brownsville revival. They were not meant for juicing, and we were in  trouble. I remember that we had to sit at the table and drink all of the juice, attempting to give the oranges the dignity they deserved. 

I am sort of glad that yard sales are popular now, but I still sometimes miss the days when we 

were considered strange for this passion. Obviously, we are also set apart from all others by our extreme intelligence and good looks (at least Zach and I), but there is something very Rose-ish about our love for looking through musty garages that seems cheapened by the trendy yard-salers, walking around our turf with their store-bought clothing.