Mess by Molly

We awake well before dawn, the excitement of the day upon us.  11-year-old Cousin Cloud, seven-year-old sister Erin and nine-year-old me are in charge today’s garage sale.  Yesterday, we posted signs within the half mile radius of our ordinary 21^st avenue Fargo, North Dakota block which lies within walking distance of major landmarks such as Taco Bell, Kmart, Lincoln Elementary School, the freeway and Red River which borders Minnesota. 

My mom detests rummage sales.  She is impatient with the people who frequent them since they like to linger and chit chat.  She prefers to give away our old junk but our babysitter Mary Rohr, a red-haired angel from a dairy farm in Minnesota, is frugal and hosted one a few summers back.  The deal struck this summer of 1985 is that we three will run the whole thing while my mom is at work and my dad is fishing and therefore keep all the proceeds of the sale.  I plan to spend my profits on candy at 7-11; specifically hot tamales, red licorice Nibs, and sour candy necklaces.

I adore Cousin Cloud.  Cloudy as we call her, has black hair and yellow-green eyes.  She stays with us some summers as my aunt Kathy is getting her law degree at Berkeley.  Mom explained that Kathy is a hippie which means she doesn’t always do things according to the normal time schedule which is why she had Cloud first while traveling through Latin America and then went back to law school later.    Cloud’s full name is Cloud Del Mar Chavez, and her dad was a famous Mexican painter who died of blood cancer when she was a baby.

Cloud must have inherited her father’s artistic gene because she has a flair for the dramatic and we are producing plenty of commercials this summer with my dad’s new video camera as well as the musical Annie with me starring given my freckly face.  We also film choreographed dances to hit songs like the Bangles “Walk like an Egyptian,” and Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” replaying the tapes nonstop from the boombox in the basement.   

Erin and I have entrepreneurial experience leading into the yard sale which gives us confidence that today will be a success.  We have been avidly selling South Fargo via lemonade stands, craft sales and girl scout cookies for years.  Erin is fearless in looking cute with her sparkling brown eyes and closing the sale with her slight speech impediment especially when she says the letter R.  I am great at the back-end preparations, making sure we have signs, change and adequate supply.  We learned quickly that our macaroni crafts on paper plates were not in high demand and that guilt is an effective marketing tool.  Last year I won the girl scout cookie sale competition, but I am pretty sure we cheated because my mom has 12 brothers and sisters and they each had to buy 10 boxes from me, most of which are still in the freezer.

The beginning of the rummage sale was slow.  But soon we are caught up in the 9am rush hour of women in their late 50s and early 60s browsing through our bins and hangers of used clothing, kitchen items and sporting goods. 

The action picks up when a particularly finnicky gray haired granny inquired, “ 

“You wouldn’t happen to have any cabbage patch kids in your house would you?”   referring to the oddly cute chubby cloth dolls with plastic heads, yarn hair, pinched noses and dimples that were all the rage 2 years ago. 

“You don’t see anything you like here?” asks Cloudy, trying to seal some deal. 

The woman shakes her head no seemingly unimpressed with the goods on offer.  My mom only buys gender neutral toys, so we have books, maps, chemistry sets, doctors’ kits, and all manner of creative puzzles for sale.  There are, however, no barbies, firetrucks, or kitchen sets.  

“My granddaughter wants a cabbage patch doll,” she affirmed.

“Erm, we do have one inside” I speak up to the persnickety woman, thinking of the bald, brown-eyed preemie cabbage patch kid my sister no longer played with buried in her closet.  I have one too but in no way shape or form was thinking about selling mine.  We barely convinced my mom to break her no-doll policy by arguing that adopting underprivileged dolls with adoption papers would teach us positive values that unattainable bodies like Barbie couldn’t. 

“Wait here,” I say and caught up in greed, I sprint up to my sister’s room, grab baby Mike and rush back down, showing it to the woman.

“I’ll give you $10,” she says, snatching the doll from my hands, forking over a bill and waddling away rather quickly.

Just before the transaction is complete, Erin, having witnessed what is happening begins a tantrum. 

“That’s BABY Mike…. HE’S NOT FA’ SALE,” SHE BEGINS SOBBING, “WAHHHHHHHH”

The lady, aware of her malfeasance, begins scurrying away faster and faster.

Fortunately, one of my mom’s colleagues from the tennis club happens to be perusing the used sporting equipment and witnesses the entire scene.  She bellows, “YOU JUST MANIPULATED THIS LITTLE GIRL INTO SELLING SOMETHING THAT WAS NOT FOR SALE.”

She begins dashing after the swindler like Lynda Carter in her wonder woman suit with Erin trailing and wailing after her. 

She is not going to let us three cousins nor my garage-sale-hating mom down.

15 minutes later and totally winded they return triumphantly holding baby Mike. But not before I had gone into the living room and sold off the family’s beloved Michael Jackson Thriller vinyl album.