On Saturday, before our great We Lost The Twins episode, we enjoyed the annual community yard sale on my parent's street. The children loaded up baggies and wallets full of money to buy trinkets and we headed out the door for some yard sale fun. Before we could shop, though, we made a stop at Target for Shelby. She has been saving to replace her beloved camera which broke after years of hard use. (Definition of hard use: Treating the protective case as optional because it just took too long to put the camera away, resulting in numerous drops, bangs, scratches, and flinging which finally did her camera in.) She was having a struggle over whether to take money for the yard sale, thus pulling from her camera savings, or to hold firm and keep saving. We hit Target, and made straight for the Electronics Department where Shelby looked at various cameras, touched them, and finally decided that she did want a camera more than any deal she might find.
Once we arrived on the street, Keats, Aidan, and Abigail disappeared into the back yard, I settled down to visit with the sellers near mom and dads' house while taking care of Elias, and the older children headed off to shop buddy-style. Dawson immediately scored some football cards, which he brought back to the house triumphantly. He reappeared a few minutes later with some Hockey cards that he presented to his Papaw, who is a closeted hockey fan. Not too long after the hockey cards, he was gifted with a major Rambo-style knife from his adopted grandfather Chip, which flung all thoughts of shopping out of his head. As Dawson put it, "What could I find that would be cooler than this???" He left the knife safely in the house and headed out to play soldier games with some of his buddies.
Shelby, meanwhile, was content to window shop with Isabelle, who never really did find anything to her liking. Eventually, both of the girls settled for playing with their friends and just ignoring the whole sale.
Tucker, it turns out, it our bargain boy. He and Dawson had walked down the street together and moments later I looked up to see Tucker walking home with a large file storage box from Office Depot and a grin so wide his face was split in two. He brought it over, set the box on the ground, and proudly lifted off the lid to show his first deal of the day. Inside was an Easy Bake oven, all the accessories, and about 15 packages of Easy Bake food. Actually, considering how ridiculously expensive those little packs of food are, I was impressed because I knew Tuck hadn't brought more than a couple of dollars with him. He looked at me and said, "Mom! All this was only ONE DOLLAR!! I'm going shopping for more stuff!" (In the interest of full disclosure, I feel I should state that we used to have an easy bake oven, which I had sold at the community yard sale 2 years perviously. Seriously - what is the point of cooking with a lightbulb when there is a huge oven in the same room and you can actually make cake to feed everyone in this crowd of people! So, even though it was a good deal, I was already thinking: When will we be able to sell this one?)
Next on Tucker's must have list? A ceramic beer stein from Berlin, Germany. "Mom, now when I'm older I can drink beer with you! I only cost me four dimes, three nickels, and all my pennies."
The third item he couldn't live without? A small, wooden chest with an arched lid, similar to a trunk, painted and adorned with roses. "Mom! I finally have a treasure chest! I'm putting my stuff in it right now!" Immediately he put his money into the chest and then walked off in search of more items to make his life easier, with the chest tucked under his arm.
His next acquisition was a large, metal spoon. This one was a head scratcher until he explained, "It was so big I thought you might like it for our big family." Thoughtful, isn't he?
The final purchase of the day? A tacky, silver-plated, round candy dish, about the size of a softball. Again - why on earth did this particular object catch his eye? "Check out my crystal ball! I am going to tell everyone's fortunes with this! Now I don't need to use your bed! I have my own!" (A brief explanation: Our bed has large, round finials on the posts which, apparently, Tucker has been using as crystal balls. Huh. Learn something new everyday.)
We went home and, of course, Tucker was anxious to put his new oven to use. However, we had a bike ride scheduled for that afternoon so there simply wasn't time. (See previous post for how that turned out.) It wasn't until Monday, when we were doing our family French Cooking, that we managed to pull out his oven and Tucker and Shelby settled down to cook together. Shelby requested that I find a place to preheat the oven for them which would be out of the way from all the Julia Child projects in the kitchen. As I lifted the oven to plug it in, I glanced down at the side and burst into laughter. There, in my very distinctive handwriting, was a masking tape yard sale sign marked $1. It turns out that Tucker had simply repurchased the very oven we sold two years ago.
What goes around, comes around.
No comments:
Post a Comment