Mystical Rummage Sales
Copyright
1999 Jeffrey Stueber, all rights reserved
Recently I
attended the Johnson Creek (a local city) city-wide rummage sale
because I am, among other things, a "pack rat" of sorts. It
occurred to me that every city-wide rummage sale is the same -
that is, it has the same diverse elements in it that typify them
as much as different color candies typify a Christmas stocking.
First, you have the "solo-box" sales by families who are under
the strange illusion you have a rummage sale if you have at least
one box of "stuff" - to coin a George Carlin euphamism for
minuscule property. Often, out of boredom, you'll see Mom and
daughter sitting beside each other by a table made of some old
box which is about to collapse. They'll sit there and chat - and
they have plenty of time because they have so little merchandise
to sell - ignorant of passers by as if they're in their own
world, that of some sort of "rummage sale talk show." Daughter:
"We've got a great show tonight and for my first and only guest,
I'd like to call my mother. So mom, how come no shoppers at our
rummage sale today?" (audience applause)
The second type
seen at every city-wide rummage sale is that of the "radio head"
genre which features no baby clothes, no old cassette tapes of
bands popular some 30 years ago, or National Geographics. There
are, however, tons of car radios which remind one of racial slurs
about certain groups who may go through a car lot picking hub
caps like strawberries fresh off the bush. Only here, it's the
car radios which must have been picked like fresh fruit.
Most rummage sales are homogeneous except for a few odd
quirks dispersed among them like ticks in a forest and that
permits me to say that the city-wide rummage sale is one big
religious experience. The faith that undergirds the rummage sale
is the faith that somehow your "junk" will find it's way out of
the recesses of the corner of your house and onto a spot of your
neighbor's where it can be useful. Somehow that sweater you got
from Auntie Emily will make it to "sweater heaven" after its
pitiful life in the earthly sphere of your house. The god of
rummage sales is the god of utility. Sure the god you believe in
may overturn ships at sea and scorch the earth so no crops can
grow, but if he makes pretty daisies for little girls to look at,
he's not all bad. Likewise if that sweater is missing every
button but one and can only sell for 25 cents, it's not all bad.
It exacts that extra bit of "grace" from public parishioners who
frequent your sale. It's saved from everlasting damnation in the
pits of the garbage bag. What a waste of a good
sweater!
Now, I don't claim to ever have had a true
testicle-rattling religious experience or be able to define what
one would be. If I did, however, I'd want it to be like the city-
wide rummage sale. What religion currently in existence can
boast of a religious experience that combines odd woodcut, eight-
track tapes, and gaudy clothing?
Jeffrey
Stueber