Yesterday I did not have time to do the SoCS prompt in the morning and I rarely write at night. I intended to…. got out of bed expecting a quiet, leisurely morning.
I check out Facebook before WordPress (after e-mails, news and horoscopes). The very first post was from a friend saying her son passed away suddenly the night before. He was 23 and autistic, their only child.
She is the nicest, kindest person, always smiling even through the worst times with her son; she’s such a good person. Only two years ago they sold their house near here and moved to the town his group home was in so she could go everyday. My heart aches for her.
While I was reading this and crying, I noticed there was a message. It was from my neighbours telling me they were having a yard sale and I could join them. They were already setting up when I got the message which was written the night before but I don’t look at Facebook at night; it’s a morning coffee thing.
They said they were having it last week and I said I didn’t have enough time to get stuff together. I complained here; why can’t they walk back here and talk to me?. So they didn’t have it and didn’t tell me.
Anger gave me rush of adrenalin. I hauled my two very heavy ‘portable’ tables outside and wrote a message back I needed help with them. When we came out with the tables her boyfriend says ‘oh good more tables’. I said they could use one and it was full by the time I came back with aprons, jigsaw puzzles and fabric. Oh well, I only needed one because there was only so much I could get out there on such short notice.
The property in front of me has two houses; it was all owned by Gary who died of lung cancer last Christmas. His wife is in the house which is full of junk as in hoarding junk. The other house is his daughter and her boyfriend who are the laziest people. OMG. He helped stepmom set up and then went in because he was so tired from all that work. The daughter, around 2:00 p.m. said she was so tired; she’d been working all day. (Yeah, I was here, too. We set up then sat around) She also said she was getting stuff together the night before but got tired and thought she better not wear herself out for the big yard sale the next day. I’m serious. They are 30 years old.
There was so much junk. Not even ‘donate it’ junk, I mean garbage junk. I made $14.50. Sold a couple of aprons and a few jigsaw puzzles. I had boxes of plastic bags and little sauce containers I sold a lot of. They were from my spring roll venture. There were also a couple of lamps I couldn’t give away from my failed lamp endeavour. It was a display of my failed businesses.
One of the fabric pieces was from the special order my friend made who just lost her son. I mentioned it to the other ladies, the stepmom and her friends, because they knew of her and knew the family. I said I thought it was probably from a seizure which he suffered from severely. There was always the fear that one would kill him.
The two women immediately turned the conversation to their own seizures and had a contest of who had the worst seizures, earliest in life and what their Dad’s did, what you’re supposed to do if you see someone……. I mean, it went on and on (while they chain-smoked).
By 2:30 there wasn’t much action so I started taking my stuff back. Luckily its raining today so I know for sure they aren’t setting up again. I wonder how long that free junk will sit out there.
As for me, I’m going to put my stuff and the tables back, which is all in my livingroom right now, and tidy up the messes I made pulling out stuff to get at stuff. We all have too much stuff.
Now today’s prompt is up and it’s sequaicious; same meaning as obsequious. Nope, can’t cram it into this post. I’ll throw this into the ocean of blogs like a letter in a bottle.
I reads, “Help me! I’m a stranger in a strange land!”