One bourbon, one scotch, and one mav

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been bugging my mom to get rid of some of the bushels of random crap that they have stored around the houses. After I moved to Moscow and discovered the wonderful value in having almost no stuff, I have been positively asshole-ish about it. My procedure for getting rid of stuff has constantly been either (a) throw it away; or (b) find a local second-hand store/charity that actually gives back to the community (like the Salvation Army) and give the excess shit to them. Unlike me, however, Mom decided to get rid of her excess crap through that great American tradition: the yard sale.

Yard sales suck, a lot. Why? Because a yard sale is the only time you will ever see someone whine that five cents is just too much for some random knickknack and that you should take three cents and be happy about it, dammit. If you want to see the true face of capitalism, all you have to do is throw a yard sale. Every single person who walks on your lawn will want you to knock down a price, whether it’s ten dollars or five cents (really!) and you either have to just take their shit or tell them to get bent and end up with nothing.

Add to that the fact that yard sales, if you accumulate old crap like my mom, are horribly embarassing. You’re selling off the stuff that you had, and you don’t want. So that means you’re basically admitting that you were a big fan of Phil Collins, fondue pots and knickkacks featuring monkeys - that should be enough incentive to simply give up the potential profit in your crap and take it all down to the DI or something. But noooooo, that’s too easy.

This is going on tomorrow too, dammit. By tomorrow night my mom will be completely sick of the crap and will be giving it away for peanuts anyway. Oh well, at least I made a few bucks - I mean, hell, it’s not like my self-esteem was worth anything this morning.