the accidental garage sale

Today I worked like a rented mule. Two men from the San Francisco Day Labor Program and I put 2,740 pounds of junk from my girlfriend’s garage and carriage house into a 14- foot rented truck and took it to the dump.

This task had been planned for a few weeks, so it was a bit serendipitous that a few days ago a flier was left on the door announcing a block-long garage sale. How could we say no?

A few words on the carriage house. It really is a stable in the back yard that actually housed a horse. There is a hay loft on the second floor. There must not be too many of these left in the Mission, because two gay men who stopped at the garage sale almost fainted when they caught a glimpse of it through the open garage door. They were members of the Victorian Alliance, and D. took them on a tour. They begged her not to tear it down or upgrade it, but to leave it in its state of “arrested decay”.

Because we were cleaning out the carriage house during the garage sale, everyone wanted to come back there, and people were literally buying things as I was unearthing them

We found some original tools from the early 1900s, but the best moment was when one woman asked, ”What about the stuff in the truck? Is that for sale”?, at which point she jumped up into the truck and started digging around. She took a few things, and I couldn’t stop marveling at the magic of it all.

After we cleaned out the carriage house and the truck was loaded, we started giving everything away for free. Seeing the look on people’s faces when we said “it’s all free” was payment enough.

We also did some rearranging and clearing in the house. Then we went and celebrated Bastille Day at a cute French restaurant in a tucked away corner of Nob Hill. We had a fabulous meal! When we left, I asked the waiter if he could call us a cab. He said it would probably take half an hour, and the best thing was to walk four blocks to California Street. Since we could hardly walk, that sounded like a horrible idea.

As we stood on the corner pondering our fate, a few full cabs went by. D. said maybe one would drop people off at our restaurant. Lo and behold, one stopped, let people out, and we hopped in. We were reaping the karmic rewards of our free garage sale.

Let’s see how the spirits rest tonite.