Inspiring Lunchtime During a Garage or Yard Sale

In this post from a week ago I wrote about eating lunch while hosting or buying at a garage or yard sale. Today's post is about the inspiration for that post.

As I mentioned yesterday Dad didn't originally come along for the trip. In fact, I think it was after Mom called him a time or two when we'd see a tool or other something we'd think would pique his interest, or we happened to be nearby enough to their house that we just stopped back after an hour or so & added him while unloading whatever we'd accumulated up to that point.

As our family cleaned up & cleaned out Grandma's house after she died & once her house sold, we'd also work the garage & yard sale scene in her town. She lived a few hours away in the next state over & that seemed to come with a few other "normalities" that our town didn't have. This included running garage & yard sales mainly on Thursday & Friday, sometimes also including Saturday as well. I had a hard time wrapping my head around how these families got shoppers to stop by & shop their sale, figuring they'd be at work on Thursdays & Fridays; somehow the set up did work, as it was their way in that area. Unlike in our area where sales typically began on Friday & ran on Saturday as well, sometimes Sunday too. In our area, if a family would only pick one day, it would most often be on a Saturday.

It was on one of these saling days in Grandma's neighborhood where Dad decided to tag along because he otherwise kept cleaning up & packing up everything around Grandma's house to take back to their house & he got frustrated when we kept bringing things back from our scouting out sales nearby her house. One time we came back & Mom explained that we'd seen one of these for what seemed to be a really decent price. Dad eagerly dropped what he was doing & the three of us headed back out to check on it; it was indeed still available when we returned & Dad excited purchased it - of course, along with a few other, similar treasures. They took up tons of space in the back of the van & we had trouble fitting many other items with which we'd intended to return back to Mom & Dad's house. As much as Dad was interested in the items he'd found, he mentioned & we all acknowledged that we were in Grandma's town in order to load items from her house in the van for the few hours trip back, not garage sale items. Besides, for me, I'm not one to be among lots of "things" in a closely confined area - which is definitely what I had to do for that trip back to Mom & Dad's house. I was certainly interested in not putting more items in the van than could rationally fit.

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The Saturdays when Mom & I would head out to the sales in our neighborhood together we'd typically shop until we ran out of sales, had commitments to tend to later in the day, ran out of the amount of money we'd rationally pre-determined we'd want to spend, or just got worn out & felt done for the day. Sometimes this would happen by 11 or 11:30 a.m., other times it would happen later. Sometimes Mom would have set aside something at her house that she wanted to eat for lunch, so it made the most sense to wrap up traversing the streets once our stomachs began growling.

One Saturday when all three of us headed out from the start together we happened to be nearby a McDonald's when we realized it was time for lunch. We had enough sales remaining at which to shop & we weren't worn out either. Mom suggested we just stop at McDonald's, grab something quick there, & continue on. Dad & I said okay & we all got in line.

Mom stepped up first & ordered a cheeseburger & fries. We had water with us, so there was no need to order a drink too. She paid for her order & I stepped up, happening to order a cheeseburger as well & the same size fries as Mom had. I paid for my order. It was Dad's turn to step up & pick what he wanted. He turned his head in consideration & then followed our lead by ordering a cheeseburger & the same fries as both Mom & I had ordered. As he paid for his order (because, although we could have all easily shared one tab, Mom happened to pay separate, & then so did I, so Dad followed suit) the counter clerk said, "Wow. If you can get a fourth person to order the same exact thing, I'll pay for it." "This has never happened before."

Sadly, there wasn't even another customer in line that we could tell our quick story to & encourage them to order a suddenly "free" meal. So the three of us just walked away from the counter with our three trays of burgers & fries thinking of this impression we'd just made. We briefly considered about if we'd had just one more person in our party, though there wasn't a chance for that to be, so we let it go.

After we finished eating at McDonald's we resumed our remaining sales listing. Though, had a family hosting a sale elected to have some quick lunch options available, we'd certainly have opted for them instead; we just wouldn't have the story of the counter clerk amazed by three people in a row, paying separately, & purchasing the same order, suddenly willing to pay a fourth guest's bill, should they order identical to us.

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