The Iniquity of Possession
It rained all night. When we arose in the morning it was heavily overcast, and no wonder, for it was raining heavily, steadily. Who cares? It's a Saturday morning and we have all the time in the world to do whatever we want to. And wait a minute: what's this? Egad, I don't believe my eyes. Next-door neighbour scurrying back and forth from his garage to his driveway, where they've set up tables under garden umbrellas. So I look up the street, and yes, there's more; down the street, ditto. Despite the downpour. What the hell!?Yes, we'd had a notice in our mailbox, obviously distributed throughout the street a month ago, that there would be a street garage sale, and anyone who was interested was invited to participate. Groan. Here we go again. Our nice quiet street where vehicles seldom venture unless to drive to a particular house where the vehicle belongs. Quiet enough so that parents of young children seldom fret when their children are out riding their bicycles; quiet enough so that in the winter hockey nets can be set up and the children can get their share of exercise and fresh air.
But now! Rain be damned, vehicles of every description, but mostly vans and SUVs are slowly navigating up and down the street, the better to view all the bargains for a quick park, quick dash, quick perusal, quick offer, quick purchase, quick departure. Have we ever seen so many cars, pick-ups, vans, SUVs on this street? Well, I suppose - if we cast our memory back to the last street sale.
Bloody hell! What's the matter with people? Try to figure this one out; they're flogging discarded items, goods that they no longer wish to have in their possession, so they're personally down-graded to trash. Someone's trash is someone else's desired possession. But because you own it, whether or not it has any value to you any longer, it has for you a certain inherent value because of its connection to you. You price it, happy to flog it to any and all with sufficient curiosity to seek out potential bargains. A deal is made, you pocket what is often no more than a fraction of the item's value. It has been used, after all, previously owned, regardless of the shape it's in.
All that scurrying about, marshalling resources, setting up tables, assigning values, metaphorically chained to the event you have initiated, on call to receive strangers on your property who thumb through your possessions, proffer absurd offers, and indelicate comments, is it worth the effort, pal? Ah yes, the best part of all of this underground commerce is that the people on the selling end, and likely on the buying end as well, are so often upper middle-class. They have no need to generate extra cash from their trash (discarded possessions).
Give these items to charity? I'd cherish the thought, but they do not. Perish the thought!
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, May 09, 2006
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