Friday, October 13, 2006

The Suspense Builds....

Will Catherine actually overcome her revulsion and participate in the neighborhood garage sale tomorrow, or will she follow the screaming of every nerve in her body her instincts and call Habitat for Humanity and/or the Mustard Seed and beg someone to send a truck for her stuff? Neither of those organizations is all that on the ball about answering the phone, at least not around here. Volunteers, okay, I understand, I'll wait. But meanwhile, the Stuff is aging, and not like fine wine.

I am really, really trying to psych myself for the garage sale. I'm trying. It's not happening. First, Girl is working tomorrow night, all night, and will get off at 3 a.m., so I can't expect her to be on the driveway with me tomorrow morning. I would have to solo, which means When Do I Get to Go Pee after all the coffee I'll be drinking while getting ready? How do I haul the large items to the driveway without blowing out my knee and/or my back? Yeah, I have various smaller things that won't fit in my car and The Mustard Seed needs like a hole in the head, but Habitat runs a thrift store and purports to have a truck, maybe they will collect them. Do I need a couple of hundred bucks from the garage sale (well yeah, everybody can use money) or do I need an itemized receipt for a tax deduction more?

Is that crass to say out loud? It's an easy answer - that last profit sharing check left me all oogy about taxes I'll be hit for this year. I have only me and my mortgage, I am not a head of household because officially, I have no dependents. The IRS is remarkably not understanding about vet bills, new pond pumps and costly heartworm protection meds, nor a 23 year old college graduate about to finally start a job in her field. I pay bills like a head of household, just not in the official deductible sense. So in the eyes of the IRS, my income is frittered away on the cruises I've never been on, the manicures I've never had, the spas I've never visited, and the luxurious new car I don't drive.

An itemized receipt is starting to look better than a garage sale. We'll see how I feel in the morning. All I really want to do is get this stuff back into circulation in the universe and not into a landfill, because I really hate to see things wasted when they are still in great shape and have a lot of life in them, but damn, it is surprisingly hard to get it out there, at least around here. I just don't have time to keep track of Freecycle or schedule dates to swap, and I'm oogy about strangers coming to my house in principle, because Florida is full of freaks, and I have more and more sympathy for people who just dump their shit on the curb for whoever claims it.

I think the odds that I will be sitting on the driveway tomorrow are decreasing rapidly. The odds that another trunk full of small items for Goodwill will get delivered are increasing exponentially.

I take the big picture view - I may have wasted money on some of the purchases, but if I put them back into circulation, I will get some sort of karmic payback in kind. And God knows, I could use that.

4 comments:

Debi said...

I think you already made your decision :)

Sleep in!

Nana Sadie said...

Sure sounds that way to me, too. And I used to be the yard sale queen - loved to go, loved to hold them...but - if you think the tax receipts are more worth it for you, sleep in!
(((hugs)))

ChelleC said...

I vote for tax deduction!!!

geogrrl said...

The tax deduction's good. For whatever's left, post a message on Freecycle about where and when you'll be leaving the stuff out. No appointments, it's just there for whoever gets to it first. From what I've seen, most if not all of it will disappear within 24 hours.