July 29, 2006
The Church Yard Sale and the Crazy Lady
Our church in Illinois was next door to an apartment building which we referred to as the high-rise. There were a lot of interesting characters living there. One man talked to his plants in the parking lot, another resident collected used cigarettes, one woman regularly went through the church dumpster to see what she could salvage, and yet another combed the street for metal shavings that would fall off of the Winchester delivery trucks.
On the day of our yearly church yard sale the dumpster diver stopped to shop. She picked an assortment of items from several different tables and approached the check-out table to pay for them. I happened to be working the payment table and added up her total.
"That'll be $2.50," I said.
She reached in her pocket and deposited twelve cents onto the table, "That's all I have."
My husband was standing nearby and he said that it was okay so I collected her money and she went on her way.
I knew she'd be back.
She was.
This time she came up and gave me another $2.50 worth of treasures and pulled out thirty-two cents, again saying it was all she had. I repeated her $2.50 total to her and she took off a few items and tried to get me to accept the thirty-two cents again. I added her items again and gave her the new total, she again took a few things off and I finally just told her she didn't have enough.
She looked at me and huffed, which I found comical because, have you ever been huffed at? Seriously?
She then said, "I'll never come back here again," and stormed off.
Ten minutes passed and she was back, demanding to know where her stuff was. I explained that we'd put it back on the sales tables. She went hunting for her items.
When she got back in line she stood behind a woman making a four-dollar purchase. The woman handed me a twenty-dollar bill and said, "Keep the change as a donation to the church."
This made an impact on crazy-lady. I added her items and told her it was one dollar.
She handed me one dollar and three pennies, "It's a donation to the church," she said.
Now let's skip forward a bit....
November 22, 2006
Our doorbell rang and on the porch was this same woman. She handed my husband a garbage bag and said, "Here's some really old dishes and antiques for your yard sale."
He thanked her and left the bag outside. Because, you know.
The next morning the doorbell was ringing at 6:35
He got out of bed to see who it was and it was her!
He didn't open the door but she was probably wondering why her bag of donated goods was still outside.
I didn't want to even look in the bag but did take a quick peek. Old plastic containers, a very used wood cutting board, and other questionable items. I knew I couldn't throw the bag in the church dumpster because she'd find it. I called the school my kids attended and asked if I could throw one bag of trash in their dumpster.
Six miles away. Not a chance she'd find it there.
