by Scott Blackburn

Created on: January 31, 2008

Anyone who has been to a garage sale knows how hilarious it can be. Face it, 95% of the people you roam amongst are the cheapest people in town. And please, don't get offended if this is you! C'mon, let's be honest, everyone in town needs a broken ceramic unicorn, a used golf towel, and some off-color crystal stemware! I could go on and on about hilarious things I have seen at garage and yard sales growing up. Instead, I am going to throw you something totally different. I am about to share possibly the greatest yard sale story of all time.

This story has been passed on to me directly from the party involved.

It was a warm summer evening around 1999 and my friend Jimmy, who was around 25 then, was out driving around out of sheer boredom. He was in his faded blue 80s model Subaru wagon, which in itself is funny, considering he owned a brand new Ford F-250. With Jimmy, the wheels are always turning in his brain, he is constantly looking to get into mischief. Not to cause trouble or even to impress his friends, but simply to entertain himself. As he was passing by a small house that evening a thought popped into his head, "That person is going to have a yard sale.". Now, he didn't think this because he saw a yard sale sign in the yard. Jimmy simply thought the house looked like they should be having a yard sale. And boy did they...

When Jimmy got home he unfolded the piece of paper in his pocket that contained the address to the house. He started writing up a small advertisement for a yard sale at this address. Sure enough, 2 days later the ad was in the classified section of the local newspaper. But this wasn't enough. The night before the supposed yard sale Jimmy goes out into his storage building to find stuff for the sale. After loading a truck full of furniture, he was ready to set up shop. Late that night, Jimmy goes to the house, and quietly unloads the furniture onto the loan. Again, I reiterate, Jimmy did this alone. Nobody in the world was aware of his actions. After he finished setting up he furniture he put a small sign in the yard that read "YARD SALE!".

The next morning Jimmy got up early, right before dawn broke. Nonchalantly he was going to drive by the house a few times to see what was going on. You see, Jimmy wasn't out there orchestrating the yard sale and actually selling things. He did this just for the entertainment quality of it, and I wish I could have been there! To Jimmy's delight he saw a car slowly creep into the driveway around 7 in the morning. He parked a fair distance from the house, and watched. The old couple who emerged from the car started eagerly browsing through the furniture. You could tell they really liked it and were considering buying it. The problem was, where were the yard sale hosts? Apparently they wanted this furniture pretty badly. After a minute of deliberating they decided to go up and ring the doorbell. Sure enough, they did. An older man stumbled to the door, clearly he had just woke up. He was completely confused when he opened the door. Now, imagine the awkward stand-off between this man and the elderly couple waiting earnestly on his porch. The look on his face must have been priceless after hearing the inquiry from the couple, then seeing a load of furniture on his lawn. Needless to say, Jimmy left the furniture on the lawn. This was a small price to pay for Jimmy to accomplish his goal. Nobody knows what happened to the heap of furniture, the old man, and the poor little elderly couple. Jimmy, on the other hand, continues his quest of self-entertainment to this day.

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