It's hard to let go, but we'll have to say goodbye to the garage sale during this pandemic summer

I decided early on to approach the great pandemic as a test of maturity. 

I refused to sulk over losing small things that keep me sane — aquasizes and Zumba classes, for example.

I maintained this noble position, even as my body turned steadily into sponge and the face in the mirror looked progressively crabby.

There were no signs of meltdown. Until …

I realized I'd have to forfeit one of life's greatest pleasures — patrolling back lanes with a friend, a "double double" and a bag of loonies.

Yard sales first burst into my consciousness during a family road trip through New England in 1977. All of a sudden, our '68 Chevy was whizzing through field after field of rocking chairs, spinning wheels, four-poster bed frames and patchwork quilts. Bits of unidentified brass gleamed rakishly in the sun. 

Like the virus itself, a sale is apparently impossible to discipline.​​​​​​- Lesley Hughes

The driver refused to stop, on the grounds that we had no room to take anything with us. That was true, but 43 years later, I'm still annoyed about it.  We should have looked.

Civilized people, blessed with both money and taste, believed that the garage sale was a passing eyesore, which would fade as quickly as it had appeared. 

Instead, probably because of sky high interest rates and the emergence of "reduce, reuse, recycle," the garage sale settled in for good. (Or like a slum, depending on your point of view.)

Folks suffering from retail addiction continue to ask "why, Lord, why? Why do large numbers of people haul out their discards and shamelessly display them in their driveways? And why do equally large numbers offer these people actual money and then drag all that stuff away?"

As the only competitor in the Manitoba Marathon known to have paused for a quick scan of a garage sale, I feel qualified to answer that question.

There is,of course, the thrift factor. Some communities brag about how much they spend on things, but where I live, people brag about how little they spend.

If we have a buck, we like to stretch it. One of my sale'ing companions brags that she furnished her son's first apartment entirely at garage sales, with no complaints from him. 

I myself put together a decent home office for about a hundred bucks, almost cool enough for an Ikea photo shoot (almost).

Certainly you could achieve this thrift on Facebook or by poring over the local Bargain Hunter without having to leave a cozy bed before breakfast on a weekend morning.

But saving money isn't the only motive for patrolling the neighbourhood's back lanes, or stalking intersections for sale signs (most of which are infuriatingly inept, if not downright illegible).

For one thing, the garage sale is the afterlife for items "as seen on TV."

If you missed it before, you can still acquire the Slap Chop that frontman Vince promised would change your life, or the Thighmaster that Suzanne Somers personally guaranteed. 

I agree, reluctantly, that the garage sale has got to go.- Lesley Hughes

Browsers beware: there are tools here for every home improvement project you don't want to do.

A garage sale also offers a powerful undercurrent of childlike adventure. You never know what will be on the table or in the box.

Here's a Jacobean candlestick holder, once the pride of London's Portobello Road (market), no longer welcome in minimalist households. 

Here's a mahogony highboy missing one pewter pull — which you might later find Scotch Taped and forgotten on its backside. How about a jewel box where the miniature ballerina is still dancing to the theme from Dr. Zhivago? 

Facing the facts

Alas though, the facts are indisputable:

A garage sale is the perfect host for the coronavirus. 

Like the virus itself, a sale is apparently impossible to discipline. 

Social distancing? Forget it. 

At a garage sale, everybody wants to touch everything, fondle the curiosities, try on the New Year's hats and Jackie Kennedy sunglasses, leaf through the cookbooks and pass treasures into the hands of their companions, to be properly admired.  

The nail in the coffin of the garage sale is this: cash is the only currency that works.

I've heard that someone somewhere is cooking up a virtual version of a garage sale, tentatively dubbed a "varage sale," but I'm not buying. 

Hutterite farmers will not be there selling organic chickens from their van. There will be no aroma of grilled Filipino kabobs (which come with the recipe), no lemonade offered by eight-year-olds, sitting expectantly next to a stand fashioned from cardboard. 

So I accept defeat. 

I agree, reluctantly, that the garage sale has got to go, at least for this year. I will have to do without its energizing and companionable hum every weekend. 

But never mind.

I know it will be there at the end of the rainbow, waiting patiently along with aquasize and Zumba classes, to refine the shape of my life.

This column is part of  CBC's Opinion section. For more information about this section, please read this editor's blog and our FAQ.

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