My Country Love Story

3- Yard Sale & Meeting the Neighbors

I set my alarm for the butt crack of dawn so I could wake up and make breakfast for everyone. I made fried egg sandwiches. Basically two eggs over-easy seasoned with salt and pepper, and then melt cheese of top, all put between two pieces of toast. I ate mine and poured two glasses of orange juice. Carefully I walked up the stairs and opened my parents’ bedroom door.

Me: “Wakey Wakey, breakfast is served.”

Dad: “What Leah how early is it?”

Me: “7am!”

Momma: “Thanks dear but I’m going back to bed after I eat.”

Me: “You can’t there’s a lot to do today! Finish unpacking, -cough, cough- clean the barn –cough, cough.-“

Momma: “How about I stay inside and work on the unpacking. You and your father can work in the barn.”

Dad: “Come on darling could you help us until it gets hot, at least?”

Momma: “I suppose.”

I started jumping up and down happily.

They ate their breakfast and I did the dishes after I got dressed. I waited for them to come downstairs. They both walked groggily like two lazy teenagers. I laughed to myself about how the roles should be switched. I’m the teenager; I should be the lazy one.

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We all stood in front of the open barn doors. I flicked the lights on.

Me: “Where do we start?”

The barn looked like it had been used as a storage facility for quite a long time. There are junk and spider webs everywhere. I grabbed a broom and started taking down as many of the webs as I could. My Dad began taking stuff out and lining it up on the front lawn.

Momma: “Leah honey could you run inside and make a yard sale sign?”

Me: “Yay of course!”

It was Friday and that meant we would start the yard sale this weekend, unless someone stopped by today. I neatly but quickly made a sign and nailed it to the telephone post at the edge of our front yard. I ran back to the barn and helped with the smaller things. We found a whole ton of neat things. I kept a computer desk for my room, and Momma kept a cool glass coffee table for the living room. Everything else was lined up on the lawn.

Momma got tired and was getting sick of the heat so she stood up front with what we took out of the barn to sell. Luckily we were getting people to stop and buy stuff. Dad and I got the whole first level cleaned off by noon time and I grabbed a ladder and headed up to the loft. The stairs need some work so I decided that using a ladder would be safer.

Surprisingly the loft only had some old hay in it so I threw it down for my Dad to put in the woods. He helped me sweep the loft and bottom floor of the barn and we both headed up front to help Momma with all our customers.

Me: (To Momma) “How much money have we made so far?”

She reached into her pocket and counted the money. “$250” she told me. WOW!

Just as we were about to head inside for lunch I turned around to see a shiny blue lifted Chevy roar by the house. I caught a glimpse of the driver, a guy that looked to be my age. I heard him slam on the brakes and roar up the driveway next door; neighbor’s son maybe?

Momma made ham and cheese grilled cheese sandwiches and we all headed back outside to our yard sale. In this neighborhood I doubt anyone would steal from another person but Momma sent me back outside by myself just to make sure. I took a seat in one of the chairs that we pulled from the barn and that shiny blue truck was headed back up the road towards my house. This time the driver pulled over and shut his truck off.

I looked over my shoulder to see if my parents were headed out. The driver wasn’t alone it looked like he was with his parents.

Man: “Hello there just came to introduce ourselves to our new neighbors.”

Woman: “We saw commotion over here yesterday but we wanted to let you guys get settled.”

Me: “Hi I’m Leah; I live here with my parents.” Almost as if I had called them they came out the front door. “And there they are now.”

Man: “Nice to meet you Leah I’m John Wells, this is my wife Cindy and our son Blake.”

Me: “Mr. and Mrs. Wells these are my parents Bruce and Claire Lively. Momma, Dad these are our neighbors.” Everyone shook hands.

John: “Oh honey please call me John, Mr. and Mrs. Make us feel old.” Everybody laughed.

Cindy: “So you’re having a yard sale, you just moved in.?”

Claire: “This is all of the stuff we pulled out of the barn that was still in there when we got here.”

Blake: “Yeah our last neighbors weren’t too tidy.”

Cindy: “Blake that’s not very nice to say.”

Our neighbors started looking around at the things we salvaged from the barn. They bought a few things and my Dad helped John load some them into Blake’s truck bed. They didn’t worry about tying anything down since they live right down the road.

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