UUCOM Garage Sale

Every year, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Midland has two big fund-raisers:  The Auction, in February, where you get rid of the holiday gifts you don’t know what to do with, and the Garage Sale, the first weekend in May, where you clean out your space and get rid of your shit.
These are Most Excellent Fund-Raisers. In case you aren’t UU, here’s what you need to know: 
1.  The prices are fabulous.
2.  Many UU’s are great cooks, so the snacks are fabulous, also
3. Wine. Plus beer.
As you know, I hate to shop. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve actually heard someone say, “All women love to shop,” which made me go, “Whaaaa?” and then check to see if I had a penis. Since, in case you missed it:  I hate shopping.
And someone else, on being told that, no, I do not love to shop, said, “No way! You're kidding!’ Just as if I’d said, oh, I don’t know: “I don’t believe George W. Bush was sent to us by God Almighty. Nor do I believe—oh, never mind.”
Or something equally heretical.
But there you go:  shopping depresses the hell out of me. There’re few things that bum me out more than going to a mall and watching the people there furiously hunting for something they don’t need and probably can’t really afford, but doing it as if it’s Their Job. Or---even scarier-their Birthright.
I read a piece in a book yesterday about the culture of consumerism, about how the richest 1% controls most of the wealth, and the things they buy—the $1000 bags and $2000 shoes—are the things the rest of us aspire to own.
This shit baffles me. A $1000 bag to carry shit I don’t really need, a bag that’s going to screw up my back and my neck and get in my way when I’m trying to buy the carrots I loathe beyond all reason? What’s up with that?  Why do I want to make myself miserable so I can say that I have the shit someone famous has? What do I care what Someone Famous buys? What do their purchases mean to me? Why do I care about anything they do? Bags, shoes, baby bumps, the scandals of adopted kids, dramatic marriages. I don’t know from any of that.
Shopping as recreation is right up there with Hunting Things for Fun on the list of Shit I Don’t Understand. Along with Nascar and Botox and, oh, honeys, a whole plethora of things. There is so much. Someday I’ll make a list:  Shit I Don’t Understand.
But there are two times a year when I do shop, and when I feel it is My Duty to do so:  The UU Auction, and The UU Garage Sale. The UU Church supports things I believe in. Social justice. Green stuff. Things like that. I do not tithe. Holy crap. And I do not pledge. All that kind of stuff scares the crap out of old atheists like me. But I do want to do my part to support causes that make sense to me. So every year, for the auction and the garage sale, we go through our stuff and donate a veritable shitload of crap. By “crap,” I mean everything from the lamp I bought last week that didn’t work out to the shirts The EGE never got around to taking out of the packages. Tons of stuff. Rather than returning stuff for a refund, I put it into the Garage Sale Pile. Oh, and what a pile it was.
And then we show up and buy more stuff. Oy. Now, in my defense, there is this:
1) the stuff we buy is useful stuff, like, oh, a bag for tennis racquets and a pair of old cowboy boots
2) the money goes for a good cause
3) everything is so cheap you cannot believe it. Shoes for $2. A really big heavy antique oak light table for $30. Sterling silver shit (I don’t even know what this stuff is used for, is how pathetic I am) for $5. Just amazing prices.
4) Did I mention:  wine? ‘Cause, honeys, the UU’s know how to loosen the purse strings. They are not the Baptists, pretending they don’t have fun and don’t know from Boone’s Farm. Oh, no. UU’s, a generally well-educated and middle-class bunch of folks, do not pretend not to know the cheap wine. They know all about the cheap wine; they just don’t have to go there. But they’re frugal! So you get the cheap wine and The Better Wine and sometimes beer, only never the stuff you find at the local Quick Stop, but the stuff you have to hunt for at Trader Joe’s—that kind of beer.
And with enough wine or beer?  You’re looking at those skis in a whole new light. You’re all like, “Hmmmm. Equipment for going out in the freezing cold wet stuff and falling down? I could use that. Maybe. What the hell.” You go home with shit you can’t even identify, other than saying, “But it’s cute!  Got any more Mad Dog?”
So what did I buy, in the two hours I spent drinking wine and schmoozing?
--A pair of old cowboy boots, a little too wide but still doable with the orthotics and a couple pair of socks—you can never have enough Dancing Boots, and lord knows you do NOT want to break in your own. Not unless you can afford custom Rocketbusters, which, alas, I cannot. But some day!
--A wind sock with hearts on it. Awwwwww. Cute!
--An Ethnic shirt. For dyeing, or for wearing as Melanoma Woman—since I have to Cover Myself when I walk.
--A flower pin. You know, like a velvet flower on a little clip. For a hat or something, I don’t know. I have no fucking idea what it’s good for, but it was 1) cute and 2) 10 cents. So.
Apparently wine = an affinity for Cute Crap I Do Not Need. Drink wine + buy floral print gardening gloves. Which I did not, thank you, jesus.
The EGE bought a belt (which he does NOT need, trust me) and the aforementioned carrying case for tennis racquets. Maybe something else—I don’t know. He kept trying on a purple hat, much to the delight of The White People, who just loved seeing him with the hat cocked at a rakish (i.e., Pimp City) angle on his head, with me calling out across the room, “No. Do not even go there. Y’all quit being enablers!”
They may know wine, but hats? Black men?  Oy. Fortunately, some better judgment kicked in, and he left the Pimp Hat on the table. Let it lie where Jesus flang it.
We came home, ate leftovers, watched a weird-ass video from Netflix, and started thinking about what we need to get rid of for next year. Anybody need a pasta machine?