I have officially learned my lesson.

I am so one of those people that can not Be Told anything. I have to do it myself to understand how it works or doesn't work at all or how awesome it is or, in this case, how massively it sucks the life force from my soul.

And in this case that life force sucking thing was having a garage sale.

I fucking hate garage sales.

I don't go to them. I don't participate in them. I don't even like to be on the same block as them when they're underway. I used to re-route my Saturday long run course mid-run (which I NEVER do) to avoid the fucking things because I knew I was just going to end up re-routing myself off the sidewalk and into the street anyway to avoid psycho garage salers haggling over piles of old OshKosh B'gosh toddler overalls and shade-less table lamps and shit.

UGH. LOATHE.

But then I grew 99 tomato plants from seed and had a minor meltdown when I came to terms with the fact that my yard was only going to absorb .05% of those plants and the rest had to go *somewhere*.

But where?

Certainly my mom and nice neighbors couldn't take 94 tomato plants. And there are only, like, 5 people in my office who would want/have room for/have interest in tomato plants. And probably only, like, a few people in Blogland who live close enough and who care enough to haul over to my house for a plant they can probably get for $3 within spitting distance of their own garden, even if the plant IS free.

So yeah, that still left me with 80+ tomato plants. Plus all this other shit I decided to grow from seed during my Hey, I Know How To Grow Plants From Seed Now Watch The Hell Out bonanza of 2012.

Thus entered the garage sale idea.

See, we have this mid-spring neighborhood garage sale every year that is widely and enthusiastically attended by people who frequent garage sales. There are ads placed in papers and on Craigslist. There are balloons inflated and tied to things. There are cars parked just everyfuckingwhere. It's madness.

Usually, Bubba and I make a point of leaving town for the weekend so that we don't have to deal with it because if there's anyone on the planet who hates garage sales and all that they entail more than I do, it's Bubba.

Oh the burning hatred in his soul for garage/yard/tag sales. It is intense. It singes passersby. It ignites the dog's fur if she happens to be right there.

The man does not *do* garage sales in any form.

So you can imagine my declaration that I was "totally doing this year's neighborhood garage sale to sell off all the tomato plants taking over our kitchen! See! Don't worry!" went over really well.

I believe it was met with icy questioning stares and the counter-declaration that he would be either in Tahoe or hiding in an undisclosed location throughout the event and also WTF.

But I was so relieved to have an outlet for all these 80+ tomato plants that I would surely have just lingering about in my yard going unspoken for. Oh the tragedy of sowing and watering and tending and shuffling in and out of the house and loving and caring for 99 tomato plants only to have them go into the compost pile.

WOE! The thought was too much to bear.

But then, people came.

More than just these people.

I just didn't take pictures of everyone.

Just like when Kevin Costner did it except that I didn't have a soothsaying soul standing by to reassure me with a deep voice and a shitty attitude.

Instead, I had the internets and some enthusiastic neighbors and a handy sign up form and then, suddenly, I only had about 30 plants left.

30 plants that I *probably* could have found homes for without introducing the horror of a garage sale in our driveway.

Without the aggravation of people haggling over one damn dollar.

Without the time wasted pulling other shit out of the garage to sell because "I can't just have a few tomato plants for sale and nothing else. We might as well make use of this pain in my ass to get rid of some of this shit."

Without the extra time wasted waiting around for people to come back and pick up the giant things they bought that don't fit in their Geo Metros or whatever shit cars people drive to garage sales when they're looking for a dining room table but OH don't have any way to get it home and hey you have a truck can you bring it to my house.

Really, by the way? Do you really go shopping for furniture at garage sales driving the smallest mass produced car from the 1990s? Did you, by any chance, take physics in high school? Because them numbers just don't work out. You make no sense. Do not come to my driveway looking to buy big things that don't fit in your beer can car and then get all flustered when SUPER DOUBLE DUH they don't fit in the hatchback even with the seats down and then ask me to drive them to your house when you paid nothing for it and offer me nothing to deliver it and JUST NO.

Also, no, you may not borrow my tools to disassemble it in my driveway.

LOATHE.

Alas, that is what I did. I brought Garage Sale into our lives and OH it was EW.

The good part was that I sold off the 30 or so remaining plants within the first hour and so was left without the pain and agony of What Will Happen To My Babies.

The bad part was everything else. Haggling over the price for shit that had been languishing in my garage for years. Disassembling furniture for retards who don't know how to manipulate a wrench and drive cars ill-equipped for their shopping habits. Finding teeth in a jewelry box that a neighbor was selling while I briefly watched her post (oh wow gross).

ALL OF THESE THINGS AND MORE were the bad part.

However, once all was said and done and I had my 50 or so big dollars for AIDS LifeCycle, I took Bubba out for tacos and then hung out in my backyard AWAY FROM ALL PEOPLE, listened to the Giants game and took a fat awesome nap without any little tomato plants laying guilt trips on me about "Well where am I going to go?"

And the Giants won so YAY.

Never again with the garage sale, y'all. I'll just have to figure out another way to offload the hundreds of plants I'm sure to grow next year.