The Free Box

I’ve written over 2700 posts for this blog.  For the most part, I remember if I’ve told a story, but sometimes I’m not so sure.   Something my daughter and I were talking about the other day reminded me of when.I was growing up and the yard sales we used to have.  I don’t remember if I’ve written about this before, but in case I have, here goes round two.

Today we live in what seems like a throw away world.   Or at least that’s what it feels like from where we are here.   I was reminded because of a situation with some some plastic cups we’d been using for years for the children’s beverages.   They were Happy Meal give aways from the era of the first Lego movie.   Each of the main characters had their own cup.  I think we have three of one of the characters and one each of the others.   These sturdy cups are just the right size for the smaller amount of liquid a child consumes in a single setting.

My daughter had taken them out front and had dissolved chalk in them for some driveway painting project she was engaged in with her friends.   She brought the cups in when they were done (because I reminded her, children need reminders when it comes to cleaning up, it’s not ingrained).  When she was washing them out, her friend Madison noticed they had become stained.

Was I concerned with the stain?   Not really, because we had plenty of cups.   But those cups had been with us a long while.   I didn’t want to just throw them away.   That’s when I remembered where they came from.

When I was young, we had a yard sale about once each year.  During that time my mother did what she always does, selecting the few things she didn’t need from her already paired down “stuff” existence.   My father is a collector, my mother is the antithesis of my father in that respect.   My father would find things to put in the sale as well, likely consisting of things he’d found better versions of at other yard sales.

I would go through my toys and clothes, putting things in the sale I didn’t need or want anymore.   The general rule was, any money garnered from the sale of my items, I got to keep.  It was good incentive for me to clear out my room.   I must have done this with reasonable balance.   I wasn’t so incentivized by the money that I’d got rid of things I still enjoyed or played with.

But childhood goes quickly, children grow out of clothes and toys become less interesting as you become older and interested in more complex things.  Some of the things we’d put in the yard sale would be laughed at today.   For example, those Lego Movie McDonald Happy Meal cups are borderline “almost disposable”.  Putting them in a yard sale today with a price of $0.25 would be foolishly hopeful.

Back then I remember putting similar cups in our yard sale though.   The particular cups were glass with each featuring one of the McDonald’s characters like the Hamburgler or Mayor McCheese.  I don’t remember how much we sold them for, but someone bought them.

There were, however, things we didn’t sell.   My mother had an idea to have a, “free box” into which I put little toys, markers, things that were partially broken but could still be played with.   My mother was always kind to any child that would come to the yard sale, being dragged along by their parents.   She would say, “don’t forget to pick out something from the Free Box” to the child.

This was a tradition we had for many years.   One year when I was older, my mother came over to me laughing,   She said, “I can’t believe this, a man just came, walked around and then picked up the entire Free Box and walked off with it.”

What would we have said?  The box said it was free.   We laughed about it later because the things in the box weren’t worth anything other than trinkets we would have otherwise thrown away.   Hopefully the box made the man happy.

The Big Boy Update:  My son did something today I’ve never seen him do before.   I was sitting on the bed working on the computer when he came in to change into his swimsuit (we keep the suits in a drawer in our room, don’t ask me why, I’m not really sure why we haven’t moved them up to their room.).  He typically makes some statement or other about modesty since he’s about to be naked.   I always say I won’t look, not to worry.   But I saw him standing a bit strange out of the corner of my eye.   He had decided to tuck his penis between his legs and keep his thighs tight together to make sure it remained hidden.   Did he come up with this idea himself or did someone suggest it?   It wasn’t me.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I had come home from the grocery store and was putting things away.   These days I tell my daughter everything I’ve bought, because she really has no idea what food we have otherwise.   I had gotten Fritos, which several of my family members love.   A short while later I heard her asking her father, “Dad, are Fritos free?"