Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Beanie Babies and the profound moment...

We did it! Sold the clutter and it felt downright good. The day dawned bright and sunny with an 8 AM start date. People were waiting in their cars in our drive at 7:15. At precisely 8:00 the doors opened and the wild ruckus began. By 11:00, most of the good stuff was gone so we started marking things to half price. It was wild and crazy drawing all sorts of characters (Clarke advertised his guns for sale so take it from there...) Looking back, it all seems like a blur but there is one memory that stands out and makes me smile.

Remember the Beanie Baby craze? Our son collected them for several years and I made a habit of buying one whenever I was out of town on business. He loved them dearly for a couple years and then moved on to a new phase. He asked me to get rid of them so I painfully put $1 on each. (Yeah, they still had the original tags with their names.) It was, for me, the hardest thing to price because I felt like I was selling part of his childhood. The guilt monster was working overtime on this one, yeah baby....

HOWEVER...I'm getting to the happy part. During the peak of the sale, three little girls on bikes rode into the cul de sac to check out the action. They went right to the Beanie Babies and I saw them exclaim with glee at the menagerie of potential new friends. Each animal held a price tag of $1. However, there was one beanie whose price tag had fallen off so one little girl approached me and tentatively asked "how much is this one?". I saw a quarter half hidden in her little fist so I told her I would sell the beanie babies to them for 25 cents each if they promised to give them a good home. Off they went flying on their little bikes to gather up more quarters. They soon returned with pockets full of dimes and nickles. The look of pure joy on their faces as they claimed their new treasures was priceless. The world stood still for that pivitol moment in time as I let go of the Beanie Babies.

And it was liberating!

1 comment:

  1. Mr. Green I think that luky or trevy would have loved a Beanie Babys.

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