Saturday, April 24, 2010

Something From Nothing

After a major fiasco of a garage sale when we moved back to the states several years ago, I refused to ever hold a garage sale again. We had puzzle pieces and straight pins all over the lawn, people dickering over the 25-cent price tag on a lead crystal vase, and women pulling on items of clothing they wanted like they would in a Black Friday sale on a B movie.

No more garage sales.

The problem is, what do I do with all the stuff I'm taking out of my house. Most of it goes to the church garage sale where it will be converted into cash to purchase supplies to build houses in Mexico. I'll even go work at this sale--that doesn't bother me. It's having MY stuff aired in front of the world that I can't stand.

I took 3 boxes of books out today, crossed a couple of bridges and found the Powells warehouse. Picture a warehouse full of bookshelves, books on every shelf, with a busy little army of Northwesterners pushing cartloads of books up and down the aisles to be shelved. One of 6 warehouses that feeds the Powells physical and online stores, it was a bibliophile's delight.

Only the books in the warehouse are not for sale... at least not at that location. If you want to handle to books, you have to visit one of their stores.

I walked into the warehouse with 3 boxes of books and walked out with 1 box and a Powells card loaded with $98.

Mission accomplished. Anyone want to go to Powells?

6 comments:

Kristi Weber said...

Delightful as it sounds, how does it meet the goal of purging?

Patty said...

I've asked myself that question... best I can come up with is that 5 books I really want is better than 50 I don't.

G.Wyatt said...

I do! I do!!!!

Linda Judd said...

Oh, I miss Powell's! There's nothing like it here.

David said...

SCORE! I did something similar at our Hastings. It's a win-win.

Papa John said...

I'm always interested in a visit to Powell's Bookstore. I prefer chunks of hours to a few stingy minutes, but I'll take either. The big store, however, is not the best place to offer to sell them miscellaneous books; they will only skim the cream of what you bring in.