It's always interesting when you learn about a little sub-culture of the world around you. It happens a lot in the journalism biz. One day, you know nothing about the world of competitive ferrett shows, or whatever, and the next day, you find yourself spending hours in it, learning more than you ever thought possible, and then writing about it. Suddenly, someone else's reality, which you never conceived of before, is made very real for you. It's refreshing, and it keeps you tuned in and open to life's infinitely rich pageant.
My family and I thrust ourselves into one of these worlds last Saturday when we held a tag sale. I had long been aware that the culture of tag sales is a big thing for a lot of people around here, but it's different to experience it, and it's a very different experience to hold a tag sale. In essence, you lay yourself open to being the stage on which these tag salers walk, the canvas on which they paint, the eco-system in which they live and breathe.
It was a busy day, but in between selling and schmoozing, there was time for a little people-watching, and it makes for a fascinating study. Once you start watching, you notice the different species in this world — the professionals (they jump out of their cars at 7:30 a.m. and snap up things they think they can make a profit on; they're knowledgable, a little insistent, and big spenders); the casual browsers (they don't buy much, they like to look, I think it's like going to a museum for them; some of them feel guilty if they don't buy something, so they do); the bargain hunter (these people make you feel like you're performing a service; they are local folks of limited means for whom tag sales are a huge help in getting by); the collectors (these people are out looking for certain things — thimbles, milk bottles, McDonald's toys). I'm sure there are other creatures, too.
A great aspect of holding a tag sale is meeting people. These are social events. Friends and neighbors stopped by to chat and draw conclusions about us based on our stuff. We met a nice lady who lived up the road, and in the course of a half hour or so, we became fast friends. I met a fellow Civil War buff, my wife chatted with a lady who knew the people who lived in our house before us. The social side of tag sales is very much about the glue which holds small communities together.
We also met a cute little tiger-striped kitten who stopped by to hang out and found our stuff great fun to play with. He livened up the day considerably, although we did worry about where we had come from. Concern for the kitty prompted one tag saler to put us in touch with a woman who had lost her kitty. Our guy wasn't hers, but we had a nice time chatting and we wished her well. Later, the tiger-kitty's family stopped by looking for him. By that time, the kitty had left us, but about an hour later, all were happily reunited. But not before they had dropped $1 at our tag sale.
In the end, the day was exhausting, slightly lucrative and all in all, pretty rewarding in nonmonetary ways. In that way, my trash is my own treasure.