This weekend, I participated in a family tradition that has spanned over a decade and now includes 3 generation. The Annual Catholic Barn Sale. It used to be the St. Peter's Barn Sale, but apparently after they had the sale for so many years they had paid off all of their debt, so they handed it over to Holy Cross Church in Batavia about 3 years ago.

Folks, lemme tellya, it don't get much more American than this.

We began this tradition when the Beast was about 5 years old. Mom discovered it the year before and dragged me along on her second time. The following year I dragged along my older sister. The next year, my sister in law. Eventually we brought in my younger sister, my friend the Pit Bull, my niece and eventually my daughter Beast. The idea was to bring someone new each year and we did for awhile. It opens at 9:00 AM on the third Saturday of every September. We would get there at 7:00 to get a decent parking spot and then sit and have breakfast, get a map, plot out our course and then stand in line like herded cattle awaiting a stampede. It bothered me when people near the front of the line had small children with them, because you put 500 American women standing in line for an annual garage sale of epic proportions, and you don't want to have your child in the path! At least, I wouldn't.

At 9:00 the horn would sound, the gates would be trampled and the massive tents filled with frenzied bargain hunters. Everyone wanted to be first to get the best disposed-of-given-away-for-free-to-the-church stuff. My first stop was the children's clothing tent. By the time I got done there, none of the other tents had much worth anything. We'd wander through the other tents, maybe pick up some trifles, and drag our bargained-out asses home some time around noon.

We are older, less needy and more practical now. This year Mom, my older sister, my niece and the Beast went to breakfast first where I demonstrated great reserve by ordering a 1-egg omelet and wheat toast. We arrived at the remote parking lot at 9:30, well past the initial crunch. We waited only a few minutes for the shuttle bus. All I wanted really was to find a crappy winter coat.

We went to the furniture tent first because...well, I guess because it was first. We had to wait to get in, because Security Man Bob was on duty and he had control of the the tent occupancy. It gave us time to do some people watching. Oh. My. God. Some little kid game streaking out of the tent and plummeted on her belly, apparently tripping over air whilst trying to make her escape. Her mom dragged her back into the tent and security man Bob let us in to peruse the quality donations. Beast and I were looking at couches. Not that I was going to buy one, just curiosity. I sat on a few that weren't bad. I decided to try out the flowery puffy not-bad looking one. I was testing the plop-factor. Just as my body was into its descension, at a point of no return, I saw something and realized that my landing zone had a stain....someone had PERIODED on it! I need to find a word for the type of immediate oppositional bodily propulsion that occurred the nanosecond my jeans touched the surface of the stain. I didn't sit on anything else the rest of the day.

I spotted the plummeting child, only now she was atop a chest of drawers, mother completely oblivious. Older sis was looking for a dinette set which she found (a rectangular pedestal table, upholstered bench and 2 matching chairs) for $65.00. We got out of there about the time I was ready to scream.

Tents and tents and tents full of discarded shit, I mean shit that people wouldn't even try to sell at a garage sale, and there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of people scurrying around like they had found a hidden gold mine. It was a smorgasbord for people watcher's eyes lemma tell ya!

I did buy a coat. It's a God awful thing, but the only one that would fit me. Can someone tell me WHY fat clothes tend do be produced in bright florescent and neon colors? Hmmmmm?

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