The King of Pop becomes the King of Swap
Each spring after tripping over something for the fourth time in
the garage, my wife and I decide that it’s time to have a garage
sale.
The King of Pop becomes the King of Swap
Each spring after tripping over something for the fourth time in the garage, my wife and I decide that it’s time to have a garage sale.
It’s not that we expect to make enough money to fund a weekend vacation; it’s more a way to get rid of purchases that have become stuff that has transformed into junk and come away with a little spending money in the process.
The majority of what we put out in our driveway is clothing. For our sons, it’s the shirts and shorts and pants that they have outgrown, as boys do. For my wife, it’s the clothes that she has outgrown in a stylish sense, as women do. For me, it’s a combination – as I’ve gotten on in years, I’m starting to outgrow some of my clothes, as men of a certain age do, so it’s cleansing to get rid of the clothes that don’t fit the way they once did.
If I have to suck in my stomach to button some pants or shorts, it’s time for them to go. If I discover a shirt that I bought during the grunge years just after I got out of college, it’s time for that to go.
We try to sell some of my 12-year-old’s things, but he is very particular about what he will allow us to put out, as they are still HIS. It may be a shirt that no longer fits him or a toy that he hasn’t played with in seven years, but he has a tough time letting some stuff go.
Luckily, he now understands that by selling certain items he can reap the monetary rewards from that, so his displeasure over parting with possessions has been lessened by his pleasure over making a dollar off the shirt he didn’t realize he still had in his drawer.
My older 14-year-old is a businessman, plain and simple. Nostalgia is not much of a factor with him, as he would rather turn his old stuff into new stuff through good old-fashioned capitalism.
One of the ultimate garage sales is being held through next week in Beverly Hills, as “an array of treasures” from Michael Jackson’s collection is up for public sale. I don’t remember reading about the sale in The Pinnacle’s classified section, but I might have seen a sign taped to a light pole near Safeway. The guy needs to make money.
As one would expect, the collection from the brilliant but eccentric King of Pop is both brilliant and eccentric. It ranges from fine art and marble sculptures to his famous white-jeweled glove (who needs more than one glove anyway?) and The Simpsons’ Pinball Party arcade game.
I’m not able to make it down south to place a bid, so I’m going to miss out on the various statues of frolicking children (creepy) and the Michael Jackson ceremonial scepter that he received for marching in a Russian defense band parade in 1996.
He is probably selling some of the clothes that no longer fit him, like most of us do. The difference is that his clothes are bedazzled whereas mine have stains from where my Super Taqueria carne asada burrito came apart when I was watching a ballgame on the couch.
But who am I to judge? We all have our own reasons for parting with old stuff, so I can’t begrudge Michael the opportunity to profit from his past.
His collection of stuff is certainly impressive. Some of it is actually the fancy kind of stuff that you would expect to see at an auction, like a Victorian mahogany Rococo-style arm chair.
My next garage sale might feature a Target-style plastic lawn chair.
Look for my sign about my next garage sale on a light pole near you. No early birds!
