Jul 19 2003

Saturdays bring garage sales.

Destiny and I park across the street and saunter over to the South Moorhead sale.

First, I think, "Score! T'Pau and Art of Noise cassettes!" There's a handful of scifi novels -- and, the young couple, around my age, had notified us upon arrival that everything was half off. Everything I liked had originally been marked 50 cents. There was even a Boba Fett pez dispenser.

I regret not picking up the Fett pez, but I did select a Neal Stephenson novel and three of the Art of Noise cassettes.

A painful thought then crossed my mind. Mostly, the cool stuff at garage sales is cool for it's kitch value. They're old big-eyed kid paintings, or children's book-and-record sets. Usually if there's something cool, it's because the college student kid was asked to put some stuff out on the tables, and he wants near-retail for them.

This garage sale, however, pushes things to another level. The items are genuinely cool, but they're genuinely garage-sale. This couple (the woman I sorta recognize from my youth) were cleaning out useless stuff, and selling it for dirt cheap to clear space.

That's supposed to happen to crap from my parents' era -- how can young, cool people part with it? It makes me old to say, "can you believe these people are selling this stuff for a quarter? They're crazy!" Those things are said by 40-somethings upon finding a stash of macrame plant-hangers or Bill Cosby LPs. Are Fine Young Cannibals, Edie Brickell, and Lita Ford so un-hip now that they're marked DOWN from $0.50?

I make my purchase, and we drop off my items at the car before checking another garage sale across the street.

On our way back to the car, I switch my pince-nez glasses for my mirrorshades, and I straighten my New Jersey Transit t-shirt as my bowling shoes tread the pavement.

We settle ourselves in the car. I pull into the ex-hipsters' driveway to turn around, pausing long enough for them to see my APATHY license plate. I crank up the Macy Gray, and we pull away.

I am not ex-hip. I am still cool. You cannot stop me.