Garage Sale!

Today I rose at the crack of dawn, if you allow the crack to be two and a half hours long, so that I could go to my first african garage sale. Well, it wasn't really African. It was a bunch of Americans and Europeans selling their old stuff. In Africa.

Anyway, I had nothing particular in mind that I wanted to buy, other than perhaps a bike helmet, but I was very excited anyway. I just like garage sales, and this one had 14 families involved.

I managed to leave with an armload of goodies and I only spent $7! I was really, really tempted to shell out another $20 to buy a big tub of Legos. I know it was worth at least a couple hundred dollars. But I'm too practical and some kid will get a lot more joy out of them than I would.

Anyway, here are my new treasures:

Softball glove, free! I wanted to play in the softball tournament this year but I didn't have a glove. Next year I can play!


1/2 teaspoon, also free! I haven't had a teaspoon since I got here, which makes cooking more of an adventure. Now I can actually do it correctly.


Bike helmet, also free! Thank you, God. It's ugly as taxes but it fits (more or less).



Root Beer concentrate, $2. You can't buy root beer here. I have a special cookbook that gives me the recipe for root beer, but you need extract to make it work. Every time I go to a new store I have been looking to see if they have root beer concentrate and it is nowhere to be found. So when I saw this, I snagged it.

Double 12 Dominoes, $4. I have already become known among the singles here as the guy who always has a deck of cards with him. Now I can add dominoes to my arsenal of fun. I just need my parents to email me rules for some of the domino games we used to play, I can't remember them very well.

Risk, free. It was supposed to be $1 but I got it for free when I bought the dominoes. No risk in buying that! Risk is a classic game, one that always carried an aura of mystery for me as a child because my older cousins always played it and I wasn't allowed to because it was "too complicated."

Boggle, $1. I love the fact that it is the exact same edition, including the box, that my parents have. Makes me all nostalgic and stuff. Boggle is another favorite game at my parents' house.

Now I just need to find some people to play with!