The Sidewalk Sale

Today was a very special day down at the pawn shop because we hauled several vacuums and mini-fridges, hundreds of DVDs and CDs, several framed pictures, a number of large TVs, a couple of buckets filled with small electronics such as handheld games and MP3 speakers, various home decorations, a tote of flip-flops, and dozens of video games out into the bright sunlight and had a sidewalk sale. We had other things on sale, of course, everything from packets of water balloons to plastic shelving, but perhaps my favorite item in the entire sale was our Rascal Power Chair. Everyone helped carry out the sale items, but only one lucky employee had the honor of firing the Rascal and riding it out of the store. I admit that I was very jealous. Although, a part of me was thankful because, apparently, manning a Rascal is trickier than it looks because my co-worker kept smashing into things. He must have underestimated the power of this personal vehicle because the first thing he did after taking the helm of the Rascal was zoom straight into a counter at full speed. After a nervous laugh and making an adjustment to the Rascal's power setting, he still had troubles maneuvering the chair and kept side swiping various displays around the shop. It was a miracle he didn't break anything.

To help lure more people to the sidewalk sale, we reverted to the meagerly flashy eye-grabbing tactics of helium-filled balloons and our very own sky dancer named Bob. Bob's not the flashiest sky dancer, but he is a jolly fellow and got the job done just fine. Bob is a fifteen foot, lime green tube (sadly, he doesn't have any appendages) with brown tassels on his top which you can say simulates hair. He just bent and jumped and danced off on his own all day, but the balloons were a bit more problematic. It was a somewhat windy day and the balloons kept blowing into people's faces when they were shopping instead of enticingly bobbing in the air as we had hoped they would. At one point, one balloon was blown into something else (I think it was a bike tire) and it popped, causing a woman to scream out in fright. That was enjoyable.

There's a family that comes into the shop to look through our DVD selection about once a week, and today was their weekly visit. The family consists of a mother and father who seem a little older than usual to have a teenage son. These three spent at least an hour out under the hot sun, systematically shifting through each of our enormous DVD-filled totes. I was standing in shade the entire time and was feeling warm, but this family didn't seem to break a sweat at all.

We ended up being very busy today, and most of it was surely due to Bob, our pesky windblown balloons, and the great selection we had in our sidewalk sale. There were many people who drove past very slowly, faces up against and eyes sliding along the items we had outside, who ended up stopping to at least have a look around. We ended up selling several things we'd been sitting on a for a while and then some. But now the balloons have been popped and Bob has been lovingly tucked away into his dusty corner in the storeroom where he will slumber until our next sidewalk sale. Rest peacefully, Bob. Rest peacefully.