Last month, all of a sudden, I had to move out from where I was living.
The very idea was enough to send shudders through my body – and my mind.

Not again?

From experience, I knew a move would disrupt my life and change my lifestyle, especially since I was going to live in a completely different area. I dwelled on all the negative aspects – how it would affect my sleeping, eating, and working habits.

Until I remembered…

I’d had much worse moves than that one.
These days, most of my possessions fit in a 10 X 10 foot storage unit.
Very different from when I lost my five-bedroom home in suburban Mexico City and had to dismantle it.

The following is an excerpt from my book, “Don’t Hang Up!”

A MEXICAN YARD SALE
At seven-thirty a.m., I open my curtains to see about twenty seedy-looking individuals lined up outside my front door. Battered vehicles with signs on them proclaim their owners to be flea market merchants.

What was I thinking when I put that yard sale ad in the Classifieds section of a popular newspaper? I never expected this kind of potential buyer to troop across the city to my exclusive residential area.

At the door, I face a combo of low-class macho and a slimy thief. Macho leers at me with obvious intent. He has hot eyes, a bushy mustache, and thick curled lips. “Come on, Seňora, let me in. I took the trouble to get here early before all this riff-raff,” and he waves at the others.

I back away from his incinerator breath. “Not until eight.”

Slimy, slicked-back hair, leather jacket, and the sallow, foxy features of a down-at-heels thug, whines that he was the first to arrive and therefore, deserves to have first go at everything.

“You’ll have to wait,” I say, and flee back inside my house.

What have I got myself into?

Hortencia, one of my cooks from my failed food business, arrives with her army sergeant husband, here to give me moral support. They have to push their way through the throng at the door. At eight, she opens the door. The merchants swarm in, almost knocking her over, and shoving each other in a free-for-all to get at the items for sale. Whoever reaches the tables and shelves first grabs whatever he or she can before someone else does.

One wizened little woman who, in her old gray shawl, looks like a beggar, time after time disappears under the throng only to emerge with yet another object. She’s the first to come up to me, not five minutes later, holding an American toaster oven, a top-of-the-line blender, and a food processor, all balanced on an electric frying pan.

“I’ll give you,” she offers the peso equivalent of $3.00, “for everything.”

Lo and behold, the price tags I affixed last night are gone.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you have all these items for so little,” I tell her.

She scrunches up her face and pleads with me. She is the sole support of her daughter’s five children. The few pesitos she can make from resale is all that keeps them from being thrown out on the street. With her tattered dress and bony little arms sticking out from under the shawl, she is so pitiful that how can I turn her down?

“$5.00?” Her eyes fill with the kind of hope of someone lighting a candle in a church.

“Okay,” I say. Poor woman. I’m sure she will make a good profit off those pieces.

“May God bless you, Señora,” she says, and slinging the goods into her shawl, tosses it like a sack over her shoulder, and walks away with a spring in her step.

“She always pulls that act to get the best bargains,” someone grumbles. “Her son’s waiting at the corner in a new Ford station wagon.”

Slimy has oozed his way to the head of the line.

“Watch him,” Hortencia says, nudging me. “Check the price tags.”

I do. “Hey, this silver platter is $10.00, not $2.00.”

Slimy stabs me with a finger. “Señora, it’s not my fault you made a mistake.”

“I didn’t, and I’m not selling it for that amount. I’d be giving it away.”

He turns to the people behind who are making noises for him to hurry up. “You’ll have to wait. She’s trying to change the prices on me.”

“I can’t let you have it for less,” I say, despite his threatening expression. I wouldn’t put it past this human eel to be carrying a knife inside his leather jacket.

He comes back with a rapid sally of how rich people diddle the poor, thus whipping up the others to cries of, “Fair’s fair!”

If we don’t settle, I’ll have an uprising on my hands. I name a ridiculously low amount.

In triumph, Slimy brandishes the silver platter on high to show what he achieved by calling on social injustice. I have the feeling that from now on, I’m well and truly screwed.

Next, Macho plunks down an engraved colonial chest filled to the brim with items. “$25 for everything,” he says in a contemptuous voice even while giving me a mental poke with his eyes.

“The chest alone is worth that,” I say.

He waves bills at me; he will pay $30 for everything. His breath has me reeling and I nod. He leans over to inform me in a hot whisper that if I’m interested in selling more than what is on display – wink – to let him know. Leer. Here’s his card. “At your service, Señora.” With a knowing glance, he struts away.

Within forty-five minutes, almost everything has been cleared off shelves and perches. My head rattles while hands and voices assail me on all sides. What the hell? I’ve had enough of these ravenous merchants.

I explode. “Get out! All of you. Get out of here! The sale has ended.”

The place is a mess of rejected pieces. No one wanted the larger or more expensive ones. Furniture merchants and private individuals come for those later. Kitchen equipment goes in a trice for less than half its worth, the same as my new dining room set and living room furniture.

What about the paintings? Those side tables? The church bell lamps?

I hadn’t intended to sell them. But why keep exotic designer furniture and good paintings when I need the money now? Anyway, there’s nowhere to put them in the bungalow – former servants’ quarters – where I’m going to live.

The buyers are gone at last, and I’m left alone with my memories.

Forget them. This day is all that matters. I count my earnings, roughly a sixth of what I expected.

The shambles of my fortunes.

Dear Readers, I’d love to hear from you and what thought about this piece. You can also find me on Facebook, donthangupbook.com and on Twitter.

Tags: Cultural insights, downsizing, Fall from grace, Financial ruin, Loss of home/possessions, Mexican yard sale, Mexico City, Moving house, Overcoming material loss

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 15th, 2011 at 2:19 am and is filed under Don't Hang Up! series, Excerpts from Don't Hang Up!, Life Challenges, Mexico, Multi-cultural aspects, Overcoming Setbacks or Failures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.