“Tommy, have you got any money?”
“Nope, I’m broke,” he answered while turning his pockets inside out.
“How about you, Josh?”
“Are you kiddin’! What do you think?”
“Jason?”
“I’m a nickel shy of having a nickel!” he answered.
“Fine bunch we are. We should call our club the “Boys Will Be Broke” club!” offered Billy as he dug into his pockets.
“I can’t help it if I’m financially embarrassed,” answered Tommy.
“The thing is, what are we going to do about it?” asked Billy.
“What do you have in mind?” asked Josh.
“I don’t know. Anybody have any ideas?”
“Mrs Wilcox needs her fence painted. She told my dad she would pay twenty bucks to have it done. Are we interested?” asked Jason.
“No!” came the reply from the other boys.
“I hate to paint with a passion!” cringed Billy.
“How about baling hay? Dad knows a farmer that needs some help,” asked Tommy.
“No way! It’s too hot for that. Have you ever been in a haymow? It’s awful hot,” asked Jason.
“How about mowing yards?”
“I don’t even want to mow my own, let alone somebody else’s.”
“How about picking up pop cans? We can sell them.”
“Already tried it. It takes 24 cans to make a pound. The scrapyard is paying 25 cents a pound. We could pick up cans for a month and maybe make $10. Do you really want to do that?”
“Then what do we do?”
“I know what we can do!” shouted Billy.
“Oh! Oh! Here it comes. Another of your crazy ideas!”
“Everybody, run! Billy’s got an idea!”
“All right. That’s enough of that,” Billy said while trying to get the guys attention, “I agree that some of my ideas haven’t worked out before.”
“Haven’t worked out? Are you kiddin’ me? We’re lucky we’re not grounded because of your last good idea!”
“C’mon guys. Everybody makes a mistake,” pleaded Billy.
“You’re right. Our mistake is listening to you!”
“That’s enough, let’s hear what he has to say,” admonished Jason.
“Let’s have a garage sale,” offered Billy, “my aunt Jane just had one and she made $600.”
“We’ve never done anything like that before. Are you sure we can pull it off?” asked Tommy.
“I don’t see why not. We’ve probably got enough junk in the clubhouse to have one,” answered Billy.
“Let’s find out,” Josh said while getting on his bike.
The boys searched the clubhouse and had a hard time finding anything they wanted to part with.
“What about this skateboard?” asked Jason.
“My Scooby Doo skateboard? No way!” answered Tommy.
“How about this Muckwucky Junior High bumper sticker?”
“Nah! Mom got it for me to put on my bike. I better keep it,” answered Josh.
After they had scavenged the clubhouse they had a pile of three things. A broken baseball bat, a Spiderman comic book with no cover, and a Muckwucky ball cap with a dirty bill.
“I figure we might get a dollar for all of this,” Billy glumly said as he stared at the pile.
“What are we gonna do?”
“How about at home? I bet there are all kinds of stuff there,” asked Billy.
“We’ve got a whole garage full of stuff!”
“We do too!”
“That settles it. Start bringing stuff to the clubhouse.”
Every day, for the next week, the boys drug stuff to the clubhouse. The pile grew until they didn’t know what to do with it all. Since the clubhouse was in Billy’s backyard they had to be careful not to create any suspicions about what they were doing.
“When are we gonna have the sale?” asked Josh.
“This coming Saturday. Mom and dad have to go to my great aunt’s house. She needs help. She’s getting old and feeble, so mom and dad take her shopping,” answered Billy.
Saturday arrived and the boys had plastered signs all over the neighborhood. Now they were waiting for customers.
“Are you sure your dad won’t miss these golf clubs?”
“Nah! He hardly ever uses them.”
“Won’t your mom miss this Featherweight Singer sewing machine?”
“I don’t see why. She never sews.”
“Billy, isn’t this your dad’s baseball card collection? Who was Mickey Mantle and Jackie Robinson? Was Sandy Koufax any good? I’ve never heard of any of them,” asked Tommy.
“I found them in a box in the garage. He’ll never miss them.”
“Look at all this old jewelry. I remember my grandma wearing this stuff. She loved the bright shiny ones. I think they’re called rhinestones or something like that,” offered Billy.
“I remember seeing a picture of my grandma wearing this poodle skirt. She was pretty,” offered Josh.
“I remember seeing a picture of my grandpa wearing this leather jacket. He was a bomber pilot in World War Two,” added Jason, “I’m sure dad won’t miss it.”
“Look at this old fly rod. I think it’s made out of bamboo. Has anybody heard of a company named Orvis? and look at all of these flies! Wonder what we can get out of it?”
“Oughta be worth a couple of dollars.”
Cars began pulling up and the boys were swamped. They couldn’t keep up with the customers shoving money into their hands.
“How much for the leather jacket?”
“Five bucks.”
“Sold.”
“How much for the ball cards?”
“How many are there?”
“Looks to me like there’s a couple hundred.”
“How about $20. That’s a dime apiece.”
“Sold!” came the answer so fast it startled the boys.
And so it went. By mid afternoon the boys had sold out. Exhausted, they relaxed in the clubhouse and counted the money.
“Grand total is one hundred thirty-five dollars and ten cents.”
“What did we sell for a dime?”
“Creature From The Black Lagoon Soaky bottle.”
“What idiot would buy an empty bubble bath bottle?
“I don’t know but the guy was tickled to get it.”
“I don’t think we did too bad for our first garage sale. Each of us gets $33.77.”
“I’m happy with that. How about you guys?” asked Billy.
“I am.”
“Me too.”
The boys went home, cleaned up, and were in their rooms when the phones began ringing. What followed were screams of panic and anger and parents bursting into their rooms.
“What did you do?” shouted their upset parents.
“We had a garage sale.”
“And what did you sell?”
“Old stuff we found in the garage.”
“And whose stuff was it? Was it yours?”
“No.”
“You had better pray we get it back!” threatened their parents while slamming the bedroom doors behind them.
Fortunately for the boys, their parents were able to get most of it back. Most of their customers lived in town and knew the families well. They put two and two together and came up with the idea that there had been a mistake. They started coming back with their purchases, returned the items, and got their money back.
What couldn’t be recovered their parents put a price on it. This was going to be deducted from their allowances. Plus they were grounded until school started.
The boys saw each other at church the following Sunday.
“Billy, because of you I won’t get an allowance until I graduate!” moaned Tommy.
“Me either! Mom’s so mad at me she won’t even look at me. I guess grandma’s jewelry was valuable!”
“My dad couldn’t get his Soaky bottle back. I had no idea it was rare and a collectible. I thought it was just an old junk bottle,” offered Josh.
“What really hurt was giving my share of the money to mom.”
“I had to give mine too.”
“Me too.”
“It’s gonna be a long summer!”
“Hey, guys! I’ve got an idea!”
“Billy! Shut up!”
June 24, 2023