By Caitlin Loggins
It was a warm, sunny Wednesday morning in late June and I was back in my hometown of Saint Albert for the summer.
I decided to take a walk around the neighborhood and when I returned home, my copy of the St. Albert Gazette was laying there on the front step waiting for me.
So I picked it up and went inside to make breakfast, and as I sat down to eat, I opened the paper and started to read.
After I finished the sports section I moved on to the classifieds and as I was reading through the various ads, one in particular stood out to me.
It said “Annual Citywide Yard Sales This Weekend, Maps available at City Hall starting tomorrow.”
The first thought that came to mind after reading the ad, my first thought was to call my girlfriend Caitlin, who also loves yard sales.
In fact, that’s how we met, she had bought a beautiful writing desk as she was just starting her career as a sportswriter, but the desk was too big to fit in her car.
I had just pulled up to the sale and saw her there, so I walked up and introduced myself and asked her if she’d like me to put it in my truck to take home for her, she agreed, so we loaded it in the back of my truck and she gave me her address, when I got to her house I unloaded it and helped her carry it inside, as we were setting it up in her home office I worked up the nerve to ask her out. I asked her:
“Hey, would you like to go to a movie with me tomorrow afternoon?”
She said Yes, we went out, had a great time and have been together ever since.
I dialed her number, which I knew by heart, and asked her: “Hey, are you free this weekend? I just finished reading the paper and saw that the citywide yard sales are this weekend, so I was wondering if you’d like to go with me.”
“Sure! I’d love to go with you. I have one article to write, but it’s not due until the middle of next week, so I’m free Friday and Saturday. Were you thinking of inviting any of your teammates?”
“Yeah, I was considering inviting Ryan, Sammy, and Vince, they’ve never been to a yard sale, but they’ve asked me a couple of times if I’d take them to one and this one ad mentions Guitars, so I’m sure Ryan would be interested.”
We then spent the next 30 minutes discussing what we needed to do ahead of our weekend outing.
After we hung up the phone, I finished my breakfast, which was now cold, and called my teammates.
I called Sammy first but I got his voicemail, so I left a message, I then called Ryan and told him about the ad with the guitars, and as soon as I said “Guitar” he was on board, finally, l called Vince, he said that wanted to go, So I asked him to call Sammy as they are close friends to see if he could get an answer and of course, Sammy answered the phone for Vince.
He agreed to go, so once I knew how much stuff I needed, I headed to the office supply store
where I picked up some clipboards, markers, paper, and pens, along with some plastic storage baskets.
I planned to use the items to make some “Colton Parry Yard Sale Prep Kits.”
I then went to the Grocery Store to pick up some snacks and drinks to bring with us where we could keep going instead of having to stop somewhere for lunch.
When I returned home after I had put the groceries away, I laid out all the items I had purchased at the office supply store on my kitchen table and went to work preparing my kits.
In each basket, I packed a clipboard, one package each of pens and markers along with twelve sheets of paper, and a hand-written instruction sheet telling them how to mark their maps and make their list of sales that they wanted to go to and what they needed to bring (Bags, Boxes, Newspaper, etc.).
I packed a kit for Caitlin, even though I knew that she had all this stuff at home in her desk, but I thought that it would make a nice little surprise gift for her.
The next morning, she came over for breakfast, and I presented her the basket, “Thank you Colt, I love it!”
We then put the other three baskets in the backseat of my truck and headed into town to pick up the maps.
After picking up the maps we quickly looked them over before doing a little pre-scouting by finding some of the addresses that we weren’t familiar with.
I then dropped off the baskets at my teammates’ houses before we went back to my house to continue planning.
We spent the rest of the afternoon at my kitchen table with our maps making the list of sales we wanted to go to.
Then at six o’clock, we went out for dinner, a couple of hours later, I dropped Caitlin off at her house, and as we were standing on her front porch she asked me if I’d like to come in and watch a movie with her and of course, I said yes.
When we walked in, her orange and white cat, Fluff was right there to greet us, I picked him up and carried him into the living room, sat down on the couch next to her and watched a movie about a sportswriter who got an assignment to cover the local hockey team and fell in love with the team’s star player, with Fluff curled up on the couch between us.
After the movie was over, we said goodnight to each other (and I said goodnight to Fluff.) And I went home to get some sleep before the big day.
The next morning, I got up early and made some breakfast for us to eat on the way to the sales – sausage and cheese sandwiches, my favorite! I wrapped them up and packed them along with some sodas, Regular cola for Ryan, Sammy, and Vince, caffeine-free cola for me and Caitlin.
I also grabbed the snacks and drinks I bought yesterday before heading to my closet to grab my stash of bags that I keep in there specifically for yard sales.
I picked up my phone from my bedside table and quickly scanned through my emails before grabbing my pen, list, and clipboard.
I headed out the door and packed everything in my truck, double-checking to make sure I had everything we needed before driving off to pick up Caitlin and my teammates.
I went to Ryan, Sammy, and Vince’s houses first before picking up Caitlin because I had a plan that I wanted to discuss with them first.
“Hey guys, I want to get Caitlin a gift to show her how much I love her so if I see something I might need one of you to distract her while I buy it.”
I then went to Caitlin’s house to pick her up, she was waiting for me on her porch with her bags and list, so I called for her to get in, once I had everybody loaded up and ready to go there was still 30 minutes before the first sale of the day, so I passed out the sandwiches and some drinks, and we had breakfast sitting in my truck in Caitlin’s driveway.
At the first sale of the day, Caitlin bought a whole table full of cat figurines to add to her collection, she has a huge collection of them displayed on shelves in her living room and bedroom, I’ll usually pick up a few from yard sales I go to while I’m on road trips with the team and save them to give her as birthday and Christmas presents.
At the next few sales, we found lots of new treasures Ryan bought a new guitar, Vince found some hockey video games, Sammy got some books and a baseball cap with our team’s logo on it, I bought some puzzles and die-cast Race Cars, and Caitlin found some notebooks along with a set of her favorite pens.
We were just as successful at the rest of the sales, by the time we had reached the final sale of the day, the bed of my truck was nearly full.
As we pulled up to that final sale, I spotted it, a stuffed cat that was the same color as Fluff, sitting on a table next to the cashier, luckily there were four big plastic containers of miscellaneous office supplies on the opposite side of the yard, so Sammy led her over to them and after I made sure they were busy digging through the bins, I walked up and bought the plush toy, they had some gift bags too, so I bought one and placed the toy inside.
My next mission was to make it back to my truck unseen, when I got to my truck I carefully placed the bag under my backseat and looked back to see if Caitlin and Sammy were still browsing through the office supplies before going back and buying a book, and lucky for me, Caitlin and Sammy walked up just as I was paying for the book so it looked like that was the only item I purchased.
I then drove each of my teammates back to their houses and helped them carry their items inside before taking Caitlin home, and as we were sitting in her driveway discussing our plans for the next day’s sales as it was just going to be me and her going, I reached into my backseat and pulled out the bag.
“Open it, it’s a little surprise I picked up for you along the route.” I said as I handed the bag to her.
She opened the bag and pulled out the stuffed toy.
“Oh Colton, it’s adorable! Where did you find it?”
“Remember that sale where you and Sammy were digging through the bins of office supplies? I saw it sitting there on the table and immediately thought ‘I know that she would love this, so I should get it for her’ so I bought it to surprise you with when we got here.”
“Thank you, Colton I love it! I’ll keep it close to me so when I’m missing you while you’re on a road trip, I can see it and hold it and know that you’re always thinking of me.”
She hugged the cuddly plush toy, leaned over the center console of my truck, wrapped her arms around me, kissed me and said “I love you Colton Parry, I can’t wait for tomorrow.”
© Caitlin Loggins
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