Laments and Observations

Holy shitballs, I am tired.

I do not understand people who do this more than once every decade or so. It feels like moving, without going anywhere; I mean there are boxes, clothes, items I haven't seen in years. Damn.
I've been at it on and off since 6:30 this morning. That's not to say I started working then or have worked the entire time, but still. Pretty much nonstop. I left the house once today and was gone for about an hour. I had to go to the office to pick up my cell phone charger which I'd accidentally left there yesterday when I raced out of there as fast as I could. While I was on that side of town I stopped into the dollar store and bought six pieces of poster board and six happy face helium balloons (I'm not sure why Grace said I'd never do the balloon idea; a big dream of mine has always been to tie one to my mailbox and today I made that dream come true) for eight bucks. So that means I've invested $13 into this thing and I sold three pairs of shoes to a lady at work already today so I've almost made a one hundred percent return on my investment already. Feeling good about that, because big doubts have started to seep in with regards to how well we'll do tomorrow.

With good reason.

The weather is supposed to be perfect, so no worries there, but for some reason our state decided to start price gouging gas today because of Ike. I personally paid $4.11 and that was one of the cheaper places. I saw it somewhere for $4.47 and the news reported it being $5.79 in West Columbia. There were reports of places running out of gas, hoarding gas and almost every place had lines so long it felt like the 70's gas crisis. Panic and pandemonium in the streets.
J told me Florida prices were the same and she checked other surrounding states whose prices were also stable. So thank you, South Carolina - you really know how to bend me over and stick it in with no lube. I'm guessing the gas thing is going to cause a lot of people to stay home tomorrow rather than venture out for anything besides the football game. I know I won't be going anywhere; why should anyone else?

It's sheer fuckery and I'm upset, but the way I look at it is I've already done the hardest part by getting all this shit organized, separated and priced, so if tomorrow is a bust, I'm all ready to have another sale next weekend. I've put way, WAY too many hours into this now to let a little state emergency stop me.

My friend S and her family (the country friends) came over tonight because I'd told her about the clothes last weekend and let her have first pick. I didn't charge her because she's not in any financial position to buy herself things and switching from a job where she wore scrubs every day to where she now has to dress business casual - I know how hard it is to build a good work wardrobe and wanted to help. She was ecstatic and it was fun helping her pick stuff out. She easily came away with thirty pieces and barely made a dent. I underestimated when I said there were about 200 pieces; after finishing up today I stopped counting at 332. I also have 27 purses for sale and God knows how many pairs of shoes - I'm tired of counting things.

Dude, I'm just flat-out tired. But Brian was a huge help and there's only a couple of things more we have to do tonight before we're done. Until tomorrow morning when the alarm goes off at five. Wow.

It's going to be great. GREAT, I tell you! Tomorrow night at this time I'll be getting ready to watch the season premiere of SNL, where it's rumored Tina Few might go on and do a Sarah Palin imitation. That information alone will get me through the day.