Kermit and the Widow

I am standing in a stranger’s garage. Based on all the items for sale in the garage, I suspect the man who used to live here recently passed away, and his family is now selling his belongings.

It’s obvious that the family has both organized and is running the estate sale, rather than hiring a professional company. The multiple signs throughout the neighborhood drawing us to the sale were handwritten on poster board. Nothing for sale has been cleaned. Someone has gone through and placed little round stickers with prices written in ink on everything in the garage. The grinder mounted to the work bench is $50. A half-empty can of carpet cleaner is fifty cents. A coffee mug (“World’s Greatest Grandpa”) is only a quarter.

Susan finds a windshield squeegee laying on one of the tables. It was obviously stolen from a gas station, and is the only item for sale without a sticker attached to it. The woman in the lawn chair outside the garage — overseer, security guard, and authorized pricer — declares the squeegee is worth one dollar. Susan agrees, and the woman starts a “pile” for us inside a brown paper grocery sack.

“There’s more inside,” says the woman, pointing to a sign taped to the door that says “MORE INSIDE”.

I enter the kitchen through the door and find four of everything. Above the bar sit four wine glasses next to four drinking glasses. Stacked neatly next to the glasses are four small plates on top of four larger ones.

Next to the plates is a single glass, shaped like a jelly jar with Kermit the Frog printed on the side. I pick up the glass and notice Kermit is ice skating. There’s a date printed on the glass — 1989 — which makes it the newest thing in the house. I enjoy the juxtaposition of a Kermit the Frog glass mixed in with all the fancy dishes. It doesn’t belong here, so I decide to buy it. Holding the glass makes me want to do my Kermit the From impersonation, but I decide against it.

Like marching ants, Susan and I follow the crowd through every bedroom. Mostly, the rooms are filled with women’s clothes, hats, and shoes. One one room, I watch a lady and her daughter try on hats, looking at themselves in a mirror and laughing. I change my mind and decide it was the woman who passed away. Maybe her husband passed away before she did and she just left all his tools out in the garage. I like the idea that she kept his “World’s Greatest Grandpa” mug. A few more people enter the room, and I wonder if anyone who knew the lady has seen these people trying on her hats.

The flow of traffic leads us to the front room, where a seven-year-old girl behind a table is the lone cashier. The girl’s mother beams, telling each customer how proud she is that her daughter can do math. For the next two minutes, the checkout line grows as the girl struggles to subtract three from five. Finally her mother, still beaming, tells her the answer is two and pats her daughter on the head.

“I can help you,” says an older woman standing next the wall. Her eyes are sad, and kind, and I change my vote again. I am sure we are in her house, and her husband was the one who passed away.

The woman peeks into our paper sack and says, “five dollars.”

Susan and I laugh. “We’ve been there,” I say. “I’ll bet you’re just ready for all this stuff to be gone!”

The woman takes my five dollars, but doesn’t make eye contact. Instead she stares past me, back into the home.

“Gone,” she says.