Good People Exist

    Once or twice a year, folks in my little town sign up for a city-wide garage sale. It's really quite fun. We sell things we no longer want or need to people who do want or need them. Then, in a year or so, we see our items for sale at someone else's yard sale. Talk about the ultimate recycling project! And sometimes we never see our treasures again, which is kinda heartening because we know that someone is really using what we no longer can. 

    This past weekend was our city-wide garage sale, and like we've done before, we were all-in. We put everything in the garage, readying to put in the driveway first thing Saturday morning. We got up early, moved the car, blew the leaves out of the way, and moved our treasures into the driveway. We didn't have to wait long before the early shoppers descended upon us. They picked through our well-loved mugs, bowls we'd grown tired of using, knives we'd replaced, linens, a couple of stuffed toys, vases, pie plates, and other whatnot, including a beautiful, apple-red toaster oven we'd used twice. 

    We hadn't owned the toaster long when our cooktop/range went kaput a year or so ago. Our warranty company was giving us a hard time about fixing or replacing it, so as a temporary fix, we bought a countertop oven, and of course, the only place where it would fit was right where we had the lovely toaster oven. So, the toaster oven went into the laundry room, where it was used only once, because we discovered that the countertop oven was, as the saying goes, 'the best thing since sliced bread!'  There wasn't anything we couldn't make in that divine little appliance. In fact, we thought about not replacing the big cooktop/range at all, but that seemed like a silly waste of space to have a non-working appliance taking up that much room in the middle of the kitchen; eventually, we did replace it, and the lousy warranty company. By then, we loved the countertop oven so much that we couldn't see going back to using the smaller toaster oven. In the laundry room, it stayed. 

    And then came the October city-wide garage sale, and we thought it would get scooped up in the first five minutes. It did, sort of, well, yes, and no. About a half hour into the sale, a very nice lady saw it and admired every inch of it. I'd priced it at less than half of what we'd originally paid for it, which wasn't all that much, but even so, she was apparently living on a limited budget. She said she didn't have the $25 I'd marked on the price tag and wouldn't until she got paid at work on Tuesday. A lot of people in a situation like that would have asked if I could reduce the price. She didn't. Instead, she asked me, if she gave me her name and phone number, and it didn't sell, would I call her and she would come back and buy it on Tuesday. I said, of course, I would. She wrote her name and phone number on a piece of paper, and I slid it inside the toaster oven on the rack. 

    No one else took interest in the toaster oven until I saw a woman late in the day looking at it. I walked over to her and told her how it had barely been used and why we were selling it. She remarked that it was in very good condition. Then she saw the note on the rack inside.     

    "What's that?" she asked. 

    "A lady was here earlier who wanted it," I told her, "but she said she didn't have enough money today, and doesn't get paid until Tuesday. She asked me to call her if it doesn't sell, and she would come back on Tuesday and buy it then."

    The woman reached into her purse, took out $25, and handed it to me. I looked at the money and back at her. "Would you like a box for it? I've got several I saved in the garage."

    "No," she responded. "I'd like you to call that woman and tell her that she is the new owner of a toaster oven. If she could not afford to buy it until she gets paid, she must need it more than I do." 

    "Thank you," I barely spat out. "That's very generous of you." The woman simply nodded and left. I immediately called the new owner of the toaster oven, who couldn't believe that a complete stranger would do that for her. I simply said, "There are good people in this world."

    When the lady got to my house, she thanked my husband and me and said, "I have been blessed today." We could not have agreed more.