Because I'd Forgotten

It was awful at the St Barnabas garage sale.

I got some good stuff, don't get me wrong. There was the owl mug for Safety Cat, the blue duffel for Shelley. Also something I have taken to calling the Temperature Compensator (emphasis on the second syllable). But I had a big bag on me, and so did everyone else, and it was hot, and people kept banging into me and/or blocking my way when really all I wanted was to get my owl mug and Get. Out.

Loaded down with more glassware than anyone with a cupboard full of unused glassware had any right to have on her, I headed home. James Street though, was a treasure trove of more junk.

Being grumpy and sweaty and already loaded down, I mostly just scanned. Bought a couple jars, admired a kettle, chatted a bit about an overpriced typewriter, scan: nothing, scan: nothing, scan-

My face.

The sight jerked me to a stop, so fast my bags kept going and the glasses rattled.

It was a mounted copy of the Capital Xtra cover I was on so many moons ago. And unless there are hordes of people out there laminating my face, there are only two of them extant. One of them is on Shelley's desk at work. The other.

There it was, on the window sill of this woman's house. This woman, who has a lot of garage sales, and has some really great stuff, and some really shitty stuff, some of it highly overpriced, some of it crazy cheap. She's nuts, always talking really loud to people and oversharing, with a warbly voice honed from years of needless worrying.

I walked across the yard and put my bags down. I stared at myself. I stared back.

Oh, I hoped I was wrong. Maybe there were hordes of people out there laminating my face.

The woman came out of the house.

"Where did you get this?" I aksed her. Now, I expected that she would look at me, and look at the poster and get what was going on. No dice.

"Oh, I manage some apartments, and one of the tenants just moved out. I took what he left behind."

"Was that at [redacted]? Top floor?"

She looked suprised.

"Yes! Wait. How did you..."

"That," I pointed, "is me. It was at my ex-boyfriend's house."

There were four of five other people standing around. Though none of them were looking, the cringe worked its way in a wave through them.

"Well! Really! That's you! No. Is it?"

I grabbed the poster and held it up under my face.

"Oh! It is!"

"Can I have it?" I asked her. And I meant that, literally.

"Well," she said. "How about a dollar? Will you give me a dollar for it?"

A dollar? For my own face? That she had scavenged from an apartment where it had been forgotten? She must be-

The look o her face said otherwise. She was entirely not kidding.

At that moment the only thing I could think of worse than paying 1 dollar for my face was arguing about how much my face was worth. And so I fished in my wallet for a loonie, dropped it in her hand.

She accepted gracefully.

"You know, you put some things out and you think, 'There's no way!' I put that out this morning and thought I'd never sell it. But here you are!"

Yes, indeed. There I was. Holding a picture of myself on some crazy lady's front lawn, remembering acutely how much it hurts to have your heart rolled flat.