Where there is a garage sale sign, so shall there be a Witness...

by pmouse 10 Replies latest jw friends

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  pmouse

  Is that written somewhere in the NWT? Or is it "Have a Garage Sale and They will Come" the Hollywood horror movie? I don't recall seeing it, but sure enough, hang a garage sale sign out and you will get them, all dressed up carrying book bags with a casually rolled up Watchtower trying to place it to distract you while the other one tries to throw you off by offering 10 cents instead of 25 cents for your junk. Not to mention frightening away all the other potential buyers who can spot them a mile away and who would pay 25 cents for a 25 cent items.

  You guessed it. Friday morning, sitting out under my patio table and umbrella, enjoying my coffee and here they come. I wait for the ultimate...and of course, after they manage to get more junk for less, they want to give me a Watchtower. Gritting my teeth, I politely decline because after all, I'm not a confrontational person today (I don't think this is the usual group because I threw the "Asleep" back the last time and not so nicely asked them not to darken my door again - another story for another time ).

  So as one gets the "not interested" response, the other tries to strike up a conversation about how bad world events are, etc. "No, no and no thank you." I guess they must have needed to justify the detour by being able to count time. In any case, they made a U-turn and exited the neighborhood. Much to my and my neighbors' relief.
• 

  LongHairGal

  What I could never understand, is how much they frequented garage sales. But, yet they were paranoid as hell about the "demons". Anybody so afraid of demons should avoid garage sales, right? Why even take a chance bringing anybody's junk into your house.

  Most garage sales are no more than garbage sales anyway.

  LHG
• 

  juni

  So true pmouse!

  But, you know what? I used to be one of those rummagers like you described, but I wasn't cheap about paying full price. I can't believe I had the gall to do that....... I guess anything to keep the clock ticking.....

  Juni
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  delilah

  I love garage sales, but haven't been to one yet this year. I've been too busy.The last time I was in service, (over 9 years ago), stopping by garage sales during service, was highly frowned upon.

  Three years ago, there I was at a sale, it was a little past nine a.m. and who drove up, but the P.O. and his carload.....my guess is, they started their time at the sale....what gives? They change their own rules to suit their own purposes?!....oh! I know! The light got brighter????? I just laughed.....
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  bluesbreaker59

  Yes, everyone in my family used to hit garage sales, especially my two aunts and my grandma, they also would hit the local Goodwill. They never "witnessed" at any of these, just tried to pick up bargains. Then the rest of the day we'd spend on return visits, that weren't interested in converting, but more interested in chatting.
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  anewme

  I was introduced to garage sailing when I was 18 and newly studying with the witnesses. On Saturdays if there was a garage sale on the block we were witnessing on it was great to them.
  Later on I pulled the same thing in service just to break up the boring monotony and waste of time.
  I admit to offering to take the retarded sister out in service just so I could go garage sailing with impunity. But that little nerdwell wasnt so dumb and started to claim stuff before we got out of the car!
  
  But there were so many garage sale witnesses in my town that it became nearly impossible. I was now an elder's wife and had to set an example for the younger women. Yeah right! You gotta get up earlier girls!!! 7:30-8:30am I drove around like a mad woman buying up all the bargains in the neighborhood before the other witnesses got to them! It was nuts as I look back at it all today. I became desperate for one little deal, just one, to take the boredom out of my life for that day! Many times I came home empty handed and mad as hell to greet the witnesses who came to MY HOME FOR SERVICE! (Can you believe it?) Or sometimes I was in a mad rush to get home with my load and hide it all in the backyard before they got there. One time I had to park my car down the street because it was so loaded with garage sale crap I couldnt let them see that I had been out earlier that morning to greedily scrape it up before they could. My husband of course thought I was losing my brains. He he!
  
  Yeah I remember garage sales. But today, I dont go to garage sales. I dont know. They just dont have the same appeal. Maybe it was the thrill of sneaking out and getting there before the witnesses and rushing back home to hide it all away. Today it can all lay there on the lawn, the old books, the baby sweaters, the plumbing pipes, the VHS and cassettes and odd Tupperware and I dont stop anymore. Instead I get a strange creepy chill as I remember lonelier insane days of chasing junk on lawns in a desperate attempt to
  find a shred of joy and happiness in my terribly unhappy life as a JW.
  
  
  
  
• 

  sass_my_frass

  Anewme, that's a very sad story! Your life is fun now, right?
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  brunnhilde

  Garage sales were GREAT! Anything to kill time so we didn't have to go humiliate ourselves and disrespect other people's beliefs and way of life! Funny, I haven't been to a garage sale since I stopped d2d, what a coinkydink *snicker*
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  Mysterious

  I remember driving by garage sales out in service and the witnesses in the car that would pine about how all the good stuff would be gone by the time they were done with service for the day. Or the ones that would show up late to the group because they had been garage saleing ahead of time.

  I never understood what the appeal was for witnesses. Is it the fact most of them have low income jobs? Not a lot of time to go shopping at unique stores so they like to go where junk is in all one place? A borderline way of having some normal human interaction beyond dubdom?
• 

  AllAlongTheWatchtower

  "What I could never understand, is how much they frequented garage sales. But, yet they were paranoid as hell about the "demons". Anybody so afraid of demons should avoid garage sales, right? Why even take a chance bringing anybody's junk into your house." - LongHairGal

  "I never understood what the appeal was for witnesses. Is it the fact most of them have low income jobs? Not a lot of time to go shopping at unique stores so they like to go where junk is in all one place? A borderline way of having some normal human interaction beyond dubdom?" - Mysterious

  Yardsales were a big hit with WCG members, too. I think it was kind of a way to cash in early on picking over 'worldly' peoples' belongings...like a promise of things to come, since the Big A just kept inconveniently not happening. Of course, there's always the poor factor, too

  I frequently compare my past experience in the WCG with JWs, but there is one major way they differ; there were no demon stories in the WCG, even though we often were told to throw out the same types of things because they were 'of the world' or satan-influenced (rock records, praying hands, crosses, or anything else which was 'idolatry of the whore of Babylon'). As far as why a JW would take a risk buying secondhand stuff "knowing" there was chance of demons...I'd hazard a guess that it was psychologically a NEED for exactly something like that to happen. To put it in modern street lingo, they were being 'drama queens'. Buy used stuff, get demons, be able to tell great stories about it, that sort of thing. A way of proving how faithful you were, because of course if the demons are after you, you're doing the right thing.

  I'd often see stuff like that in the WCG, only it wasn't used goods and demons, it was being fired from a job, or health problems (which of course, you didn't go to the doctor for), whatever. Bitching about it was sort of like bragging, really. "Oh, woe is me, look how downtrodden and persecuted I am for being in the one true church". Or, the person would sometimes take the other angle...it wasn't satan and "this world' that was after them, it was "god is surely testing me". I think a lot of them would flirt with disaster, so to speak...purposely doing things to raise their persecutionbragging rights drama levels.