I helped my sister-in-law hold a garage sale this weekend. If I ever run out of ideas for fiction, garage sales are the place to go. Here’s a sample of the characters I met:

• The neighbour who had to wait for her husband’s afternoon nap before coming to shop. She bought three suitcases. Significant?
• The two little boys who gave me nine dollars for an eight-dollar street hockey set. They were thrilled when I gave them change.
• The woman who took everything boxed or packaged out of its box or package, and then puzzled — repeatedly and unsuccessfully — over how to get things back in.
• The woman who shopped, and shopped, and shopped while her husband stood on the sidewalk and scowled, and scowled, and scowled.
• The elderly man who bought three packages of Christmas napkins, bargaining me down to twenty cents.
• The man who arrived at 2 p.m., when we’d already cleaned up. He opened the front door, without knocking, and asked if we were the house with the garage sale, and if we had any make-up mirrors.

I’m not making this up.

I’ll let you know when the next sale happens, in case you need inspiration.