Let's Make a Deal

It all started back in May, rummage sale season began.

Mayville had their annual city wide rummage sale and I decided to join in this year. I spent 2 weeks or better getting all the clothes I had stored up in the basement ready for the event. Travis helped me a lot during this process. He was so excited about being able to help me.

Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate too much that weekend. Friday, my first day, the temperature was about 42 degrees and the sun was gone. I weathered through it though and I didn't do too bad for my first day. Saturday, the weather was great. The temperature was about 60 and the sun was shining. Travis was along to help.

I held the rummage at Dad's house as I don't have a garage. Dad decided to add a few things to the rummage sale, including this box, containing 3 old fashioned, decorated gelatin molds. As the day continued, Dad finally made a deal with Travis.

"Travis," he said, "you need to try to sell these jell-o molds by the end of the day, or you will be getting them for your birthday."

Travis worked hard trying to sell those things. But as the day came to a close, the jell-o molds were still there.

June arrived and so did his birthday. Papa came over with Travis' birthday present, a box, a very heavy box. Travis opened the box to find those jell-o molds filled with 1,000 pennies.

Travis had decided he wanted to take those pennies and spend that money at rummage sales during the summer to buy himself some clothes. Pretty smart idea.

Today was the day.

Horicon had their city wide rummage sales. Travis paged through the paper the night before and decided what rummage sales we would be going to. Then this morning, we were off.

I was amazed at him.

The first rummage we went to he find a few shirts. He took out his money and went up to the lady running the sale and said "I'll give you $2 for the 3 of these".

I stood back in amazement. Where in the world did he learn to do this?

The woman obliged and he made his first deal of the day.

As we continued going from sale to sale, Travis continued to make these deals. He managed to get 5 new shirts, a pair of pants and a pair of shorts for $6.50!!

The best deal of the day? He found an old Pachisi game in a ten cent box marked "half off". So he picked up the game and went to pay for it with a $10.00 bill (money from his bank - just incase). The lady just looked at him, looked at the game, and told him "just take it".

He walked away with the biggest smile on his face. "That's cool" he smiled.

The rest of day, all I heard about was his "free" game.

From 1,000 pennies to one big smile. That was the best deal.