Twenty Dollars for Your Childhood

When I was just a wee lad of fifteen years, my older brother Andrew, younger brother Paul, and I decided to save up our money. Our parents were rather hostile to the prospect of video games in the house and never bought us any consoles growing up. Whenever we wanted one, we had to start from scratch. The endeavor would take up entire summers, but the goal was always worth it. We weren’t among the pampered brats in school whose parents got their children a Wii for Easter. We scrounged around for money and work wherever we could get it. This time, we had our eyes set upon a Wii U, and three-hundred dollars later we reached our goal. However, our goal was not met without sacrifice.

The three of us were obsessed with Pokemon cards when we were children and as such, spent obscene amounts of money on them. All of our collections grew to numbers that would (and probably did) turn the rest of the kids in our classes gangrenous with envy. Andrew found it within himself to part with his collection. After all, one must shed his burdens when climbing Jacob’s ladder.

One fine, summer day, my pastor’s wife, (we’ll call her Sally) decided to hold a yard sale at her house, and big bro saw this as the perfect opportunity. Paul and I disagreed. He was only ten, so he couldn’t part with his collection just yet. I, on the other hand, knew that if I tried to sell all of my cards at a yard sale, I would walk away disappointed. Andrew was as steadfast as gum on the bottom of a desk. He was determined to sell all of his Pokemon cards that day for the reasonable price of one hundred dollars. The man wouldn’t accept any other ransom for his childhood obsession. Besides, the real amount of money spent on those tantalizing cardboard treasures in total would have amounted to over a thousand! We were relatively close to our goal, so if everything went as planned, we’d have had more than enough money. With ambitions clouding all of our judgments, we gathered together some stuff that we neither wanted nor needed and set up shop with our mom and the Sally.

We three brothers were there for around two or three hours before we got bored. Mom offered to take us home, and we all obliged. Andrew was skeptical. “If I leave now, they could be sold for less than I want for them.” My mother promised to just drop us off at home and then return to the yard sale as quickly as possible. She promised him that if someone wanted to buy the cards, she would defend the price to the grave and back.

Mom returned from the sale a little after lunch. Paul and I were outside, so we headed her off at the car, desperate to know the fate of Andrew’s trove. She knew what we wanted to know before we opened our mouths. She handed the two of us ten dollars.

“There’s your share boys.” Her face was grave. I asked her if they sold and she said yes! What was with the face? We knew that she wasn’t big on video games, but the least she could do was be proud of our determination. “I need to talk with Andrew, alone.” He never should have left the yard sale.

Within the span of the fifteen minutes that it took my mom to take us home and return to the yard sale, a woman and her daughter approached the tables, which were laden with trinkets and baubles. The little girl’s eyes were caught by my brother’s collection, and naturally asked her mom if she could get it.

“Is that really a hundred dollars?” The mother inquired.

“I’m not sure,” Sally answered. “I think it might have been a typo.”

Sold…

Paul and I gave it about thirty minutes, then we went back inside. Andrew was redder than a late Autumn day. His breathing was heavy, and every vein in his head was about to burst.

“How much?” I dreaded his answer, but it had to come out sooner or later.

“Ten bucks,” he spat. “Mom gave me an extra ten out of pity.” Andrew doesn’t blame Sally for what she did. She was the sweetest lady we knew, and she didn’t know any better.

We all have our stories that gaslight us into angry rants. This is my older brother’s. We never knew what became of the cards. Maybe the little girl who got them loved and cherished them just as much as Andrew did. It’s likelier that she forgot about them in a week, though. Maybe they were sold again. For her sake, I hope she got more than twenty bucks out of them.