One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

Growing up, garage sale weekends at our house were basically a full production. And my mom? She was the director. My sister and I weren’t just bystanders, we were staff. We had to wake up early, help haul out the boxes, and be ready with price stickers and change boxes in hand. She didn’t give us “pretend” jobs, either. We were really in it, negotiating prices, greeting customers, and handling money with the kind of seriousness only a kid with a fanny pack full of quarters can have.

At the time, I thought it was kind of a chore (especially the waking up early part), but now I see what a cool thing it was. My mom trusted us to take part, to be responsible, to help run something real. We learned how to talk to adults, how to make change, how to spot a haggle coming from a mile away, and how to hold our ground when someone tried to talk us down from a 50-cent price tag. More than anything, we learned that what might look like junk to one person could be exactly what someone else was looking for.

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” my mom would say, often with a smile as someone walked off delighted with an old lamp or half a board game. And she was right, about more than just the stuff. She saw value in things, and in people, that others might overlook. And maybe that’s what she was really passing on to us: the ability to see potential where others see clutter. Plus, we got to keep a few bucks, which definitely felt like treasure at the time.