It's almost that season: the garage sale season! I don't know about your mother, but my mom is a Garage Sale Queen. She does ALL her shopping at garage sales. The only problem with garage sales is that everything is so cheap you HAVE to buy it. Who cares if you don't NEED another plastic wall clock-it's ONLY twenty five cents!

My mom came home one day with a plastic wall clock, some broken toys for the grandchildren and some used books and announced, "I got all this stuff for twenty five cents each! Can you believe it?" I said, "Yes." I just don't see how anyone can get excited about a twenty five-cent plastic wall clock.

My mom's entire vacuum collection comes from other people's garages. She has a rechargeable Black & Decker Power Pro hand vacuum for cleaning around the bird's cage, a Dirt Devil for vacuuming the cat's favorite chair, a Car-vac that plugs into the cigarette lighter, and a Kenmore Magicord with all the attachments including nozzles, extenders, brush heads and an extra long hose to suck up the dead insects on the window sills. And for just regular carpet she has a double belted, commercial, stand-up Sanitaire with an extra set of round brushes. According to Mom, you can always use another vacuum, especially when you don't feel like changing one of the vacuum bags.

The first major selling point of the garage sale vacuum cleaner is that it costs only twenty five cents. The second major point is: IT WORKS! Mom revs up her new 1960's model Hoover for a demo run and-- Wow!--it's sucking up dirt like nothing I've ever seen before. Then suddenly --whiff, that smell!--and I realize why the former owners got rid of it.

This is perhaps the most unique trait of garage sale merchandise: It's in perfect condition, except for..... Which is why none of the dishes match in Mom's kitchen cabinet and the cocktail glasses have someone else's initials on them.

But, Garage Sale Queens have an incredible knack for repairing things such as dolls without heads, books missing their covers, and flower vases that leak. My mom has a whole room full of remedies: doll parts, cloth swatches, Crazy Glue, and of course, duct tape. But, her favorite tool is a thick, black marker with indelible ink used to darken scratches on furniture and give eyes back to visually impaired stuffed animals.

Being a Garage Sale Queen should save a lot of money. Not so! Because at home, compensating for every penny saved, is an Anti- Garage Sale King who buys only expensive, new things, such as tools that never get used.

But by the end of the summer, Mom has so many garage sale spoils that she has to get rid of some of them--by having a garage sale! And she marks up all items to fifty cents.

I can already hear the other Garage Sale Queens saying to their husbands, "Look, I got this plastic wall clock for only fifty cents! Can you believe it?"

And their husbands probably say, "Yes."

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