The end of summer is a blur of bad weather and worse decisions. The heat becomes a devil on your shoulder, convincing you it's a good idea to do crazy things. Like cleaning out garages filled with years of broken lawn equipment, old toys, rusting bikes, dead leaves, dryer lint, and most dangerously, old golf clubs.
Yes, old golf clubs are dangerous. They are destined to be the instrument of your humiliation. You just don’t know it yet. Right now, you’re feeling good about your progress. Pieces of the garage floor are visible for the first time in years. Sure, you’ve sweated through a couple of T-shirts, and your vision is getting a little black and cloudy around the edges, but that will pass. One way or another.
Plot twist: It turns out you only ended up cleaning the garage because your carpentry and architectural skills are extremely lacking. (I guess you could call this Bad Decision #1, but sometimes bad decisions exist outside the scientifically recognized parameters of time and space. Best not to dwell on it.)
When your 12-year-old, bored with the endless summer days filled with infinite screen time and zero structured activities, announces one Friday morning that he wants to do a project, and that project is building a treehouse in your backyard, you’re going to have to scramble.
First, you’ll stop and think, “Aww, he’s growing up before my eyes, but he’s not too old for treehouses… That’s so sweet. However, oh no… this might be the last time he ever asks to do this. Can we do it? How hard could it be? Might need some lumber? Maybe a saw and/or hammer? I read once that you should always build the treehouse sooner rather than later because that day when it’s too late will sneak up on you.” You have to pull the ripcord on this train of thought as quickly as possible before you either cry or agree to do something even more stupid than, well, you know what…
“How about we clean out the garage instead?”
For some reason, your son agrees to this even though it’s July 31, the outside air is a sweat-drenched weighted blanket, and cleaning a garage is objectively suburbia’s worst chore. It’s also so much less whimsical than building a treehouse.
You don’t get very far with the garage cleaning when the golf clubs appear. Your clubs are there, in the space between the chest freezer and the hoverboard graveyard, old forgotten friends. A second bag sits beside yours, presumably holding your spouse’s golf clubs. You don’t remember them ever being used.
If your spouse happens to be 2500 miles away in San Diego, you’ll have to fire off a quick text to get a status update on the golf clubs. Is she planning to peel the layer of dryer lint off them and hit the links soon? The answer is no, she’s not. The clubs can go. You’re halfway to the curb with a bundle of golf clubs under one arm when her follow-up text suggests selling the clubs at the used sporting goods store around the corner.
It’s easy to have big, bold ideas when you’re in San Diego.
Sure, dumping old golf clubs on the curb for the trash collection probably isn’t the most environmentally friendly choice. However, there was a strong chance one of the roving scavengers in a giant pickup truck would’ve salvaged them before the garbage truck arrived, so it’s kind of like donating if you think about it the right way.
However, because ours is a money-driven society, once your 12-year-old catches the scent of potential cash in the stagnant, humid air, the possibility of donating (to the trash pile) goes out the window.
Give the old clubs a quick wipe-down with the rag that’s been sitting on top of the water heater since the twenty-teens, and off to the used sporting goods store you go!
The car a/c blasts you in the face, sending the beads of sweat on your brow running for cover as you make the short drive from your house to the used sporting goods store.
In the parking lot, as you awkwardly gather up the loose golf clubs and a pair of roller skates you tossed in at the last minute to maximize your forthcoming windfall, you begin to sweat even more. Not because of the heat this time, but because of the anxiety that comes with entering an unfamiliar situation. Particularly an unfamiliar situation where you have to sell something. Humiliating. You avoid garage sales like the plague. You try (without much success) to disguise your horror when your children and their friends suggest setting up a lemonade stand. You may or may not have had to dive into the bushes to avoid being subjected to the cringefest that is a “customer” stopping by a children’s lemonade stand.
At least you’re not expecting too much. You’d be happy to get rid of the golf clubs and the roller skates and walk out with thirty or forty dollars in your pocket. Easy.
Well…
You walk in with 18 golf clubs under one arm and a pair of roller skates in your hand. You walk out of the store ten minutes later, a little dazed and confused, with 17 golf clubs under one arm and $11 in your pocket.
What happened?
You enter the store and weave your way through shelves piled with sports junk—baseball bats so old they look like Babe Ruth might’ve used them, a mashie wielded by Old Tom Morris, etc.
The guy at the desk asks if you’re selling.
Yes, hence the bundle of golf clubs under your arm and the roller skates.
You two do an awkward little dance to hand over the clubs, and he dumps them on the floor behind the desk. He says he’ll have an offer for you in a couple of minutes.
You browse football cleats with your son until he calls you back over.
“Okay, we can give you eleven dollars cash for the roller skates and the driver. Or eighteen dollars in store credit. We’ll pass on the rest. They’re a bit old.”
Excuse me? Used sporting goods stores are allowed to pass? My junk isn’t welcome here, but Sam Snead’s personal golf clubs on the rack in the front window are?
This whole thing seems illegal, but you consider the offer carefully, turning the numbers over in your mind.
“I’ll take the cash.”
“Sure thing! Here you go, and here are the rest of your clubs.”
Super.
The walk of shame back to the car is one you’ll never forget. The pile of golf clubs in the trunk of your car seems bigger and more tangled than ever. You still love them, though.
You feel the urge to get back into golf and show the used sporting goods store just what they’re missing out on. Somehow. The logistics of shoving it in their face remain to be determined.
On the drive home, you joke with your son to cover up the pain.
“What should we do with our eleven dollars?”
You both laugh.
“I don’t know… but I know what we can do with the clubs,” your son says.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. We should have a garage sale!”
The horrors persist.
A couple of behind-the-scenes notes exclusively for my Substack folks. Ended up writing this one in second person, but believe it or not, it’s about me!
My son and I have started going to the driving range to work on our swings/seek revenge on the used sporting goods store. The first time we went, my golf shoes fell apart.
Thinking about swinging by the used sporting goods store to see how much I can get for them. Gently used.
I wrote the initial draft of this piece in a literal notebook! I decided it was time to get back to basics and go analog. Just kidding… my kids had their friends over, and they were using my phone and laptop (in addition to their own iPads) to play games, so I had no available devices to type on. Necessity breeds innovation!
Words by me, Andrew Knott. Best known for duck, Baby-sitters Club, and horse.
My books:
Love’s a Disaster - contemporary fiction about a marriage proposal gone wrong, complicated families, mini-golf, second-chance love, Florida, sword fighting, and punk rock music.
Fatherhood: Dispatches From the Early Years - essays and humor about the very early years of my parenting journey
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