Most people would say that I am a very organized person. As I've aged, however, I've learned to go with the flow more often. I still want structure, mind you. I want to know that the meals will come regularly and that people are not going to do chores only as the spirit moves them, but I have less need for control. Ironically, being a girl scout leader taught me flexibility. After all, the girl scout motto is "be prepared." But the girl scouts also value girl-planning---and to institute girl planning well, you must learn the difference between being prepared and taking control.

Yesterday, I did a good job of being prepared while not taking over control. I wasn't with the girl scouts. My troop ended a natural death a year or so ago when the girls began high school. No, I was at a rummage sale, once again raising money for the Friends of Camp Anokijig. The rummage sale was the brainchild of several older teenage boys. I just agreed to help.

I know that Kat says that using "organized" and "teenage boy" in the same sentence usually is an oxymoron and I will agree that the organization was not perfect. They had found a place for the rummage sale (and car wash), had advertised it in the local papers, and had solicited a lot of donations of items. They had managed to get tables because someone had asked them where they would get them from. They even had managed to arrange for signs�sort of.

When I got down to the location and had my car unloaded, I asked about the signs. It seems that someone supposedly had made signs. There was just one small problem: the sale started at 10:00 a.m. and the girl they had got to make them signs was not going to be there until 11:30 a.m. or so. In the old days, I would have gotten flustered. I don't fluster as easily anymore. I looked across the parking lot from where we were and noticed an office supply store. I went and bought poster board, markers, and tape and considered it an additional donation.

Then there was the little matter of my markers. Being honest, much of the incident with the markers was my fault. After I made the necessary signs, including pricing signs (such as they were as the pricing was handled very simply: make us a reasonable offer and we'll take it, another teenage guy idea), I started taping them up. Somewhere along the way, I put down the markers. I told the cashier to please let me know if someone found my markers. Instead, they sold my markers. (Oh, well. Someone got a brand-new set of markers, probably for too good a price.)

We had a lot of stuff to sell and, as in any good rummage sale, it ranged from furniture to life jackets to clothing to television sets and on. People would come up to me and ask where specific things might be. The best I could tell them was to think like a teenage boy. For example, the electronic items were logically set out all in one spot. But differences between bedding and clothing simply did not exist. Kitchen items and tchatkes (those little what's-its) were all grouped together. There was no distinction between useful items and decorative ones.

Still and all, it worked and, until I had to attend a banquet at the stamp show Mr. Philately was working at, so did I. They raised a nice chunk of change. They just did

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