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Once a year, or so, I feel an uncanny need to atone for my sins against our household budget by holding a garage sale.

When our home begins to look like it should be featured on the season finale of "Hoarders," I simply can't resist the urge to put all of our surplus underwear and small appliances on display in the front yard, and invite complete strangers over to rummage through them. (Some even pay actual money to carry them off.)

The most punishing aspect of the entire garage-sale experience is the preparation. This usually involves arguing with my wife and daughters over whether we actually need four Easy-Bake Ovens, or if we might be able to survive the winter with just three. I then spend two solid days sorting through enough outgrown female children's clothing to costume a synchronized dance troupe at the national birthday party of Kim Jong-un. Sometimes, going through the girls' old clothes actually makes me kind of wistful and sad, not because I'm sentimental, but because I think of all of the Chick-fil-A chicken biscuits I could have purchased with the money I've spent on overpriced, matching designer clothes that the girls might have worn for 20 minutes until they whined enough to convince us to let them change back into their cut-off shorts and Hello Kitty t-shirts from Walmart.

On the day before this year's sale, I got out of bed especially early (which, when I'm not at work, is any time before noon) to turn my garage into a miniature Hanna Andersson outlet. I had felt a little woozy that morning, but I figured it was just the shock of being out of bed and actually wearing pants at that hour on my day off. As I stood in the open garage enjoying the breeze and carefully arranging an enormous pile of fleece pajamas that appeared to belong to a family of polygamists living in the Arctic, I began to feel the unmistakable sensation in my gut that told me I was about to "L'Eggo my Eggo" all over my display of ballet leotards if I didn't move quickly. Unfortunately, the closest semi-private vomitorium I could reach in time was a massive hedge along the side of my neighbors' house. Luckily, they weren't home at the time (and if they happen to read this column, I want to invite them to barf in my begonias any time the need arises).

Once I had thoroughly fertilized the shrubbery next door, I began to feel much better and managed to convince myself that I might have just ingested an expired waffle, instead of contracting a dreaded "tummy bug." Since I was practically finished setting up the garage sale, I did what one naturally does after a good upchuck on the neighbor's landscaping; I mowed my front yard. (I strongly believe in an aesthetically pleasing presentation when I invite the community onto my property to browse through my family's unwanted belongings.)

About two-thirds of the way through my mowing, my bowels suddenly made it clear that they were surrendering to the dark side. It was as if Darth Vader found my lack of respect for the rotavirus disturbing and applied his telekinetic stranglehold to my large intestine. At first, I couldn't move at all. I just stood there with the wheels of my self-propelled Husqvarna spinning in place and tried to clench every orifice shut for fear of turning into a human pressure washer in front of the entire neighborhood. Eventually, I gathered the strength to lean forward against the mower and waddle it back to my storage shed like a penguin with sciatica.

My only hope at that point was to retreat indoors and apply my traditional stomach virus remedy of taking a few warm baths, remaining isolated in my bedroom for an entire day, making my wife and daughters feel really sorry for me, and hoping to shrink my love handles in the process. (If it weren't for the crippling nausea, near-fatal dehydration, and deprivation of Mexican food, I might do this more often.)

The next morning, other than feeling like a tube of hemorrhoid ointment that had been trampled by a stampede of water buffalo, I was well enough to carry on with the garage sale. As I sat in my garage, fielding awkward questions from shoppers about my partially mowed grass, I felt blessed to be alive and thanked the Lord for the inventors of Saltines and Gatorade. I even made enough money on the sale to buy myself a brand new pair of Darth Vader fleece pajamas.

May the hork be with you! (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

- Jason Graves

Jason (Jase) Graves is a married father of three daughters, a lifelong resident of Longview, Texas, and a Texas A&M Aggie. He writes about home and family issues from a humorous perspective for the Cagle Cartoons syndicate and his blog. Other than writing, his primary hobby is sleeping as late as possible.