The Great Yard Sale Wars of Maple County.

Every neighborhood has a neighbor. Edna Mae Ferguson was there in Maple County, Ohio. Edna Mae was the yard sale queen—she was the unrestrained Empress. She topped every spring with shelves of color-coded bric-a-brac sold sensibly and advertised "free coffee with every $10 purchase." Nobody ever figured out how she did it, and she always seemed to have tons of stuff to sell. Either in gathering some or a fence for the second-hand store a block away, people would use to gossip. The whole lot of yard sales in bulk just in order to net a quarter resale, others suspected. Unrelenting. On the whole, in lighthearted jest, that could be grist for mockery throughout Maple County, stakes were high this year.

Thus, in Edna Mae's face, Jerry "Buck" Walters, retired postal clerk with too much time and too little to do, had been sitting for a while musing on Edna Mae's yard sale monopoly as "bad for the economy," whatever that was meant to signify. This year, he thought, he'd give her a run for it.

He posted a sign in his front yard:

"Buck's Bargain Bonanza – No Tricks, Only Savings. Saturday at 7 a.m."

Edna Mae joined her over and added to her sign as well:

"Annual Sale – Accept No Imitations – Free Coffee, Cookies, and Honesty."

Maple County was small, had one gas pump, two stop signs, and three churches—but now it had a war.

Pre-Saturday nights were tense. Sides were selected. Town Facebook page imploded. "Team Edna" was composed of churchgoers, members of the book club, and PTA lifers. "Team Buck" was made up of teenagers, conspiracy theorists, and one person named Dale who liked watching things catch on fire.

Saturday morning dawned with the gravity of a national holiday. Double-parked cars filled the streets on either side of Maple Avenue. Lawn chairs and coolers under arm, individuals showed up as if celebrating the 4th of July.

Edna Mae had a whole bunch that would make the fumes of Walmart go crazy: books; one book in every genre that it was written in; one entire table was filled with resold candles-most of them being angel-shaped; an old-fashioned ironing board; a humongous amount of still-packaged chia pets.

And so Buck, with his American flag tablecloth, off-brand soda cooler, and boombox blasting Lynyrd Skynyrd, came up with the plan. All $1—a rusty chainsaw, a TV remote without a TV, or something in between.

Buck, eager to get customers in, had even constructed a cardboard grill and was operating "free hot dogs with purchase."

That's when it went bad.

At 10:45, Edna Mae tripped on the sidewalk, holding a half-melted Tupperware lid.

"Buck, that's mine. I sold it to Mavis in 2018. See the teeth marks—her grandbaby chewed on it!"

Buck was obstinate. "Possession is nine-tenths of the law, Edna. Mavis likely sold it back to me. Circle of life."

Edna Mae glared at him like she was attempting to petrify him. Buck simply handed her a hot dog.

It was then that the bees came.

Through the mercy of chance, one of the hot dogs had slipped off the grill and was on the ground next to a flowering bush of flowers. A swarm of bees were already there before you could say "sweet relish." Pandemonium was the day's order. Someone tipped over a rack of VHS tapes in Edna Mae's front yard. A baby threw a sippy cup into Buck's cooler. It was beautiful pandemonium.

Both of the yard sales were closed down by noon time. One folding chair was still in the street. Edna Mae's lawn gnome's head had been knocked off. Buck's grill ended up somehow two houses away from where it had been placed to begin with.

And then, after all the chaos had subsided, something wonderful did occur. They sat in their cars, they laughed, and they shared stories. A boombox got plugged in somewhere. Edna Mae reluctantly accepted a soda from Buck. He paid her back by rewarding her with a candle in the form of a goose.

No one won the Great Yard Sale Battle, but instead called a cease-fire.

Now they have a sale in twos annually. Buck barbecues. Edna Mae works the counter. They even rented a dunk tank one year, which just so happened to drench the mayor, but that's another tale.

If you ever find yourself in Maple County during springtime, just follow the signs. You won't just have great bargains—you'll have a story.