Let me tell you about Garage Sales...
For the last few weeks I have slaved over junk in my cellar and everywhere else I have junk, to ready myself for a Garage Sale. I made the mistake of choosing a date for the thing and telling folks about the impending fiasco, so I was committed to do it.
I went through boxes that had been packed away years ago when we thought we were going to make a move...We didn't move, and neither did the boxes of stored stuff.....it stayed where we packed it and I forgot about them.
I closed an office in October 2006. At the office I had lots of things that I quickly boxed up as we were shutting off the lights and leaving for the last time. The offices boxes were sent to the cellar to become neighbors of the other boxes I had stored.
Opening the stored boxes for the first time in years brought about memories of times past, both good and bad. The items in the boxes reminded me of things I had stored in the recesses of my mind and I'm not sure I wanted to revisit at this time...but too late... I had the boxes opened and the memories came flooding out, along with the "stuff". Looking into the first box I realized this Garage Sale was a good idea. Why do we keep stuff that we're not using? The stuff in this box could have been tossed in the garbage the day I packed it and I would never have felt the pain of the memories the stuff unleashed. It did give me some merchandise to sell however, so it was kind of a good thing, I guess.
The office stuff, now that's another story. Why I packed the things I did is beyond me. Again though, it gave me some more merchandise to sell.
The night before the sale I remembered past sales and the number of people who showed up at my door hours before the actual sale. I wrote, in very large letters on poster board, "GO AWAY UNTIL 10:00" and " Nobody gets to see the Wizard, Not no time . Not no how...before 10:00", and plastered it on my garage door. This was supposed to deter the "early birds". It did it's job...sort of.
At 9:30am the cars started to appear at my driveway... The cars were running and in each window of every car were pairs of eyes. I could see them peering at my house and the garage door. I slipped out the back door to put some things in the car port and nearly died of fright as I turned the corner and walked into a tall stranger looking through my fireplace wood pile. I asked him what he was looking for and he said, "How much do you want for the wood under this tarp?" I looked at him and said, "The sale doesn't start until 10:00 and the wood's not for sale. Go away and get a cup of coffee for a half an hour please". Wow...I thought, I think I'm in for some fun today...No truer words were thought or said...
The day was overcast and I feared I'd have to contend with rain. I had hopes it wouldn't start to rain until later in the day. This was Friday and I hoped that most of the stuff would sell this first day so on Saturday I could mark everything down and practically give things away just to get the stuff out of my sight.
I had signs on the outside doors telling people when the sale was to start, but as noted before, apparently some folks can't read. I guess there's a certain number of folks who cruise garage sales trying to be first so they can get the best pickings. They remind me of the buzzards you see in the desert overhead, waiting for something to die so they can sweep down and get the juiciest pieces of carrion. It's kind of creepy when you think of the folks that come first as the "pickers of flesh".
The first guys ( and they were men, which floored me) came looking for tools, old cabinetry, guns (gees, I never would think to put guns in a garage sale, what its this? the Wild West?), fishing equipment ( I later found out that fishing lures were heavy duty collectibles...Boy would my Dad be mad...he threw away a veritable fortune in old lures over the years). I stood by and watched them as they surveyed the junk, whoops, I mean good stuff. You could tell what they wanted to buy and what they wanted you to think they wanted to buy. It was like watching a mating game with birds. They would kind of preen around the stuff they wanted, but then walk away quickly, hoping I wouldn't realize they wanted a prize on the table. (In reality I wouldn't have cared if they pocketed whatever it was, I just wanted it out of my sight!). They would then pick up something totally different, turn it over and over, inspecting it for, who knows what and put it down. The next thing was to go back to the original treasure and do a side glance at it, look it over again, pick it up, hold it up and say, "How much did you want for this?" Knowing full well the price was on it. It was really interesting.
Some people were happy to get things for the stated prices, but most wanted to wheel and deal. I didn't give a cat's whisker, just give me something so I could say I didn't waste all my time doing this stupid sale...
The ones really got to me were the ones that told me their whole history before getting to the crux of the matter, which was buying something from me at a lesser price than I was asking. Then there were the ones with the kids in tow. That was quite a trial. Kids touch everything; they drop things, they try things out, they take things apart ( that aren't supposed to be apart). In general, they're a pain in the neck at a garage sale. I also think they act as the distraction when some unsavory characters come to steal from you ( and yes, that does happen, not a lot mind you, but it happens).
I had folks tell me my stuff was junk. I had one lady who was angry with me because I sold something she wanted to someone else before she could get here. (That was weird...) One man told me that he'd take everything in the garage for $50.00. (That included the stuff that wasn't part of the sale: snow blower, lawn mower, rototiller, motorcycle helmets, strollers, highchair, etc. I politely sad, " What? Are you nuts?Get out of here!" One lady said I'd do better if I served tea breads and coffee as the shoppers walked around ( I think she thought she was in some Rodeo Drive store or something...I offered her a glass of water....). One man wanted a chair to sit in while his grandson took apart all the toys and undressed all the dolls...That lasted about three minutes... One man walked into my house through the back door looking for furniture that I may be selling. (Honest). It was a nightmare.
Finally Friday was over...just Saturday to look forward too...NOT!!!
Saturday, the rain started to fall at 10:00am sharp, just as I was opening the garage door. In front of the door stood three people. They were very polite but wanted to know if they should immediately reduce all the prices on the merchandise in half since it was raining. I thought about it for a minute, then said, "Nope, if it doesn't sell I'm donating everything that's left to the Childrens Hospital in Beijing China", turned around and smiled all the way to the back of the garage.
Saturday was nasty. Missy (daughter ) and Kelly ( 3 year old granddaughter) came over to help and open a lemonade stand ( it would've been better if they made hot chocolate, it was freezing, raining and miserable). People bought lemonade and rice crispie treats (Kelly wanted to make those for the sale as well, I wondered where that lady that wanted the tea bread and coffee was, she would have been happy with little Kelly's contribution to the sale).
People did buy stuff and I made a profit, so I guess it can be said the garage sale was a success. I can't retire on what I made but when I figured out what my hourly salary was it came to just over minimum wage...1n 1965.
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