Garage Sale Tales

We had the garage sale this weekend. I can say with one-hundred percent confidence that this is not something I care to do again any time soon, or ever again for that matter. What I can tell you is that I learned a very valuable lesson doing my short time as a garage salesmen – be sure to go through the items a little more carefully before haphazardly throwing my possessions into the driveway. Case in point, I had a bear (mistakenly) sitting amongst some pillows on a couch, and what do you know, some guy (who was pretending he did not understand English even though Butterfinger and I overheard him talking with someone on the phone in English) wanted to buy it.

Not really thinking, and utterly frazzled as to why he would pretend he needed his daughter to translate a language he clearly understood, I just kind of blurted out a number and he gave me a couple of bills. It was not until I asked Butterfinger how much we would want for a fan that I realized what bear this was – it was the gangster bear he gave me years ago! So as the guy was giving me the money for the fan, I was explaining that I had made a mistake and needed the bear back, telling him in a very apologetic way that it had sentimental value, expecting that, like any human being not completely devoid of emotions, that he would understand. What do you know, the guy totally flips out!! He practically threw the fan back at me, hopped in his beat-up car and was yelling the whole way out of the cul-de-sac. Who knew a middle aged man could get so bent out of shape about a stuffed animal he had just picked up 2 minutes prior?!

The rest of the morning was not quite as eventful, I think in total maybe 10 people showed up? One of which wasted about 20 minutes of Butterfinger’s time asking him to show him each and every specification for a camcorder that he was buying at basically half price. Then there was the woman who wasted about 10 minutes of my time, asking me to describe the symbolism of the horseshoe on a sombrero she was going to buy for her son’s school project on Mexico. Another was a younger kid who bought a book bag and a drinking game chess set for $11, and there were also a pair of nice, older women that bought Butterfinger’s old dresser, completely covered in skateboarding stickers, as a project for them to work on while they watched TV. We liked them so much that Butterfinger followed them across the street to their retirement village to deliver the dresser for them, as it would have been a tight squeeze in their economy-sized car.

The highlight of the sale was talking to the neighbors and giving them things for free or super cheap, which is probably why if you look at our product to profit ratio it may seem a bit off. I am not so sure how it is going to go over once our neighbor’s wife finds out all of the things we told him he could have, but I do plan on being present when he tells her/starts moving the equipment over for his personal back yard gym. I gave my favorite little neighbor a pillow and some colored pencils, both of which she took with her to the park. We also met a new neighbor (new to us at least) who spent a good hour or so with us, taking things off of our hands, buying some items and just giving us a different perspective.

My thoughts – do yourself a favor and only have a yard sale if you have piles and piles of useless, worthless junk that you are willing to part ways with for pennies on the dollar. Do not bother putting price tags on the items, they will be ignored. Instead, prepare yourself to hear “Whaddya want for this” and “How much” ad nauseum to the point where you feel your head might explode from the repetition. Anything priced higher than about $5-10 will not sell. I do not care if you are selling a crystal punch bowl, bag of diamonds or the cure for AIDS, people will not buy stuff if it means they have to get out a bill with a face other than Washington, Lincoln or Hamilton on it.

The early birds will show up at your house 30-45 minutes before you are ready to put your items out to sell, offering you all sorts of low-ball offers to take the items off of your hands. They will ask you if you have items you have either never heard of before or have never and will never own, these are the treasure hunters, searching the sales for items of particular value. Others will use the opportunity to attend a yard sale as a way to advertise their business, before the 50 year old baby threw a fan at me, he went ahead and offered his services for “junk” removal, letting me know that he would give me a real good price to haul away all my unwanted items. No thanks.