I'm not the Garage Sale type

by

Patti Dickinson

We had our first garage sale yesterday. And our last.

This was my big idea.

I am a people watcher from way back. What better way to get a glimpse of people up close than to invite them to wander around your driveway, looking through your stuff? Plus, there's nothing wrong with making a little cash.

I wish I could tell you that it was a snap to pull it together. Nope. I had to browbeat kids to get them to go through their stuff for items to sell. Then I had to sort it all and put it on tables that I had to borrow from three different neighbors. That entailed having to figure out how to make the seats in my SUV go down flat. (You know, one person to read the directions aloud, slowly, and the other person fiddling with all the knobs to make something happen with the seats.) Then you need signs. Those cost about $5 each at the hardware store. Then the balloons to attach to each one to grab motorists' attention -- 3 at $3 each. And finally, the trip to the bank to get money to use as change. A wad of singles and some fives, ten dollars worth of quarters.

Some excerpts:

A woman who walked up with a small white, almost furless, overweight dog on a leash. All the way down the driveway this beast is growling. Growling as in I-am-going-to-take-a big-chunk-out-of-your-leg-if-you-get-close-enough. (I am a cat person)

It's hard not to take it personally when someone wanders up, spends 20 minutes ransacking through your stuff, and then throws it back on the table like people do at Macy's annual clearance sale. You know the one where people knock each other to the ground to get what they want.

We had one older woman whose husband parked at the end of our driveway while she came to shop. She wandered from table to table, sniffing almost dismissively. No sale there. She walks back to the car, opens the passenger door and shouts to her perhaps deaf husband, "They didn't have anything!" Sure we did, we had lots of stuff.

And finally, the professional garage sale-ers. These people could sift through a table of mens' shirts like you would shuffle cards. And then want a discount on the already rock bottom $3 price. This drew some smirks from both Wood and Andrew, who both thought that I had overinflated the prices ridiculously, anyway. When we were setting up, Andrew rolled the Nordic Track out. I slapped a $50 price tag on it. "WHAT? $50????? Are you kidding me? That thing is 20 years old!!!" Well, you know how that one ended. Yup, still have it. You can only imagine the funny comments I had to listen to as that thing got rolled back into the garage.

Interesting experience. Now I can say I did it once. But from now on, Goodwill is going to be the recipient of all of our discards......