Garage Sales

By no means am I experienced at garage sales.  I've been to a couple, had a couple myself, but I wouldn't dare write a book on how to hold a garage sale.   They're not my idea of fun, either as a buyer or a seller.  The haggling, the sitting around, the rain delays -- all of it is just wasteful to me, even if I am able, as a seller, to get rid of stuff and realize some cold hard cash in the bargain.

Last weekend Karen and I had another garage sale.  This one was done by the seat of our pants since we were throwing all manner of things out there without any rhyme or reason to it.  We had a bike rack, a bookshelf, various and sundry dishes and small kitchen appliances, a broken chainsaw, a fertilizer spreader, books, a defective map (it had the county listed as Londonderry and not Derry, which any good Irishman knows is simply wrong), garden tools, a wheelbarrow or two, a boxed ceiling fan -- in short, a menagerie of items for sale.

The people who attended our sale were both humorous and odd.  We didn't have any real jackasses, although there was a woman who wanted us to cut in half our price for the bike rack that was in almost pristine condition -- and was already being sold for less than one quarter of its original price.

One family, a couple with their two grown daughters, was a riot.  They fell in love with Sherman and Custer and bought a ton of stuff, staying roughly two hours.  An older man stayed with us regaling us with stories of his cherry-picking first edition books at garage sales for profit.  A pair of older women were so carefree, one of them buying cookbooks not because she cooks but because she likes to look at the pictures, the other offering Karen $5 to be allowed to dig up flowers in our flowerbed. Karen only paid $2 for them in the bargain bin.

A little neighborhood boy stayed with me for about a half hour just asking me questions.  Other children were with their parents, so I wasn't entirely comfortable with the situation, but no harm came of it.

The funniest incident involved a small community bus that pulled into our driveway and unloaded about twelve senior women, much like a small car pulling up and unloading an endless group of clowns.  Apparently, the village has this service for its seniors, who go from sale to sale looking for bargains.  It was hard not to lower prices for these cheerful women.  When they arrived I couldn't call Karen fast enough so she could come down to see the bus empty.

The other highlight of the sale was the number of Latino buyers who only spoke Spanish.  There were times when I was negotiating -- regateando -- in English and Spanish simultaneously.  Once, I didn't understand what someone said in Spanish, but Karen, who doesn't speak a whit of Spanish, did.  That's how confusing it was.

The rain cut both sales short and the second day Karen and I decided to go see World War Z.  I'm not into that whole zombie thing, but given the sometimes frenetic pace of the sales, seeing zombies was quite appropriate.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles