Open Season: Garage Sales

I’m sure as I was sitting in church today, the people behind me were wondering what was wrong with my ears. Last weekend I had a garage sale. It was one of the first ones in our town of 5,000. What an honor! The day was great! We had sun, no clouds, and a dry drive way, despite it having snowed the day before (thank goodness it didn’t stick). We sold almost everything we had set out to sell. Along with some extra money, I also got my first sunburn. It was pretty bad, and a week later, I’m still feeling the effects of it. Bonus for me, my ears look like I have a form of leprosy.

I love garage sales. I love the smell of an old garage, old stuff, shiny 20 lb. metal appliances that might blow up, rickety furniture (even though it looks like a great bargain at the sale), and especially some of the people you might meet. I’m passing this onto my kids. Isaac, my oldest, will comb the Wednesday paper for garage sales. Saturday morning, if I even leave the house for a small errand, he can usually talk me into cruising for sales. This weekend, he expressed to me how much he loves those sales. I could tell. He had the same loopy grin and glazed over eyes I tend to get when I’m thinking of them.

Like I mentioned above, I like meeting the people. Well, most of them. One year I held the sale in August, just about the time my tomato plants had the perfect tomatoes ready to pick. I was eying those tomatoes all day, thinking about how great they would be as a snack, come about 5:00. I was also eight months pregnant and have a tendency to crave tomatoes. Just before I was ready to shut down, a lady and her two kids show up. While she was browsing she left her kids unattended. They got in my house, played with a huge bin of Lego blocks and threw them all over the living room. After I shoo’ed them out and directed my attention back to their mom, they picked all my tomatoes off the plant and threw them all over the yard. I did sell her a coffee table, but I had to load it in the car for her, big and pregnant as I was. Some people you just hope won’t come back.

Two years ago, Shiloah and I did a sale together. We sold a lot of stuff, but when we had been out in the heat for two days straight and were desperate to get rid of what we could, I started messing up on prices. We had made up some really cute pans with utensils, spices, and other odds and ends as gifts. No one ever bought them, so we tried to get rid of them at the sale. Finally, a guy showed up that wanted just the pans, and wanted to know what we would take for them. I told him $15.00. He asked if $12.00 would be okay. I heard myself just start running my mouth. “Well, I bought them for $16.00, so I’ll take $20.00.” He looked at me like I’d lost my rabid mind. Well, the heat will do that to you. I sold them for $12.00, too embarrassed to even say anything. Last year at my sale, I discovered things shut down about noon. The people here are like vultures. The hard core garage salers are out at 6. “No Earlybirds” does not apply to them. By 9:00 the rush is pretty much over and you have a few crumbs left. As I was loading up my van to take the last of my sale to storage, an old, tiny lady showed up. She wanted my card table, but she didn’t know how she could get it back to her tent. She was driving a Harley motorcycle. A friend helped her out get it back to her tent. She was camping by the lake for the summer and left her card table out in the rain the night before, and don’t you know that rain had ruined it?

This year, we accepted two checks from a lady that bought a few pieces of furniture. After we had cleaned up and shut down, her husband knocked on my door. I had a bit of anxiety, since I had heard that people sometimes try to “return” stuff. He asked if I had more than two checks from her, as she had lost one. I showed him what I had, but I apologized I did not have any other checks, and none others from her. As he turned to leave, he says, “Fine. I’ll tell the GROUCH I lost a check!” Okay, then.

Sometimes you just can’t please them all.

There is a site that gives wonderful advice on how to set up a garage sale. I used her idea for my signs: Paper bags, filled with rocks/old shoes with a sign stapled to it, put at strategic intersections directing people to your sale. Last year I got so many people with those signs, and I didn’t even advertise in the paper. This year I did the same, and still got compliments on the signs. Try it!! If you want to read some of her stories go here:

http://www.yardsalequeen.com/stories.htm