The Garage Sale Starts at 9! Get Out of Here! I Mean It! Go!

Filed in archive General on July 20, 2007

We had a garage sale a few years back, put an ad in the community newspaper to advertise it. We made a little money, but I'm in no hurry to go down that path again.

We advertised the garage sale to start at 9AM, but at 7:30 people were wandering down our driveway and starting to finger the stuff. We weren't even out of our P.J.s yet and these people are already in our space acting like the store's open. We shooed them away and they acted like feral cats, backing up just far enough to make sure our flailing arms wouldn't hit them, but staying close enough that they could swoop back in were we so foolish as to, I don't know, go get dressed.

Having a bad taste in my mouth from the start, I wasn't surprised when people haggled so hard that you'd think all of our objects and the garage itself weren't worth more than 37 cents-"I'll buy this for a quarter if you'll also throw in those tennis rackets, the lawn mower and that whole table of kids games." I understand it's a garage sale, but come on. The prices are already marked down 99%.

The icing on the cake was when a person returned something and wanted her money back. But not just her money back, her money and a little more. She bought for 50 cents and came back wanting a dollar in return. I would've thought all sales are final at a garage sale, but she finally got her money back. At least we were strong enough to insist on no more than she'd originally given us. It's not the 50 cents, it's the principle.

Part of me felt sad that someone would come back and try to get an extra 50 cents out of a returned garage sale item, but I didn't get the feeling the woman was poor. I just got the feeling she liked seeing if she could get something for nothing, if she could grift 50 cents out of thin air from the stupid slobs that shlep all their crap out to the garage in hopes of making 30 bucks for a full day's worth of sitting in a lawn chair and having people pick through your unwanted possessions.

All that said, my wife thinks she could get $5.00 for the 15 pairs of pants that my son outgrew in his first few years of life and that probably cost our relatives and friends a combined $150 to purchase, so don't be surprised to see me out in my garage soon.