The Truth About Garage Sales …

Today we had a garage sale at our place. Holy moly, it’s a hard day’s work. I. Am. Knackered. I do indeed believe though that I have become a little wiser in the ways of this backyard market economy.

Here is a rundown of what I have learnt ….

• Any garage sale, worth it’s weight in mustard yellow Tupperware, is not just about a single day’s work. Nope. No way. This shit consumes weeks of your life. Sorting. Pricing. Re-pricing. Re-sorting. Throwing your hands up in the air. Cleaning. Want me to continue, or quit moaning now?
• You do know, don’t you, that even a whisper of the words shhhhhh g-a-r-a-g-e s-a-l-e shhhhh brings a hoard of friends more than happy to piggyback upon your ad in the local paper and cart their crap around to your place? Therefore any option to back-out and change your mind swiftly disappears and you are doomed to a Saturday of strange strangers traipsing amongst tables of your worldly goods.
• You can safely bet that someone will undoubtedly haggle you down to 50c for treasure you had priced at $7. It’ll be the only thing they buy and they’ll pull out a $50 to pay for it. Jerks.
• Time is in fact irrelevant when you desperately want it to matter – guaranteed, the 6 am start you specify will be interpreted (by no fewer than 2 idiots) as 5.25 am.
• All of the care and consideration with which you arrange and display your shit wares will be of absolutely no concern to those who rummage for bargains and toss it aside (possibly like the crap it is)
• No one loves – or can ever love – your unwanted shit as much as you do. Face it. If you don’t want the junk any more, it’s more than likely that no-one will be prepared to pay double digits for it. Sorry.
• Not everyone (and possibly not even anyone) will share your definition of ‘rare’, ‘unique’ or ‘vintage’. This is a bugger and a pain which grows enormously after you close shop and and have to trudge everything back inside to re-home!
• The trip that you will make to the Lifeline bin at the end of the day would possibly be the same trip you could have made minus the garage sale bit in the middle!
• There will be at least one opportunity to feel insulted – today it was when an old(ish) lady asked if I was Baby Girl’s grandmother! WTF?!!! I could find no small solace in that one. You win lady, you win.

It’s not all bad though. The garage sale gave Mr Middle Young Man the inspiration to go through the things cluttering his room like a dose of the proverbial salts. He set up his own stall, he priced all of his goods himself and was on-hand to hassle the customers in a manner that would do any Balinese street-stall holder proud. He is now $53.70 richer for his efforts. That’s my boy

Have you have some funny garage sale experiences? As a seller or a buyer? I know that I prefer being a buyer and bagging the crap out of someone else’s crap. Please do share, this tired and worn out stall holder needs a great laugh tonight!