Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2001-10-20 - 9:17 p.m.

Garage Sale

I went garage saling today, from the right side of the moneybox. I got to be part of a group garage sale held by my best friend. She has a good neighborhood for garage sales and a nice front yard in which to hold it. I was happy to have the chance to get rid of some of my junk.(Excuse me - collectibles.)

I like garage sales. For me, it's about getting rid of stuff. I never make any money because I never have anything WORTH any money. But some good stuff went away and some people were pleased with it, and that's neat. The last sale we had, I remember an elderly lady agonizing over a skein of yarn from a big box my mother had given me. She finally asked, "How much for this?" I told her twenty-five cents; she agonized some more, so I said, "For the whole box." She was so pleased. I suppose some of that yarn will end up in another garage sale sometime, but some of those garage sale items will be worn baby booties and hats, I just betcha.

My friend that invited me to the sale today was getting rid of a leather shirt. Now, I gave her this leather shirt many years ago; I myself had bought it at a flea market. It was a lovely soft buttery suede. I wore it some, and she wore it some, and today a good friend of hers dropped by and we gave it to her. We're getting a hell of a lot more sisterly mileage out of that skin than the cow ever had a chance to. Cool.

There's some weird stuff about garage sales, though. One lady came, she bought quite a few small items, but she must have stayed an hour. She looked at every item over and over, and inquired about each price, and went back and back and back to the same things. She drove a perfectly middle-class car; how long should she have to fret over whether or not she wanted a twenty-five cent wine glass? Toss the sucker in there, Martha; you can Goodwill it if it doesn't match the others. She actually got kind of creepy. "Take it!! Just TAKE IT ALREADY!! Jeeze! I want to go to the bathroom!" And somebody STOLE a set of towels from another participant. Now that's got to be bad karma - stealing towels from a garage sale. Impress your guests: "Like them? I ripped 'em off - used."

I think the bargaining thing is really weird, too, but people seem to want to do that. If you say it's a quarter they will ask if you'll take a dime. If you say the same item is a dollar and they get it for a quarter, they're still happy. They just need to get it cheaper than you first tell them. I HATE bargaining. I wasn't good at it when I traveled and I'm not good at it now. It embarrasses me. If you say it's a quarter I'll either buy it or I won't. I can never ask you, "How about a dime?" It's just too weird. But people do this at garage sales, no matter how low your prices are. Nobody ever asks you just to give them stuff, though. You'd think they would. After all, nickels and dimes are more hassle then they're worth, especially when the woman who just got you down from a quarter to a dime is going to give you a freakin' twenty to take it out of, so you have to chase down your friends and borrow change and then you get into that bizarre group-garage-sale math - "Okay, you gave me change for the twenty but you took my breadmaker and I took your little set of shelves but I owe you for the ad in the paper, so where are we?"

So next time I go to a garage sale I'm just gonna ask for some free stuff. "How much is it? A dollar? Can I just have it?" That might surprise them. Hey, you know and I know that you do not want to take that stuff back into your house; that's the whole point. I would have given anything I had today away to someone who would be pleased with it and find it useful, but I get slightly offended at the people who felt my stuff wasn't worth the twenty-five or fifty cents I was asking for it. Free, now, that's a valuable piece of commerce; free involves goodwill. But "I know you said a dollar but would you take a dollar for BOTH?" somehow doesn't have that same sense of goodwill; more of getting away with something, getting a better deal than I was offering. I'm weird, I know. But if that elderly yarn woman had said, "Will you take fifteen cents for the whole box?" I probably would have said, "Well, no - but have a nice day."

�

previous - next

�