Will you take a quarter for this?? (Garage Sale whoas)

Ah, summer in the ‘burbs. This conjures up many images; barbecues, pool time, lawnmowers buzzing, and if you are insane enough, having garage sales.

Yes, garage sales. This is a job that requires far more day’s work than the one-hundred dollars you will make on the actual day. I found this out last weekend when I hosted a garage sale in my (finally) cleaned out garage.

Now, you may be asking “why did you do this?” The answer I give you is “I am not sure”. Maybe I like torture. Maybe I like giving more than I get back in return. Maybe this was the light at the end of the too-cluttered tunnel for me. You see, I am a severe pack rat. I horde and I keep until I have too many of everything, and then I wonder why I can’t put anything else into my closets. I could pack it all up and take it to the Goodwill; I actually had started many boxes early this summer with good intentions of being a helping hand in my community. But then my sister called and said she had a great idea: let’s get together and have a garage sale.

Hmmm, the challenge of bartering with senior citizen Sunday school teachers sounded interesting.
It took me five days of setting up, boxing crap, finding tables (this is a challenge in itself) and cleaning the garage. We needed many card tables and I quickly found out that not many people own a card table. So I had to use my own ingenuity to come up with something. I taped up moving boxes with a lot of packing tape, making them indestructible. I was very proud! This was suitable to display my wares. We also crafted homemade neon green signs that read “Garage Sale!” It felt like kindergarten all over again as I lay on the floor coloring in letters with markers.

Next, deciding prices is interesting. What value do you put on an Banana Republic shirt? Or a set of pots and pans that you are getting rid of only because you got new ones for your wedding? I found that I had sentimental value for everything. I am sure that this is due to my pack rat illness. I had to tell myself over and over again that I do not need my every pair of jeans I ever wore, or candle holders that I have not used since the ’90s.

The morning of the sale was cooler and the weather was very beautiful. My sister stayed with me the night before because she wanted to get up very early. She was not, however, prepared for the 6:30 knock on our front door. She answered it sleepily and was confronted by a woman and her college-bound daughter. “Are we going to get this thing started?” she asked. This woman wasn’t messing around. She obviously had a battle plan prepared and a dream of scoring many bargains.

My sister got me up and we opened the garage to set everything out. I would have liked to have gotten myself ready, but I did not have a chance. The minute we opened our garage door we were accosted by several groups of seniors, with a few mom and children combos mixed in. I guess the early bird DOES get the worm. Or in the case, the blender and the used stereo.

The mom and college daughter scored big, finding a mini fridge, cookware, iron and miscellaneous household items for the college dorm. A few of the senior citizens looked around a left in a huff. What were they looking for? Antique toys? Decor in french blue and mauve? I did not have time to ponder this. I was busy helping a very excited preschool teacher add up the prices of the dolls and books she had found. “Will you take a quarter for this Barbie doll instead of 75 cents?” Seriously???

I suddenly had an epiphany; that people come to garage sales not only to cheaply clothe their nine children before the school year starts, but also for the thrill of bartering. The challenge of “winning” the bid, of being the final deciding party on what the item will sell for delights people. A safer way of gambling perhaps. I just wanted this stuff out of my house. Let the haggling begin!

At the end of the day, enough was sold to claim victory. I have only a couple of boxes left for Goodwill and a cool 100 bucks in my pocket. I won’t be doing this again, but at least I had the opportunity to participate in such a suburban fiasco.