Garage Sale

I have been involved in exactly two garage sales in my entire life. The first was when I was 12 and my friend Kathleen's family was getting ready to move. We were kids, it was great fun for us and her parents bought us ice cream or something with part of the profits.

The second was this morning. I am still learning the ropes of being a townhouse resident, but one of the things people in planned communities do is they have community events. This weekend, our particular community had a garage sale. Anyone with anything to sell could put it out on their driveway and the masses would come flocking.

We didn't sell much (including some things that were actually pretty good finds), but we have $50 we didn't have this morning and there is ever so slightly less clutter in our basement. And, it was prime people watching.

My first observation, any two people capable of speaking a foreign language will speak it when discussing your old stuff in front of you. I particularly enjoyed this as I have a decent grasp of Spanish and could pick up what the Spanish speakers were saying to each other when they thought I was just another clueless American.

Number two, for people picking through things someone else wants to throw out, garage sale shoppers can be ridiculously picky. That's old. That's dirty. That's outdated. Well, duh, if there was nothing wrong with it, would I be selling it to you for a quarter?

Number three, there are a surprising number of people bargain hunting who either don't need to or shouldn't need to. I saw a woman pull up in a Mercedes SUV that costs about $70,000 new. And I don't think she was just looking for good, cheap antiques.

And finally, I noticed that some people will argue with you no matter what the price. They want to think they are getting a bargain. We sold our old space heater to an older couple for $20 (talked down from $30) and the husband was interested in my husband's spare gas can. It's a big one, fairly new nothing wrong with it. He said $2 and the man was ready to willingly pay. His wife would not give him the money until we agreed to $1 because "eet's old." It is two years old and $2 was a really good bargain, but some people only think they're getting a bargain if they force you to give it to them.