I love garage sales, as long as I am the buyer and not the seller.
A few years ago, we held a sale in our driveway with less than stellar results. We should have done better – it was a mini-block sale with two houses across from ours both participating. We kept an eye on the progress of those sales and were embarrassed to see that the stuff was flying off the tables over at their homes.
It hurts when strangers turn their noses up at your crap even when it was you who turned your nose up at it first. These are people out looking to buy glorified throwaways and to think that yours isn’t worth a second glance kinda hurts.
We watched in dismay all morning as shoppers parked along the street, took a quick look at what we had on display in our humble driveway and then strolled over to the much better selection at our neighbours.
One neighbour in particular was selling his stuff like crazy and we watched as item by item, he was cleaned right out.
But that wasn’t the worst part. As he was packing up, he started to take down the table on which all his hot bargains had been arrayed before being hauled away in the trunks of a lot of cars. Sure enough, someone came along and made him an offer on the table he was busy putting away and he sold it right there and then.
We were a bit surprised someone didn’t make an offer on the clothes he was wearing, leaving him naked at the end of the day. Or the toothpick he was chewing on the whole while.
What a showoff!
©2012 Jim Hagarty
