Yard Sale Tales, take three.

Seven thousand years after the fact, I realized I have not updated this olde blogge with the rest of the yard sale tales. I'm rectifying this situation, post-haste. Sort of.

After the lady who punked us out of two quarters, the strangeness kept coming. A bunch of ladies kept moving boxes of books to peer at the (empty) boxes we'd laid on the ground as a buffer between books and damp grass/soil, and I kept having to tell them that the items pictured (my crappy pot/pan set, my crappy dishpan set, etc.) were not in the box, nor were they for sale. I didn't point out that if they were for sale, they probably would be in a more prominent place than under a very heavy box of very heavy books.

Sharon and I made a pizza run and left Noah to his own devices, pleading with him to not a) walk away or b) let people have things for free. In return for obeying, he got a free pizza from us. Not a bad deal. Of course, while we were gone, an actual book lover came by and asked for a specific author, one I'm sure I had some books by, but they were probably on my 'keeper' shelves. Harrumph. After a near-disaster at the pizza parlor*, we made it back to my house juuuuust as it started to rain. Hurriedly, all the books on the ground were covered with a plastic groundcloth, while everything else got a bedsheet, and we retired inside to enjoy our pizzas and not get rained on. A lady (waiting for the bus down the street) came by so we all marched outside and listened as she inquired as to whether we had very specific items, like elastic waistband pants, or Wrangler size 34 mens jeans. We didn't. She also really liked to look at the empty boxes to see what they might've held, and was really interested in the box that held my torchiere living room lamp. She asked if it was battery-operated. I have never met a battery-operated tall (6'+) lamp ever in my life. Like our very first "saler" she talked a lot and bought nothing. I guess for lonely older people, garage sales are like free therapy. Or new friends. Sharon and I also were pretty certain that she was going to try to walk into my house, as she slowly made her way over to the front door and stood uncomfortably close to me as I sat on the stoop, chomping on pizza. Sharon inched over to help blockade the door. After saying repeatedly that she didn't mean to make us come out in the drizzle and she would let us go, she stood there still, talking more and more about her life, and then finally made her merry way down to the bus stop. Before she left, though, a couple who'd visited briefly earlier that day came back, and with $40 in hand, bought Sharon's big-ticket item: a set of authentic, licensed Harry Potter chairs. It was really fun seeing him try to get them in their midsize sedan: two in the trunk, one next to his baby in the backseat, and the last one went upside down on his wife's lap in the passenger seat. Ha! Hopefully she made it home without any of her vital organs impaled by the chair legs.

Our last honest-to-goodness legitimate weirdo was an older man who came up, asked first off if we had a table and 4 chairs for sale, then picked up one little dayplanner thing with ponies and pandas on it and asked if, nay, proclaimed that everything we had was for children. (Nevermind the clothing, kitchen and household paraphernalia, books for one and all, poker and drinking stuff, movies, etc.). He then started a lengthy conversation with Sharon about a (women's) leather belt, trying to fit it around his rotund belly and marveling when the ends didn't meet. This is a nice leather, he said. Sharon said it was. He said it must've cost fifty dollars or more. Sharon was pretty sure it didn't, because she is like me in that she rarely spends $50 on something like that. But he insisted. He browsed around and argued incessantly with me about the price of two books, which he assumed went together just because we'd placed them together. I did cut the price a bit because he was buying two of them, but was pretty firm on the $1.25 for two freaking books. He was pretty adamant about paying me no more than $1.00. I'm a fairly stubborn person and don't like bargaining or haggling or any of that stuff, and I also like saying no with some regularity. In my big-chain bookstore day job, I rarely get to say no to people, and when there is a chance to say no, I have to 'turn it into YES!' for the customer's benefit. Barf. So I took all the 'no's I'd been saving at the day job for years, and I countered every "$1.00?" he uttered with "No. $1.25" and eventually it worked. Took a while. But it worked. After he paid up the dollar and the freaking quarter he'd been so reluctant to fork over, he stood creepily in front of my house/door. We three had been tromping through the house fairly regularly, for snacks or bathroom or to unearth more treasures to put outside, so the inside door was open, screen door was closed. He started asking me if there was a refrigerator for sale inside. I got to say no. An oven. No. A washer and dryer. No. A refrigerator (again). Wait for it.......................... NO. Undeterred by my negativity, he babbled on about buying my house, with all my appliances. I'm pretty sure all I gave him was a stony glare, and eventually he left. Thank goodness.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, and I don't recall having to argue with anyone else about quarters, which is always a good thing. A few more book people came, and some kids from across the street came, and one of them asked about baby clothes which kind of freaked me out because it put notions of that kid in England who impregnated some girl at a ridiculously young age, and then some neighbors from down/across the street came over with their cutie orange tomcat following them like a dog or a child. He investigated many of the books we had for sale while his people looked at the dvds. They left with a few things each, while he left with nothing in hand (paw?). When they left, he hesitated slightly, obviously wanting to check out more of our wares, but then trotted after them with much aplomb. It was probably the cutest part of the day. Wait, no it wasn't**.

As we were closing up a few people came and went and one woman even bought some stuff, apologizing because we were hustling to get everything inside and here she was buying stuff. She was nice, so we let her browse and didn't give her a hard time. (Not that we would've done that. We're probably a little too polite to do that. Maybe.)

Everything got shoved into my second bedroom, formerly the library, more recently, the former potential roommate's room***, and it only took about a half hour to get everything back inside where it belonged. We divvied up the cash money and though we didn't make the millions we expected to make, it was a fairly good haul for both of us, for our first EVER yard sale, and relatively early in the season. Noah got to take home some of my vintage clothes as compensation for all his hard work, and he was chuffed about that, I think!

I expect that with the additional advertising/pre-planning we intend on doing for the next one (June 13/14! Be there!) we will have an even crazier cast of characters, and probably some recurring ones too! Woo! Can't wait!

I will keep hoarding my 'no's at the day job, and plastic bags at the grocery store, and keep reading through my 'to sell when finished' pile of books... till next time!

*So, we ordered pizza at the parlor, ran to 7-11 to get refreshments, and came back. This kinda skanky girl - ok, she was REALLY skanky, kinda hit, and way too orange-tan for the middle of May - was waiting with her derelict boyfriend in the parlor. An order came up that looked suspiciously like it could be ours: two mediums, a small, and an order of bread. The cashier called out my name. I went to go up there to get it but skankwhore was right up at the register and nabbed it. I watched incredulously. Halfway to the door she goes, in a skankwhore way, "I don't think this is ours." So I grabbed it back. Disaster averted.
**Neighbor brought over some bricks to hold down our tarps when it was sprinkling. With her were her adorable children, the tiniest one clad in a too-big raincoat that overflowed past her hands and knees. She found a puddle, splashed in it, and entranced, could not be pulled away. That's adorable spelled with a capital ADORABLE.
***jerk reneged. End of story (for now).

I want fifty cents.

Though I used to troll garage/yard/estate sales with the rest of the weirdos, I'd forgotten how weird they could get. When you're shopping, browsing, your contact with the other shoppers is pretty limited. You might be eyeing the same strange little ceramic creature as another, both nervously hoping that the other won't pick it up. You might bump butts in cramped quarters bending over to look at kitchen doohickeys on a plastic shelf. But generally, it's a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am affair, unless you happen to spend an inordinate amount of time at one garage sale. When you're behind the 'register,' however, your contact with strange strangers is neverending. Never. Ending.

Day one of Sharon's and my yard sale was a little slow, and not too harrowing as far as customers. It was a Friday and we belatedly realized that most people work Fridays and might not be out garage saling. We weren't expecting the barrage of crazies that hit us on day two, from the get-go. Thank goodness Sharon's brother Noah was there to help too!

Our first "customer" didn't actually buy anything. She was traversing the neighborhood as crazies tend to do, and happened upon our yard sale. I have the distinct pleasure of living just 6 or so houses off a fairly busy road, right by a few bus stops and businesses, so a lot of people come by during the day. (There is also a daycare center at the corner, so my favorite time of day is when the daycare employees and their wee charges come walking down the sidewalks like a mama duck and her many little ducklings. It's been known to give me cute attacks.) Customer #1 browsed a lot, and talked even more. She was obviously lonely, and probably didn't have many people to talk to, so we obliged, answering with the requisite "right!" or "mhmm" or even "that's what I hear!" and often even a full-fledged, legitimate sentence. She was almost back on her merry way down the rest of the street when she saw the 50c stuffed animals we'd piled in a plastic box, and regaled us with a half sob-story, half plea, about how she doesn't have kids because of "serious health problems" (never mind that she was in her sixties) but a lot of kids come over and she always has stuffed animals for them to play with and they always want to take them home so she gives them to them, and boy would she like to have some new ones for them but she is on a limited income....

I am sympathetic to those on a limited income because I am on a limited income, as is my mother, but the point of a yard sale is to exchange goods for a small amount of money. If I were truly a bleeding-heart liberal, I probably would have just given them to her, but I guess I am colder and more rotten than I give myself credit for, because I was really holding out for those two quarters to rub together. Perhaps this is why on those "political leanings" quizzes all over the internet, I come up as "fiscally conservative." I told her that we were going to be having this sale monthly and she should check back then for them and more stuffed animals, which prompted her to ask if maybe I would hold them for her till then. I'm going to reiterate myself and say again that yard sale = goods for money (small). Which means I want these things out of my possession. Now. For a small fee. If I wanted to give things away for free, expeditiously, they would have been at Salvation Army last year. But Sharon and I paid good money for those things, and we are obviously not expecting to recover our costs, since everything was at about a 95% discount of the orginal price, it would be good to get enough money to get a candy bar or a package of carrot seeds so we could eat in some way or another. I told the woman, very nicely, that if the stuffies were still there at the end of the day I would be more than willing to hold them for her, but implied that I would not be so much willing to stuff them away somewhere so I could make 50c next month instead of 50c today*.

After that woman, we had a drove of people. Two separate families came and milled about, and one family bought some things and left while the other family looked at everything and made piles of stuff, all while the doyenne of the family was making odd remarks about tarot cards and pennies in shoes. I was selling my modded PSX** with a few original games and a bunch of burned games and one of the kids in the family wanted to know how much some of the games were. He was about nine years old so I made sure to tell him and his mom that the burned games would ONLY work on a PSX with a mod chip - like the one I was selling. They looked at me blankly. So I repeated everything I'd said, no less than four times, before I finally just said "You can have the whole system and all the games for $5." Sold.

Sharon and I tallied everything up, essentially slashing prices in half because they were buying so much, and came to the grand total of $21.50, for the game system, a bunch of books, a bunch of household stuffs, and a whole bunch of other stuff I'm sure I completely forgot about: a whole box and a bag's worth of stuff. Pretty good deal. When she heard the total, though, the mom put on a great show.

"What are we going to put back, kids? Gonna have to put some stuff back..." even though they'd already carried it to the car. Sharon and I sat there, stone still. She rummaged in her pockets, muttering "hope I got enough money..." and pulled out a twenty. We sat there some more while she stood there, then rummaged again, pulling out a dollar and then walking away. Sharon and I stared at each other, whispering "Did she just punk us out of fifty cents?"

Oh yes she did.

On her way back to her car, she stopped, turned around and wandered back to Sharon, thrusting a dollar into her hands. Sharon, assuming that she was making good on the four bits she owed us, made change and was giving her four bits back as change when the woman said "Why are you giving me this?" Apparently she wanted to buy something else, priced at $3, and Sharon stuck firm on the price rather than slashing it in half like we'd been doing. So the woman dug out her money again and handed over the other $2. Strange. We looked at each other incredulously. She had money. We undercut everything she bought. What happened to our 50c?! Jerk.

I think my ire over the fittycent incident is taking over my brain right now and filling me again with rage and ire, so I'll have to continue with the yard sale tales another day.

Because it didn't end there.

Oh boy, did it not end there.

*Even though it is just 50c. I must sound ludicrous getting so uppity about 50c. But did you guys know 50c is one half of a dollar? And that dollars add up? And that I really like/need dollars? Do the math.
**Oh boy. This is a fun story. An ex of mine from another day and age, my pre-21 days, gave me his old PSX, for my birthday, with a bunch of crappy burned games that I wouldn't want to play (at the time, I didn't like dude games like I do now.) Why did I get a hand-me down birthday present, you ask? Was he destitute? Nope. He bought himself a brand-spanking new PS2, which had just come out. He bought himself a gift. For my birthday. Now you can probably see why I broke up with him.

Yard for sale. Make offer. House and contents not included. Day one.

Garage salers are a weird bunch. Of course, I'm including yard salers, estate salers, and anyone who buys anything potentially/probably/most likely used from any private source other than an actual resale or thrift store in this group. This was one of the most important things I learned in the past two days, having co-chaired my first ever* garage/yard sale with my lovely friend Sharon.

It was a somewhat hastily-thrown-together event, mostly because I forgot that we'd planned it for this weekend, and the leftovers of 'mostly' was because I procrastinated in getting stuff together when I actually did remember. I was up on and off most of Thursday night/Friday morning, catching a few hourlong naps on the couch, with TV blaring and lights blazing so that I wouldn't actually allow myself to fall all the way asleep; my waking moments were spent frantically washing clothes to sell, frantically gathering my multitudinous boxes** of books to sell, frantically trying to price things, frantically making signs for the sale, and frantically doing everything else I forgot to do beforehand, but sleep. Yep, nope, I frantically slept too (see: "TV blaring and lights blazing"). I might've eaten at some point; I probably did, because I love eating and it's one of my favorite activities, but really I was so busy it's hard to say. (I would never forget to eat, we'll leave it at that.)

We didn't have many customers the first day. I was at my 'day job' when we got our first sale, with Sharon manning the sales tables and holding down the fort most excellently, after doing most of the set-up without me, due to my stupid job(s) that require me to be up at the ass of dawn. The first thing to sell, conveniently, was one of the remnants*** of my life with my ex-boyfriend: boxes of Legos we bought together so he could make Mario, Luigi, the Dr. Mario viruses (virii?), and Link with the connecting tiles, and Lego kits so we could make weird-ass dinosaurs and creatures and whatever. Good riddance, Legos! - a phrase I never thought I'd utter, but in this context, it works. Sort of. Don't know what you've got till it's gone. (I mean the Legos, not the ex, in case you were suspicious.)

I came home laden with soups and sodas for all - well, not all the shoppers, as I'm not that nice, but for Sharon, my mom, who'd come to visit, and myself. When I got there, my adorable neighbor with her two adorable children were there, shopping and being adorable. I hate how some people get to be adorable all the time and not have to work hard for it like I do. I gave her small adorable little boy a banana, and didn't even charge him, all in the name of brotherly love, even though I live in Hazel Park and that ain't Philadelphia. I also learned that her darling baby daughter was having a birthday the next day, and that said darling baby daughter has the same name as my dearly departed doggy; I did make mention of that, but left out, for Neighbor's sake, the fact that dearly departed doggy's ashes were in a planter not six feet (get it?) from where she stood. Neighbor and I introduced ourselves, formally, which was good. I'd never actually MET her, or any of my neighbors really, so it was a pleasant surprise and I welcomed the chance to get to know the people I've lived around for the past THREE YEARS but have neglected to make any sort of contact with. My bad.

My friend Paul and his wife Katie (MORE adorable people) with their equally adorable baby Lilly accidentally showed up - I know Paul pretty much only through Livejournal, and then by stalkingly looking him up on Facebook since he lives near me and I love being a creeper, and it would facilitate me stealing his two adorable dogs. Luckily this didn't deter him (much) from being my friend, and he occasionally visits me at work and even once threatened to give me a hug when I was feeling particularly garbage-filled. Anyway, they don't know where I live, other than in the grand sense of 'The Universe/The Milky Way/The Earth/America/Michigan/Oakland County/Hazel Park/a street/a house.' But they saw one of my awesome signs**** and were either awed by its awesomeness (in which case I'm glad it fulfilled its destiny) or were bored enough to come check out a yard sale where there might be stuff they could buy. Given that they didn't know my address (but do now, in case they want to stalk me and/or leave their baby with me so I can have her), I was surprised to see them walk into my jungle-esque backyard.

"Did you read my tweet on Twitter about my yard sale?!?" I squealed to Paul when I saw him, even as I remembered that he doesn't have "The Twitter" yet.

"Did you read about it on Facebook!?!" I squealed again, even as I remembered that I didn't post anything to Facebook about it.

I guess olde-fashionede print advertising still works these days, somewhat.

Unless they saw my post on Craigslist about it, which I just forgot about till now.

Anyway they bought a bunch of stuff, books and a DVD that I later forgot was sold when my aforementioned adorable neighbor sent her father back to inquire about the next day. Paul made me take a dollar more than I was going to charge him. I hate him. So much.

Most of our customers on Friday were tolerable, except for that rapscallion Paul. Some stop-and-lookers, but mostly everyone bought something or another. Sharon and I were both shocked that she priced and sold a whole stack of little plates (six or so?) at 25c. For the whole stack. When she easily could have asked for/gotten 25c for each one, or all for a dollar. WHATEVER*****.

If you know me or Sharon, you know we are Giant Book Nerds™. Sharon used to work at the bookstore where I still work, and has not lost the ingrained sense of bookly organization that bookselling inflicts upon those who deign to enter its ranks. At one point, instead of being as lazy as we previously had been, we decided, ridiculously, inanely, "omfg, what is wrong with us"ly, to organize all our books into categories: beach reads, chick lit, school books/classic literature, cooking, house/home/garden, health, general fiction and general reference. I'm not talking like two boxes of books here. I'm talking a lot more than that. Ten? Maybe more. Fifteen? Maybe more. Between the two of us? Entirely likely. Probably more, considering the next day I dragged out five more boxes of new additions and it felt like nothing. It was ludicrous. But we did it. And we felt such such nerdy glee and satisfaction when it was done, so it was worth it for that, even if our shoppers didn't care.

I'm not even gonna talk about the snacks we had. We had so many snacks. So many. Snacks are our BFF. They kept our energy up, so don't hate on us for loving snacks. You'd probably love snacks too if all you had to do on a beautiful Friday was sit in a cute, if overgrown, backyard and sing along to the oldies station and talk about people and read and make origami and wait for people to buy all the stuff you didn't want. Snacks are LIFESAVERS.

I also shouldn't talk about the shopping we did, both from each other. Or the shopping we did from ourselves as we realized we couldn't, wouldn't part with whatever it was that we once deemed useless in our lives. So I won't talk about it. Compared to what we put out, what we took back or bought for zero dollars from each other was miniscule. But I got some killer stuff, dudes. So did Sharon! Granted, we could have probably gotten dollar dollar bills for that stuff, ya'll, but sometimes you need to treat yourself to something you spirit away from your friend, right?

Around five, we closed up shop, which consisted of putting a heavyweight dropcloth over the 'book section' on the patio and packing up & putting inside some stuff that might get ruined by dew overnight. Shortly after Sharon left, I left to go visit my mom at our barn and try to coerce her into buying me dinner since she forgot, for the millionth time in a row (or third), the fudge, my very favorite kind of fudge, she'd bought for me in Ohio (Maple- no nuts -by the way, if you want to get me some). Shortly after that, it started sprinkling. And then it started raining. I ran home to lug everything inside, eliciting a promise from my mom that she'd come by and help me (since she refused my offer to let her buy me dinner - hmph) as long as she didn't have to "bring in EVERYTHING" by herself. Well, she didn't have to bring in anything because I brought it in all myself, a great feat of accomplishment. That was the least fun part of my day, and it is with this that I justify the aforementioned snack consumption and in-house shopping. So there. Take that, naysayers in Horseville! WORD PLAY!

So that was our yard sale, day one. Day two tomorrow. It might have pictures. Day two was the crazy day. Boy howdy, was it ever the crazy day.

*When I was about ten or eleven I would gather up stuff my seven-year-old neighbor would never need, and insist she give me quarters or dollars for them. It usually worked. One time her mom made her return the stuff to me to get the money back. Losers. Apparently that doesn't count as a garage sale though, since I was really only targeting one mark, errr, person. So this was my first ever official garage sale.
**It is sick how many boxes of books I had/have to sell. Sick. You'd commit me to a mental ward if you saw. Sharon's about to, I think. That's why I'm at Starbucks, hiding out and nursing a white chocolate mocha and stealing wifi, instead of waiting for the short bus to come get me.
***All of his life with me that's left now at the house, other than the Uglydolls he gave me over the years (which I'd rather hide in a closet and occasionally hug when I need a hug than sell) is the vacuum cleaner he "lent" me, and a few plates I tried to sell but might keep so I don't have to keep not-washing the ones I already have. Everything else sold this weekend. But then I found a necklace he gave me. That's going in the next sale. True story. PS those Lego figures of the 8-bit Nintendo characters were pretty BAMF. But I broke them down one day when I was feeling particularly vindictive towards our failed relationship. True story. Sometimes you have to take it out on the kids, you know? (Jokes)
****On my way home from work, I stopped at a stop sign in my neighborhood, and looking to the left, saw a cute handmade sign for a yard sale. "What a cute sign!" I thought. "I should stop by there before I go home... wait. That's my sign. I made that. That's for at my house! For our yard sale!" Tricking myself into going to my own sale: awesome, or devious? Deviously awesome? That.
*****Our main objective in this sale was to Get Rid of Stuff. With Sharon's impending move to the Big Apple and my impending descent into poverty, it is imperative that we both get rid of stuff and obtain money. The best way to do this, it seems, is to sell things. Anything. At almost any price. If 25c for a whole stack of plates accomplishes both objectives in one fell swoop, so be it. Even if the money obtained is probably not even enough for a pack of gum. But it will buy one individual mini Reese's PB Cup at 7-11. They're only fifteen cents, so you get change back, almost - but not quite - enough to buy another one. Maybe you can haggle the cashier down, which is the theme of tomorrow's blog post about day two of the yard sale.