It's raining today. I'm attempting to have yet another garage sale. We really need the money. And we really need to not hold onto this big pile of crap we have laying. Garage sale kills two birds with one stone. With regards to the weather for this sale - it's as though God is cursing me, actually cursing me, in my time of need. Perhaps in my last life I was very rich, and now I have to pay for my decadence. Or maybe it's the current economic climate...hard to say. But, I am feeling punished.
I'm not really looking forward to this day, at all. Last weekend we had the sale in the cold. And true to garage sale mania, the diehards were still out. Even though I marked the signs for late morning, even though the newspaper ad said late morning...they still came. I hate early birds. I loathe them in fact. These are the very people that make me never want to get rid of any of my crap. They really are mutha' fuckers.
Right at 7:30 am, before I've even changed pants and my coffee isn't even finished came the first one. She couldn't just buy something and leave...NO!!!...she couldn't do that. Instead she spent an entire 30 minutes talking to me about how she had just gone cold turkey off of all the prescription pain pills that she was on. She continued to tell me how rough this was on her, and how she was barely making it, but she was making it, and we should all be so proud of her. We should all give her a big pat on the back, with a Great Job follow. That Service with a Smile attitude was already being tested. I wanted to give her a better deal on the fifty cent items she had in her hands, just to get her to shut up and on her way....but then I thought that maybe this was her ploy all along...and I wasn't going to fall for it...OR she needed a friend, and I didn't want to sign up for that mess, and if I gave her the discount she would think how nice I was...and I couldn't have that going on either. I was screwed either way, and she was still talking.
Finally she left, finally.
Then came the next guy. Obviously a dealer. The particularly shitty early bird type, that I loathe the most, and will try my personal best to not make any deals with this type, and perhaps I am quite extra crappy to, just to make them leave. This guy...what a piece of work. We were selling a new version of the PS2, slightly broken (cost $30 to fix), for $10. That is quite the bargain, and I don't even play games, and I know this. This man took out his money wad (and I do mean wad), and told me to take the five dollars he was offering me (which he threw done on the desk that I was selling, like it was a done deal). I smiled, and told him no, but thank you. I told him that is was too early in the garage sale for me to be making deals on such things that were obviously such bargaining to begin with, and he could come back Sunday night and see if I still had it, and we could talk then. Man, was he pissed. He began sort of yelling talking that I should have taken the five dollars, and anyway the new XBoxs were out anyway, so he didn't even need it. Okay, I said. Just Okay. I didn't point out that if he could run out and get a new three hundred dollar XBox, than he didn't really need to harass me over my ten dollar, broken, PS2, did he, now?!? He left saying good luck in a mean voice. Fucker. I don't take lightly to being bullied. And I certainly do not take lightly to it before my second cigarette and the finished morning coffee. I'd tell my own mother to fuck off before she could finish her sentence of bothering me before the morning ritual had been complete. So, who did this guy think he was?!?
Then came the third jackass. This one wanted to know if I had any "???", insert whatever item you want, cause this jackass isn't alone in this ploy of asking for stuff that's not in the garage sale. I said no, that I didn't have any "???". Okay, here's what I think. If I had any "???" it would actually be in the fucking garage sale...I'm not Kal-Mart...this is not a store...it a rummage sale...so you need move you cheap ass around in a slight circle completing the round of the actual sale to rummage or leave.
I'm not hiding a secret stash of goods somewhere else...THERE IS NOTHING ELSE BESIDES WHAT'S OUT THERE. So, if you don't see it...I don't have it. I'm never, ever, ever going to say..."Oh, I was waiting for such a special person like yourself, to let into my secret vault of complete shit for sale for a private viewing, Come with me."
How's that for an answer.
And the next guy who asked if this was an Estate Sale. I said no. I said that this was a garage sale. He wanted to argue. He said in a miffed tone of voice that this had been listed as an Estate Sale. I was so tired by this time, I did argue with him. I told him that I had placed the ads, and made the signs myself, and it was, in fact, a garage sale. The sign right in front of my house for extra publicity did state, yet again, that this was a garage sale. He argued back that it was listed as an Estate Sale. How can you combat this? You can't make people read correctly. And the only difference between Garage Sale, and Estate Sale is that an Estate Sale means someone died. I'm sorry that I didn't die for you. I finally just told him to leave...it was just to fucking weird. He said, because he had to have the last dominating word, telling me that if I extra cleaned the fridge that I was selling, that it could sell for $10.00 more. I replied that he could just buy it, clean it himself, and put it in his Estate Sale, and turn a profit.
And there was the fat lady handi-cap. She rolled up in her big ass van, with the handi-cap license plates, right in my driveway - she came allllll the way up the drive way. She squeezed out between the seat and the steering wheel. This is the type that will tell you of their woes, and their aliments, etc., hoping for sympathy and a better deal. But, I wasn't biting. I agreed with her about being poor. I stood up and flashed my current gimp walk, and my recent scare. I countered with my own tales of the losses that we suffered last year while I was on worker's comp. And how I was having to sell some of my most precious items, just to buy my child some food and maybe even pay the light bill. (I tried to keep a straight face. I didn't want the jig to be up.) As she moved her fat ass around the sale, trying to bend to look at things, and running out of breath, she did spend her money. My gimpiness had triumphed over her's. I was the gimp winner. I thanked her for her fat ass kindness as she hobbled away. Us handi-capped people gotta' stick together. We take care of our own.
I did have one, single lady that I liked. Her fanny pack was made for speed. It was three tiered, three pockets long. One pocket contained her big bills, the next pocket had her tens and fives, and the top one had her change and ones. And she was so nice. Maybe the nicest garage sale lady there ever was on the entire planet. I knew she was a dealer, and I didn't care. It was as though she was sent from Heaven to soothe my garage sale laden worries away. Her voice was so pleasant, her deals were reasonable, she asked about my stuff in the most polite, sing-songy voice. I wanted to help her. I was engaged, mesmerized. I cut her a big, fat discount. She was good...I never even saw it coming. Thankfully my first born was inside or I might have lost him as a severely marked down item.
I ended up doing alright. And I got rid of some stuff. But not nearly enough. There is a secret culture of garage sales. These are people that live and breath in our neighborhoods. You have to wonder what they do the rest of the time, when their not being weirdos at garage sales. Today, I'll be doing it all over again. I'm the one with the cup of joe, selling off pieces of our lives (even if it is crap), in the rain...yep, that's me, today.
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