a post mortem of our huge garage sale this past Saturday

Saturday, 6:56 a.m.

I wake up to breaking daylight.  I rub my eyes and remember we slept in the garage.  Even though we’d placed a quilt on top of the concrete, I ache as if I’d slept upon a rock garden.  Why the garage?  Oh yes, to make sure our stuff was safe.  You see, we had so much junk ERRRRRRR quality used merchandise to sell at the next day’s garage sale, we had to put it out in the driveway a day early.  By sleeping in the car park, we would hear any overnight intruders and then, um, maybe brandish our 9-irons at them.  Or perhaps we would growl like bears.  I don’t know.  But we were there as a deterrent.  Thank Neptune we didn’t have to prove our mettle, because, as a security team, my 13 & 6 year old boys and I have all the intimidation factor of Spongebob Squarepants, Patrick Star, and Squidward Tentacles.

6:58 a.m.

I get up.  My body creaks like an ancient lawn chair – making me think I actually belong in a garage.  The boys are still sleeping on the makeshift bed.  I go into the house, retrieve the car keys, and back the cars out into the street.

I feel many eyes watching me.

7:01 a.m.

Shoppers begin to swarm our driveway.  We might as well have been Macy’s on Black Friday at 5 a.m.  Don’t get me wrong; we really wanted to have a lot of people come to our garage sale.  But it was as if I’d kicked over an ant pile.  I had barely changed out of my pajamas, and people are haggling with me.

“How much for this?” asked one early bird.

“I’m going to have breakfast,” I replied.

I entered the house and saw that my wife was getting dressed.

“Um, they’re here.  Lots of them,” I said.

“Oh.  OK!”

And off we went.  I stuffed a breakfast bagel into the pie hole and went out to play Mr. Haggle.

7:50 a.m.

Thing are going well.  The clothespipes I built are getting lots of attention.  Even though the preparation was a pain in the ass, putting clothes on the hangers made them much more sellable than the ones folded in bins.  We were like the B version of a Ross outlet store.

The other good news:  we were selling stuff I didn’t think we would – Elmos, Big Wheels, baby pianos, vacuum cleaners, a recliner, and even a nice couch with lots of stains.

9 a.m.

I don’t know where all these people are coming from.  We have easily seen 120 or more people traipsing up and down our driveway, handing us twenties and carrying off knickknacks.  Also, haggling has been held to a courteous minimum.  I’d made a few deals here and there, but for the most part, we were making a decent enough profit.

But then this lady comes up to me.  She’s middle aged, and approaching me with a handful of garments.

“How much these?” she asked with a heavy Spanish accent.

“One dollar each,” I replied.

“Ohhh,” she replied, as if I’d insulted her.  ”You do 50 cent?”

I stared at her blankly, as if she were one of my own children complaining about a snack cup that was only 90% full of pretzels instead of 100%.  I was about to say “OK”.

“Please,” she squeaked in a truly pathetic tone.

“Fine,” I said, smiling despite what I was thinking.

After all, we’re talking about used baby booties that would either go into the trash or to Good Will.  But something about her whiny tone really aggravated me.  I recalled a lesson I learned at baseball camp during the summer of 1983 that I wish I could have re-gifted to this lady.

It was blistering hot, and we’d been shagging balls and doing drills for the better part of an hour.  I limped up to the coach as if I’d been crawling through Death Valley.

“Cooaaaach . . can I get a (gasp) dringgk?”

“No,” he replied to my surprise.  ”Not if you ask like that.”

“Oh,” I said, straightening up.  ”May I have a drink?”

“Sure.”

Granted, the coach had the proper authority to deliver that lesson, while Mr. Haggle here did not have it with this garage sale stranger.  So I let it pass.  But I held my ground on other occasions, so my pride wasn’t completely obliterated.  In fact, I was feeling downright magnanimous.  People were shopping; getting stuff dirt cheap, and they were hauling tonnage off our property . . . all while paying us cash.  Win win.

12:02 p.m.

Here’s where I firmed up.  A young lady – perhaps a college student – was eyeing the flat screen TV.  Pink price tag said $50.  It was $400 new and had hardly been used.

“Can you do $30?” she whimpered.  Her boyfriend eyed me, not maliciously, but not not maliciously.

“I’ll do $40.”

“Are you sure you won’t do $30?”

Maybe it was the moment, but I got kinda stern.

“FORTY.”

She gave me a look that sounded like the Hispanic lady’s voice from earlier, and said, “Oh, OK.” She walked off.

“Babe, you could have gotten rid of that TV!” my wife said to me.

Taking a deep breath, I felt a bit of regret . . . that is until a lady who’d just moved to town from Michigan paid $45 for it a few hours later.

This is why they pay Mr. Haggle the big bucks.  High-five the wife.

2:15 p.m.

It’s all about conversations.  Salt of the earth interactions.  Like the one guy who came by who was interested in the Medi-Rub.

Medi-Rub makes a fine foot massaging unit.  Back when I was in foodservice, this contraption was a big hit at food shows and other events.  We’d have customers sit down, relax, and place their feet upon the Medi-Rub panel, which would quickly and easily vibrate away foot pain.  The relief (aaaahhhh) was instant, and would restore life to feet that had been either walking or standing all day long.

My Medi-Rub, however, had been on the closet shelf at my home for the better part of 5 years.  That’s why I put it out onto the driveway, slapped a pink $5.00 sticker on it, and wondered if someone would enjoy it at 95% off its original price.  Still worked like new, after all.

“Does this work?” asked the guy.

“I’ll do you one better, I’ll let you try it out,” I replied.

“Oh, no, that’s OK, let’s just plug it in.”

So he followed me over to an outlet, plugged it in, and turned it on low (brrrrrrrrr) and then high (BRRRRRRRRRRRRR).  I looked up at the guy.

“There you go.”

“Uhhh, I don’t know,” he said.  ”Maybe it’s the surface, but it’s not vibrating right.”

A pause.

“Really?” I asked, as straight-faced as I could manage.

“Yeah.  That’s OK.  I’ll pass. Thanks.”

“Um, OK.”

I was so glad all those Zen readings and meditation classes paid off right there.  It wasn’t that I wanted this guy’s $5.00.  It was more the nature of the battle.  He was here to buy a foot massager, and I had one to sell cheap.  But he balked.  And I was OK with it, but only after whip-cracking the competitive fires that burned inside.  Chalk one up for Buddha and deep breathing.

6 p.m.

My wife has been filing clothes for 3 hours.  Not familiar with filing clothes?  That means she was sorting, re-folding, and re-storing the 29,398,200,384 articles that we hadn’t sold.

“What are you doing!??!” I asked.

“There’s another garage sale in October.  These are going back in the bins.”

<<Facepalm>>  AARRGH!  Well, at least I get a 6-month break from playing Mr. Haggle.

At this point I’m pretty exhausted.  One detail I omitted about this day?  I coached a girls’ softball game and helped take care of 5 munchkins who belong to me.  The wife was the MVP, however; any time someone would ask a price on a clothing item, I would just say, “HONEY, HOW MUCH?” and the pricing would just roll off her tongue like melted chocolate truffles.  She could have lipped, “Oh, that?  Five hundred dollars,” and the person would have asked permission to go to the bank for the cash.  Magical.

Honorable mention goes to mom, who supplied breakfast, moral support, child care, and some motherly advice.  Dad also chipped in with a marine like organization of hangers; yes they are color coded for future use.  

So was it worth it?  Financially, I guess so.  We put in about 16 hours preparing for it (staging, unpacking, pricing, cleaning, etc.) and spent about $140 on supplies and other ‘help’.  We managed to take in about $970 in sales, and we didn’t even sell our biggest item – the baby’s crib.  So, we netted a little over $800.

But more importantly, we got rid of stuff, enjoyed some fresh air, and worked our back muscles to the limit.  We were pretty useless the following day (Sunday) but at least I still have my foot massager.

BRRRRRRRRRRR.