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July 17, 2004
Garage Sale Post-mortem
I'm exhausted. I waited until way too late yesterday to start going through and pricing all my old computer crap. I got to bed around 3 am this morning and the sale was was scheduled to start around 8 am. My wife got up before me to start prepping and she said by 7:15 this morning there were already people milling around our driveway.
I've always approached garage sales with the attitude that I'll stop if I'm driving by one and not in any particular hurry. The people who show up 45 minutes early based on a $16 ad in the Lincoln Journal-Star scare me a little bit. I'm glad I missed them.
I was pretty satisfied with what I sold, and I was amazed at the crap people buy though slightly upset about the crap they didn't buy. I sold an old, but working (all sales are final, as-is), Phillips CD-RW, a zip drive(does anyone use these things anymore?), a couple of 4 year-old PC games, a bunch of spy novels ("Goddamn, will someone tell me why I read these things?"), an old Kasparov chess computer (I attribute this sale to Bobby Fischer's apprehension), a PC keyboard (!) and some other junk about which I've already forgotten.
My wife did pretty well, too. She even sold one of her embroidered pillowcases to someone we didn't know. The rest of Sarah's original handiwork went to friends. I'm grateful for my knitted dish-cloth. I'm sure everyone else is, as well.
The big winner in the carhole sale was Thomas who had things priced to move due to his impending departure for Case Western Reserve Law in a few weeks. Someone absolutely stole a big antique credenza from him, and he let his back issues of Rollingstone go for a dollar per box. Those were gold if ebayed or even taken to the rock and roll book store in Emo-ha. We rescued a few issues (Nixon Resigns, Elvis is Dead, Belushi...Dead, O.J. Rules) before someone showed up at 8 am and said, "I'm here for the magazines."
Thomas used to be a rock star so he had a ton of music gear for sale. He managed to sell a mixing board ("Once used by Matthew Sweet" was the come-on), a drum machine circa 1984 ("Just like Sisters of Mercy used") and a few other pieces. He gave me a guitar effects pedal for being such a sport and hosting the sale.
He had a few things that weren't really garage sale material. He stood firm at $300 for a vintage Roland Chorus Echo while indicating on the sign it was selling on eBay for $450, and a pretty cool lighting control panel w/lights he was asking $100 for didn't sell.
Today we also experienced first-hand the compulsive-shopper syndrome as embodied by two different women. They both bought so much stuff from us that they also purchased shelving units we were selling in order to store it. One of them had to drive home and get her trailer to load up what she'd bought. When I was helping her load her purchases I discovered that the entire back of her SUV was already loaded with stuff she'd bought earlier today. It reminded me of this quite a bit, though in talking to the women, they both said they'd never gotten on eBay. Let's hope they never do.
That didn't stop me from purchasing something intended for eBay. Jack Jackson was selling a bunch of CD's that had failed to move at his parents' most recent garage sale. I bought Brent Spiner's Ol' Yellow Eyes is Back for $5 when I discovered it was going on eBay for in the neighborhood of $40. I wasn't quick enough on my feet to grab Shatner's The Transformed Man before one of our other friends did. Shatner's piece of wonderful shat is ebaying for around $50.
So, it was fun, exhausting, and none of our customers batted an eye when they saw Thomas and I were drinking beer at 10 am. I took a nap on a deck chair someone was trying to sell around 3 pm after too many beers and the wonderful loose-meat sandwiches Thomas' girlfriend brought by around 1:00. I'll have to do this again in about 10 years.
Posted by Half-Cocked at July 17, 2004 08:24 PM
Comments
This is encouraging - I'm participating in my first garage sale this summer and am VERY apprehensive!
Posted by: Shelley at July 20, 2004 12:02 PM