Garage Sale Phenomenon: Part 4 (The Bitter End)

This will likely be the final installment of my musings regarding garage sales. It’s been a fun topic but there is only so much that can be said about the matter.

As I endured that fateful day, one fact that became most troubling to me and could not escape notice was this: the ladies in the group actually bought each others garage sale stuff. Here are items, no longer deemed acceptable by one lady, put out for auction, and another lady somehow feels she has stumbled on the find of the century. Many such backroom deals were made for each others stuff, objects I am sure we will sell in the next multifamily garage sale. Because, inevitably, several weeks down the road, the ladies will realize that this junk was sold by their friends for a reason: because it is junk. And then their husbands will lumber up the attic stairs sometime late August, when the attic has reached 150°, and load that junk into the pile of stuff that has already begun for the next garage sale. That pile was started the day after this sale was over because the ladies upon re-entry of their home’s, discovered numerous items they forgot to put in the garage sale. Their husbands beg to be allowed to just drive them over to a charitable drop but, alas, the desire for a few pennies is too strong, and the items must be saved for a future sale. To not do so would be a violation of the garage sale code, which states that all items must first attempt to be sold before any thought of donation is entertained. So up the attic ladder we go…

As an aside…the problem with buying other ladies things is this: what happens, when a few months down the road, you tire of that item of your friend’s which you bought. You have virtually precluded yourself from doing another sale with that friend because you don’t want her to see you selling the item you bought from her lest you hurt her feelings. She sold that item to you, probably at a discount off the garage sale price, because she felt you would give it a good home and now you are going to sell it…it’s a slap in the face. So now, we have to undertake the next multifamily sale with a whole new set of families, so that we don’t offend any of our closest friends, with whom we had the first sale. Within a matter of years, we’ll have had sales with the whole city…there is no end to the misery.

Fortunately for all, the sale comes to an end around 12:00 PM, and then begins the process which should have been done in the first place: the haul to Goodwill. Each man backs his vehicle up to the driveway, no doubt muttering under his breath, and begins to load all the junk that wasn’t sold. In our case, three SUV/truck’s full. I seriously thought we had more there than we started with. Of course, upon our arrival to Goodwill we find that even they won’t take all the stuff we have…apparently they don’t need some of our junk, even for free. We unload what we can and head home stopping on the way at a dumpster at the nearest gas station to illegally throw the rest of the stuff away. The grueling and frustrating day has come to an end, at least until next year…let the accumulation of new stuff begin. The ladies divide up the money, pay for the breakfast tacos and newspaper ads out of the profits, and the lady who made the most basks in the awe of her friends…she’ll hold that recognition for the next year. Life can return to normal…except that I have to mow my lawn in the heat of the afternoon because the morning was taken up with…the Multi-Family Garage Sale. Until then…happy shopping.