Monday, June 18, 2007

All good things must come to an end

The garage sale is finally over. Three days of sitting in the sun in front of my garage and the most significant thing I have to show for it is an itty bitty tan. It takes a whole lotta sun for me to get a tan. My costs: $23 newpaper ad, $6 balloons, $0.75 cardboard sign. My profit: $30 for general crap, $50 for dryer. So, I ended up with a $50 profit for 50 hours of labor and about 10 boxes of crap of the Vietnam Veterans Association. I don't think I will ever have another garage sale, but I might change my mind by next year. Here are the most memorable moments.

1) Outrageous 'flare' on my front lawn as advertisements. Racing flags were strung along both sides of the driveway on pylons. I had two signs with a bunch of balloons hanging off of them. One was bright green. I am sure the neighbors were hating me.

2) A nice little old lady talked me into dropping the price of the dryer from $75 to $50 She didn't know how to get it home, so we agreed to drive the dryer across town to help her. She lived in a $750,000 home in a very exclusive subdivision. I felt like a big sucker.

3) A crackhead refused to pay 25 cents for jeans, but also refused to put them back. I ended up selling them for 10 cents to get her out of the garage before things started coming up missing.

4) Another old lady tried to hustle me by asking me to make change for her $100 bill 5 different ways. Thank God I have been employed in so many crappy cashier jobs that I was onto her.

Yeah, I need to think twice before I garage sale again.
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7 comments:

Doc's Girl said...

Wow! Some of those things are amazing...! It's amazing how rude people can be...

My girlfriend just had a garage sale for her kids' clothes and she felt the same way--it was too much work for little profit.

At least you got a nice tan out of it...:-P

Angie said...

We always do very well when we have a garage sale. Maybe it's because we live right off a very busy road.

The "dryer lady" story is a classic!

gail said...

Gah just very very scary.

Mama Dukes said...

yikes! I may never have a garage sale of course I live in a very different kind of area than you do

Trudging said...

I knew there was a reason I have never held a garage(or as we say in CT, tag) sale. Good for you getting through it

Most of Martha Woodroof in one place said...

I'm new to blogging (wonder when I'll stop feeling that way?) and just found your site. My first thought was wow, this woman can write! My second was that having a yard sale sounds like inhabiting the inner circle of hell! I'll be back.

Unknown said...

LOL!! That sweet little lady. I'm sure you must have felt like a fool when you say her house and knew she could have afforded that drier for ore than the price she bought it.