Garage Sale

There was a garage sale in cocoland yesterday. OMG, why?  Well OK,  I couldn't fit the car in the garage or open the guest room door but heavens, that was a lot like work.   Heavy work.  Emotional work.  A very nice Barbie for $10?  What was I thinking?

Dragging out the damaged furniture of your family's life and tagging it in 25 cent increments.  Deciding what to sell and what to keep, I imagine this conversation with my dead sister.

You're selling Grandma's jewelry box? 

It's broken.

It's always been broken.

It was broken when she gave it to you?

Yeah.  That's why  I got it I suppose.  :pause:   OK, but put a big price on it.

$5 it is then.

The sale was to start at 8:00.  People were skulking around the driveway at 7:30 in spite of my ad's admonishment - NO EARLY BIRDS!  A woman began rifling through my stuff and making a pile of items I hadn't yet priced.  She negotiated the prices while I was distracted with setting-up then chastised me for not watching my jewelry items closely enough.  You could get ripped off if you're not more careful! she warned.   Then she gave me $20 for about $200 worth of items and left.  It was still only 7:45.

Garage sale work reminds me of months that felt like years I spent in retail sales.  I never like it because, similar to waitressing, you're supposed to be nice to people.  Tall order.  A woman tried on a lovely leather jacket for which I had paid several hundred dollars.  Then she spied the ink mark on the shoulder and said, shocked, It's stained!  and put it down, looking at me scornfully.  I wanted to say, Why else would it only be a dollar?

Then there are the bargainers that won't pay the marked price, no matter what it is.  A man asked me how much a glass globe was and I answered a quarter.  He said, twenty cents?  And I answered, thinking he hadn't heard me, 25 cents.  He said he only had a twenty and walked off.  Then he came back a while later and carefully counted out two dimes and three pennies.  I should have insisted and made change for the twenty.

Most everyone came in the morning.  At 2pm we opened the growler of Marble IPA and sat down on the unsold furniture in the sun.  Can't do that in retail.

Comments

[Marjorie]

Dang. I missed Coco's garage sale.

[sophie]

I so totally feel the same way.

[Catmoves]

Hilarious. Now I remember why I used to get irritated in retail so many years ago.