Garage Sale..or ......did that guy really just do that?

It’s been a while since I have had much to write about, but something happened today and though it may not be a big deal to anyone else, it kind of ticked me off.

Over the spring and summer, those of us who live in this house have been doing what some refer to as “spring cleaning”. Some members are gone or are going away for awhile and so things have been sorted in this manner: “keep”, “give back to the rightful owner”, “why did I ever keep this, it’s going in the garbage now” and the ever popular GARAGE SALE.

Yes folks, I got up the nerve to do a garage sale again this year. Now you must understand that I have done a garage sale almost every year for the past seven years. Every year I wonder the same thing, where did we get all this junk? So, it was no surprise when I had 12 large boxes of stuff to try to assign a monetary value to. This is inherently a difficult task as one must decide what is the most money you can get for an item that you think is or was cool, that someone else may not think is cool, but you want to price it low enough so that you don’t end up carting it off to Goodwill come Monday morning. Since I was alone most of July and part of August (not completely alone, but during the day I was) I spent a great deal of time firmly planted in front of the portable A/C unit we invested in a couple of summers ago so we wouldn’t die. (Did I mention we live in a Maritime climate and anything above 70 is considered a heat wave?); while planted close enough to the unit to feel like a spring day, I marked every item and packed it into boxes so all this junk could take up space neatly in the garage until “GS” day.

I picked the weekend just after the local kids went back to school as that would bring a larger crowd than one during the summer when neighbors and friends seem to be out vacationing or hiding in their homes away from the heat like me. I rented tables because I have learned over the years that people don’t like to bend down to look at your stuff and I don’t sell my washer and drier every year. On Thursday morning off I went to the rental place and picked up my tables, brought them home and during the unloading process promptly broke my right thumb nail off down to the quick. I knew then I was going to being having fun! I got help setting up the tables in my garage and then had wonderful help unpacking the boxes and arranging all the tables. I know this may sound like my garage is monsterous, but it’s not. I sacrificed parking my car in the garage to the god’s of the nighttime/outside for a few nights so I could set up tables and have them ready in the morning. I also decided this year I would move all the tables out to my spacious driveway so that I wouldn’t have to keep telling people that the items neatly put away in my garage were not for sale.

So, all this to tell you about something that just irked me…I have bags of rubber bands for sale leftover from a long ago paper route. A couple in a van pull in to my driveway and they get out to wander around. The seemingly pleasant man says hello when I greet him, and as his wife continues to wander, he stops in front of the bags of rubber bands. He then asks me if they are still good, when I answer yes, he picks up a bag, TEARS IT OPEN!!!!! Takes out a couple of rubber bands, plays with them and throws the bag back down, upside down so anyone else picking them up wouldn’t see the bag had been opened. Excuse me, but what the heck?????? That is kind of like “you break it, you buy it” isn’t it? Or does that not apply to garage sales? In the end, his wife disappeared in to the van and Mr.Tear the bag open didn’t buy anything. Hrmpf.