I must have Alzheimer’s

There are certain things in my life that lead me to believe that I have some sort of bizarre early onset type of Alzheimer’s. This weekend one of those things came up. A yard sale.

It has been a while since we have actually done one. And they say that “time heals all wounds,” so I guess that could also be a reason that having a yard sale once again sounded like a good idea, but once the day came, I remembered why we stopped having garage sales.

Now, we didn’t have a whole heck of a lot to sell to begin with, short of the toys that LatteGirl was finally ready to part with when the concept of “turning them into cash” made her “realize” that she doesn’t play with them any longer.

We had a few large items, like LatteGirls toddler bed (that she NEVER slept in) as well, but by and large, over the years, anything that could be sold for any real cash value that we no longer wanted, TheWife put up for sale on eBay. But my women wanted to do this.
So the day came, I brought out everything as TheWife had to take LatteGirl to dance class.

Self-Reminder One: “Early Birds” will show up a full two hours before the stated time of the sale. Do not be shocked when you find one (or two) camped out on your lawn waiting for you.

Self Reminder Two: It is an awful lot of work pulling all the old junk out and putting it on display. It will inevitably take you longer than anticipated. Especially when you are being watched over by the “Early Birds” that wind up slowing you down.

Once the early birds leave, you usually have enough time to get yourself together, maybe even slugging down a cup of coffee before the next batch of merry shoppers comes along.

Self Reminder Three: Nobody want to pay for anything at a garage sale. Always ask for a bit more because no matter how much you ask for something, they will want it for less.

Look, I’m not fooling myself. I understand this is the “junk” that I (mostly) don’t want, and I am not expecting “retail” or even “fair value” for this stuff, but come on folks let us get real for a minute. For example. For Christmas LatteGirl got the V.Tech V.Smile System, and we purchased a couple of extra games for it. As it turned out, she did not like it very much, and we instead replaced it with the LeapFrog Leapster which she enjoyed a lot more. So the game unit had been taken out of the box a grand total of once. Everything including all manuals and registration cards were in the box, along with two additional games. Now I didn’t expect to get anything close to full value. Hell, I didn’t expect to get half of it. But I didn’t think $10 was too much to ask. I would have taken a couple of dollars less even, just so I didn’t have to cart it back in the house and store it again. But when people start offering $1 for it, now I am nothing short of annoyed.

Look, I know there are plenty of people out there these days, either looking to get something for nothing, or trying to find gems themselves that they think they can resell on eBay. I don’t begrudge that. But let us get real. $1? C’mon will you?

We had children’s book. All in good shape (read: look like new or were new). Asking price? A quarter. Lady walks up and tells me how “outrageous” that price is and offers me ten cents a piece. I think some of these people really need to get a grip.

The biggest sucess of the day LatteGirl selling Lemonade for charity. Rather than buying her a the Lemonade stand that she wanted, TheWife found something through some organization that would give you a lemonade stand if the proceeds went to charity. So LatteGirl spent the afternoon hawking Lemonade for Second Harvest. And even with that we got a couple of comments that a lemonade stand shouldn’t have the “audacity” to charge a whole quarter for a (16 oz) glass of lemonade, and should be charging no more than a nickel.

My wife complains that I live “in the past” plenty of times, but at least I am stuck in the 80’s. Some of these people still must think it is 1955.

When all was said and done, LatteGirl raised about $20 for Second Harvest. She made $28 on the sale of her books and toys (which we told her would go to her bank), and TheWife and I cleared around $30. Figuring there was three of us working for 7 hours we earned (not counting the money going to charity) about $2.76/hour each. Suddenly that job a Wal-Mart sounds like big bucks in comparison.

But come next spring (I have already been informed that we will be doing this again in the spring), I like an Alzheimer’s patient, will probably again think “A yard sale. What a great idea”

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