Apr 30, 2007

OH THE AGONY... (aka I had a garage sale)

Usually, I would rather donate used household items to my local church thriftstore. They either sell them or bundle them up and send them all over the world. But, after cleaning out my stash, I decided that people in Botswana probably couldn't use any patterned paper or ALL BOY embellishments. So, I decided to go ahead and have a garage sale during our area's big garage sale weekend. And... I was reminded why I haven't actually HAD a garage sale in over 15 years and hopefully, I won't lose my mind again and think it's okay to hold one ever again as long as I live.

Geesh!!!!! So I packaged my patterned paper (500 total sheets of it) in grab bags of 25 sheets for $3. That's a whopping 12 cents per sheet. Even the cheapest stuff in there from multi-stacks cost more than that. It was a steal. Then, most of the embellishments were anywhere from 75-90% off retail. Many were packaged in HUGE themed packs (like WINTER, or SPORTS) for around $5. Each pack had AT LEAST $20 (retail) worth of stuff in it. It was all a bargain. Well, one lady (one of many) didn't think it was cheap enough. She gathered up $25-30 (the marked price) worth of stuff and comes up and says, "Will you take $5 for all this?" I about fell over laughing. I said, "No, because it's all new and if you bought all that retail, it's probably $150 worth of stuff. But, you're welcome to go through it again." She snorted in disgust but then she combed through it all and came up with about $7 in stuff and tries again, "Will you take $5 for this?" I actually did, but I couldn't believe her nerve.

WHAT THE HECK IS UP WITH GARAGE SALE PRINCESSES? Give those of us selling stuff (not just scrapbook stuff, but ANY stuff) some credit for having a BRAIN IN OUR HEADS!!!!!! At a certain point, I'm going to get a better tax write-off than I am going to get selling it for nothing. It's so insulting to offer someone practically NOTHING for something you know is perfectly good (and in my case, NEW) and already at a FANTASTIC price.

The WORST ones (and if you've ever subjected yourself to the torture of holding your own garage sale know the type) are the big haired and "big-boned" 60-something women in the oversized LOUD shiny polysester shirts, stretch pants or leggins and gold sandals (is there a handbook somewhere that recommends that "uniform" because they all wear it!). They show up like at 6:45 am while you're setting up, dig through your boxes, find a 25 cent tchotchke, offer you 10 cents for it and then hand you a $20 bill. Then they get huffy when you say you can't make change for them this early in the morning without wiping out all your cash. Her male counterpart is the guy with the pickup who drives wildly through the neighborhood trying buy any lawn mower or bike he sees. We had kids riding around their bikes all day and every time this guy came through and saw an unattended bike he hollered out the window, "IS THAT BIKE FOR SALE???!!!!!" At one point, he got out of his truck and pounded on our neighbor's door (they were NOT having a garage sale) and wanted to know if the bike in the driveway was for sale. It was their son's bike. He made at least 5 sweeps through the neighborhood in 5 hours.

In the end, I made a whopping $120. Not all of it was scrapbook stuff. I have a TON of it left . I think I'll try my hand at eBay and if that doesn't work, it's on the next boat to Botswana...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I so hear you. I had to have a garage sale in FL while backing up my mother from her home of 60+ years. I have never in my life seen such rude and obnoxious people. Some even stole from us. They tore into boxes behind where we were selling some things in the garage. These boxes clearly marked NOT FOR SALE.

I will give away every single thing I own before I will ever subject myself to that again. Let the garage salers just buy it and then sell it to the next person who will buy it and sell it at there sale.

Shudder.

Anonymous said...

Sheesh, I knew I should have used the preview button. The thought of that sale still rattles me. The way they treated my mother with no respect or dignity was what really did it.

Anyway, I meant to say packing and not backing :).