Sunday, May 04, 2008

Remind me never to do that again.

Friends don't let friends have garage sales.

I am completely exhausted because I had a garage sale on Saturday from 8-2. It took me all week to get ready for said sale, and by getting ready I mean to say I sorted through my junk. That was the most exhausting part of the process! And embarrassing - mostly because my older, wiser friend and neighbor Liz came over on Friday to help me sort through the junk in my garage.

Yikes. No one needed full disclosure of what kind of nonsense I neglect to throw away, but here is a partial disclosure: old magazines, junk mail, broken stuff, boxes full of stuff that I never unpacked from the last move.

Regardless of the humiliation, I must say that it was much easier to purge the garage with a friend. When Liz came across something that needed to be tossed, she didn't even need to say anything. She only needed to give me the *what in the heck are you keeping this for???* look.

I'll miss Liz!

Let me also mention that if you plan to have a garage sale, just use Cr@ig's List. By advertising on that site alone, I had more attendees than I have ever had at a garage sale before - and I know many of these people had to drive 30 or more minutes to get here.

So I'll spare you the dirty - but amusing - details. Know that I only slept four hours the night before, and know that if you mix an Armenian woman that bargains aggressively with a bargaining savvy Hispanic crowd, fun stuff happens. I bow in honor of their cultural intuitive abilities to wager a deal.

The best part of all of this is that I got rid of much stuff. And I've lost my ability to attach sentimental value to things. Almost.

5 comments:

PJD said...

Congratulations!

We have many garage sale stories from the past few years. Neither M nor I is a pack rat in any sense of the word, thank goodness. But her dad was overly so. When we cleaned out his garage, my favorite moment was moving an ice chest off a shelf and finding seven pairs of topsider shoes, every single shoe with a hole in the sole. If the Nike motto is "just do it," I guess Gary's motto was "just in case."

M adores garage sales. But she never bargains. Often she'll talk the buyer into a lower price. I think M just enjoys getting rid of things.

Anonymous said...

It always seems like a good idea, and then the morning of, when you haven't slept and are still scampering to get tables set up and prices marked, you think - what the hell was I thinking???

But yay for you - really! And now it's over!

bluesugarpoet said...

Exactly, Aerin! You've been there a few times, I can tell. :) Thank God it is over!!!

Free at last, free at last... I wonder if Dr. King had any idea how many ways we could apply that phrase?

I'm like M - I like to find bargains, and I might ask for a lower price, but I never make up some kind of sob story in order to get a deal, nor do I strong arm people into taking pennies for an item.

Being a pack rat...I wish I wasn't...I'm learning not to be...I think.

Anthony said...

Smart; very smart.

Dalene said...

My husband has a ziplock bag full of assorted pens and pencils in the attic. Also, a box of "work shoes" (shoes specifically for doing jobs like cleaning out your attic). ;o)