. . . it's done. Our
call-it-what-you-will sale day was fun and tiring but we made it through without a lot of grief.
We got up at our normal time (4:30 am) to get over there in time for breakfast (egg, cheese, bacon, sausage, onion breakfast casserole) with Alice. Then we did some last minute prep for the sale — positioning the tables, putting stuff in it's "sale" spot. Pricing everything and getting it generally arranged on Friday afternoon helped make the morning a lot stressful. We were ready to go (mostly) at the 7 o'clock starting gun.
Since the sale started at 7 am we got a lot of early birds on their way to other sales in the area scheduled to start later. A wise strategy in hindsight. We'll try that with ours when we have them. Found out later in the day that the person responsible for advertising the sale and putting signs out did a very poor job. So we were found by the most persistent yard salers.
The rain was kind to us most of the day with just brief showers and no sustained winds. In one case, a couple waited out the shower under cover of the carport cover and ended up buying some things before they left. We managed to keep our stuff fairly dry since there was not wind. We were prepared to put up tarp "walls" if it got to bad.
People are very interesting and yesterday just reinforced that. Here're some highlights from what I saw yesterday:
- I was surprised at the number of couples that have the same interests in books. I know Barb and I share some common interests but nearly every couple that came in, and that I asked, said they liked the same kinds of books as their partner. Curious. I wonder if it was always that way or was it just by being together for a period of time that influenced the shared interest. One woman said, of her and her husband's like of the same books, with a wink and a smile, "I pick out good books and he likes them." That may best sum it up.
- That people will buy just about anything. One guy bought three old Sony Walkman style radios that didn't even have the headphones with them. These were the old kind that play cassette tapes (remember them kiddies? Link included for those of you to young to remember them). I had thrown them away a number of times then dug them out of the trash for some reason (sound familiar Mom?). I'm not sure the 30¢ we got for them was really worth it but the nut case that bought them was happy.
- People ask for the weirdest things. The guy who bought the radios looked like his tastes ran far to the eccentric side. Just a feeling I had. When he got his radios, he ask for a receipt - nothing fancy - just something written on a scrap of paper he could look at later so he'd know how much he spent. Then, another guy wanted to buy Alice's chinese maple she's grown out front of her house. He was serious.
- Some people really try your patience. One woman spent nearly 30 minutes going through each item, taking it out of the box (if it was in one), trying it out or asking to be shown how it worked. Remember the Ab-Roller? Someone had one in a box (I won't say who, but it wasn't us) and it was disassembled so it wouldn't take up so much room. It had the VHS tape that showed how to use it and everything was there. This lady was obsessed with it (it could have been the pretty purple paint). She went on and on about it - she wanted to know what it looked like, how it worked, did it work, was it all there. (No one volunteered to put it together and demonstrate it.) Alice only wanted $5 for it but the ladey didn't want to pay that much since she didn't know if it worked. After a while Alice, out of frustration, accepted $3 for it.
- Some people aren't browsers. Not just men, but some women would come in, briskly walk from table-to-table pick up an item or two, pay for it, and briskly leave. They weren't unfriendly but it was like they were late for an appointment and just need to pick up these couple of specific things on there way.
- People are from everywhere. One guy, who lives in the area, was originally from Kannappolis, North Carolina. He was about our age and he'd grown up in the racing community back there. He'd known the Earnhardts, Buddy Baker and other greats when he was growing up. He'd raced with them and went to races with them. He was full of stories from "back when." He said back when he was growing up there, that racing was what those guys wanted to do. Well, that and drink. He thought the current state of NASCAR, while good for the spectators, was a little to glamorous.
That's just some of the observations I made.
The rains moved in with a fury about 2 pm and we finally closed up our part of the sale at 2:30 pm. A few other houses were going to tough it out 'til 3, but our little group was tired and cold.
We made a few bucks, which was really surprising considering our most expensive things were $5 and we only had a few of those. Mostly we had 50¢ and 25¢ things, so we sold A LOT of those to make what we did. While we didn't sell everything, it was definitely easier to load everything back into the truck at the end of the day. But, in the end, it didn't even make a dent in the overall gotta-get-rid-of-it stuff we have.
MUST. WORK. HARDER.
Turkey at the top is the one DJ fixed for us on Easter. It was tender, juicy and very good. Ah, memories...
PS to comment on yesterday's post - no swine flu contracted I hope. Took my hand sanitizer and used it often and avoided contact with sneezers and wheezers.
Greetings.
