Garage Sale Redux

It’s Sunday morning and outside my window the snow is softly falling. It makes me sick. I don’t care how soft it is, when it hits the freeway it’s a big sloppy nightmare. Damn snow.

August 18, 2009 – Garage Sale Results
How to lose five pounds in 30 days: 1) set a date (roughly one month away) for a garage sale, 2) tell the family, 3) start digging, hauling, cleaning, sorting and pricing.

I’m not saying it wasn’t worth it; I’m just saying I’ll never do it again. We made a grand total of $827.95, which means we moved a lot of merchandise, given that the highest priced item sold for $28. The aftermath: ten large garbage bags and one box of donations; seven large bags of true garbage; half a garage of leftovers that Gina is moving to her house for a follow-up sale on Labor Day weekend. (They live in Roseville. She thinks they’ll get all those State Fair patrons going back and forth to the Park & Ride.) I have agreed to assist, since I could stand to lose a couple more pounds.

What DIDN’T sell:
prom dresses (not one)
1980s posters, including four M. Jackson (not one)
1950s-era McCalls magazines (not one)
shoe charms
Mac software (including “Quicken 96” and “Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing”)
wall map of Jamaica
inflatable palm tree
four room humidifiers
five Christmas wreaths
Christmas nutcracker (motion and music!)
Christmas nutcracker (just stands there)
Christmas nutcracker ornament
elf, frog and polar bear slippers
little liquor barrel that hangs on a St. Bernard’s collar
McDonald’s visor, apron and badge
12″ plastic rabbit (amazingly lifelike!)
hair extensions
bowling shoes
two adult cow costumes
one Elvis costume

What DID:
LPs, 45s, movies, CDs
books
stuffed animals
chain saw
animal-shaped lawn sprinklers
Santa Claus rug
Salad Spinner
perpetual calendar
sweater stone
cowboy hat cleaner (and hat)
13-pc. child’s bed with no hardware or instructions
fluffy sheep hot water bottle holder
a lot of other stuff someone actually thought they needed

September 9, 2009 – Follow-up Garage Sale at Gina & Bret’s
We had a second and last garage sale last weekend at Gina’s house, where we managed to unload the polar bear slippers and the liquor barrel for a St. Bernard but not a single prom dress. People just don’t dress up anymore.

While we were outside minding business, Maria kept one-year-old Cosette occupied in the house for a while watching a “Veggie Tales” movie. It seemed like a good idea at the time but failed to take into account that, at nine, Maria still gets some odd notions. When I went in to check on them, she had a toothbrush with toothpaste on it and was trying to get Ursa to sit still and open up. The dog, having more sense than a nine-year-old girl, was having none of it. I don’t know if it was Gina’s toothbrush or Bret’s, but I’m pretty sure there’d be a big holy to-do if either one of them thought it was being used on the dog. So we put the toothbrush back in the bathroom and swore each other to secrecy.

Everybody doesn’t need to know everything, you know.