I digress. Someone decided to organize a neighborhood swap meet (I mean, yard sale), which is always good to generate more foot traffic.
Now, after the neighborhood yard sale we did six or seven years ago (in Bradford - competing with the professional on the corner), we ended up with a big, fat fail. Made about $200, sweated about 20 pounds (that was happiness), and watched everyone go across the street because she had all the baby/kid stuff. All I had were books and stuffed animals from my childhood that followed me around and had to go. (Let me backtrack - I still have stuffed animals from my childhood. Just because they followed me did not mean they automatically ended up in the sell pile. No, no, no ... there were, and still are, a handful that I won't even give to my daughter. If you know me, I'll give Munchkin anything ... "sure baby, you can have that machete, just let me teach you how to use it safely, okay?" ... so that's saying something. But again, I digress.)
I swore I would never do it again. I meant it. But our house was starting to look a little bit like an episode of "Hoarders" and it just had to go. Since someone else organized the yard sale, all we had to do was deal with cheap people, right?
It wasn't quite that easy. Poor Scott had to get ready for the event without me, as I had plans elsewhere. (You think I did it on purpose, and had I know the date of the yard sale ahead of time, I so would have done just that. But this is pure coincidence. I swear.) We hauled all our crap down to Chris and Laura's house because 1) their house is on the main street of our neighborhood so better visibility; 2) putting their stuff and our stuff together made it look like more (and it was all mostly kids/baby stuff) so that would generate more foot traffic; and 3) the kids could play together, which is always a good thing (even though, as it turned out, mine was super-crabby).
They got started early, and actually did have a few decent sales. Scott managed to sell the rocking chair that I thought was so far beyond repair I was going to throw it in the trash truck myself, next time I saw it. Shows what I know.
I swoop in around 12:30, four and a half hours after it gets started. Hey - wait, before you hate on me, I brought back LaRosa's and if you're familiar with northern Kentucky and pizza then you know LaRosa's is the best, and the furthest place south I can get LaRosa's is still a 30-45 minute drive from home. So, there you go, I brought lunch. Woohoo. I start my duty answering idiotic questions. Below, actual exchanges...
"Can I leave you my name and number? My niece just found out she's having twins, and they've got nothing. She's not that far along, so they don't know what they're having, but I don't want to just go buying stuff yet. So, maybe you can just save what you don't sell and give it to her?"
Laura and I both have this blank look on our faces at this point. The lady repeated her plea and this time she said something about a "small price" for the lot. Oh, she she wasn't necessarily asking for handouts. Cause after she left, Laura and I were both like, "umm, if we're giving something away, it's to Goodwill so I can claim it on my taxes, thankyouverymuch."
There was this one lady who was insanely large and lacked much of a personality. (Which is funny because isn't it the general thought that bigger/more unattractive girls have better personalities to make them desirable AND if you're going to go offer people next to nothing for their items, you might want to at least have some charisma or ability to develop a rapport to do that.) Anyway, she picked up some VHS tapes. VHS? REALLY? Wanted to know if there were more. We had some in our closet, so I sent Scott home to get them. She did end up with quite a few VHS tapes when it was all said and done. She also picked up a picture and wanted to know how much. I hesitated - I paid $75 for that picture. So I didn't know what was fair. Was $10 fair? Seemed a little under-value, so I told Scott to put a price on it. He goes, "Two dollars." She goes, "I'll give you $1.50 for it." My heart sank doing the math. I can't believe I let that happen. Scott was pissed later when he found out it originally cost so much, he wondered why I didn't put a higher price on it. Mainly because I knew this bitch would walk away, maybe not even with any of her coveted-VHS tapes, so you know, trying to keep the customer happy.
We also had the droves of Mexicans descend upon Sutton Place. Come on, if you're going to buy my stuff, at least have the decency to speak English to me. (Don't get started. I can go off, I sold car parts to them for two years. They never looked me in the face. God only knows what they were saying to my boobs as they rattled off in Spanish.) But, anyway ... more than once I saw them put their kids on the tricycle we were trying to sell, push the kid around, and we'd kind of do that happy dance of "we're going to get rid of that obnoxious thing!" and then the Mexicans get pissed off (probably because we either don't have the prices in pesos or we're not willing to speak Spanish to them) and leave. Don't even make an offer on the tricycle that entertained the kid(s). Hey, screw you too. Perhaps you were unaware of this fact, but a yard sale is not where you go to test drive the kiddie toys. You're supposed to buy them!!! You test drive them at Toys R Us, where at least the people who work there are getting paid to deal with your dumb ass.
Chris said the Mexican women were awful when it came to the clothes. He'd say $2 for two or three baby shirts and they'd freak out. Like they were expecting to pay a dime for three shirts. Umm, no, the sign said "Sutton Place Yard Sale." It didn't say "Five and Dime."
Laura had this toddler bed we've all attempted to get rid of. I listed it on craigslist. She listed it on craigslist. She had it out there and people inquired about it all day. There was one lady who placed money in Laura's hand (not as much as Laura wanted, but it was something and it was out of her house) and the lady goes, "Oh, wait, I don't need this, the one at home converts." And just like that, sale gone. There were countless people who would ask, once they got an answer they'd call someone. My favorite response after one of those moments was, "Yeah, she just didn't want to spend any money." So, when you asked "do you want to BUY a toddler bed" she's like, "No, but they can give it to me if they want." Yeah, well, get in line behind the other ballsy chick asking for handouts.
I also love the lady who rang our doorbell after dinnertime. She bought something (or someone did earlier) and she was coming back to get it, and she didn't know where to go to get it. That seems really mean. First of all, to do for the seller, because what happens if you don't come back? And it's mean to do to the poor customer, because then they look like idiots to the 15 people who answered the door saying, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
All said and done, we didn't hardly make enough to cover the amount of money I spent shopping out of catalogs tonight. (Haha, before you even say it, I was not buying more stuff for a yard sale - I am buying the stuff for other people.) Stupid yard sales. Next time I say, "Hey, let's get in on this, it won't be that bad." Shoot me. Just shoot me.
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