Truth be told, the point of a garage sale is not revenue. Garage sale revenue does not really change one’s life, unless said garage is owned by Donald Trump. And you can be sure his used Air Supply cassette tapes are going for more than a quarter. For the rest of us, it just feels good to hold that many crumpled one-dollar bills in our hand or fanny pack. And, by the way, you should have sold that fanny pack.
The real point of a garage sale is the purge. The lifelong desire, so rarely realized, to clean house, free up space, and organize your life. This dream allows many garage sale hosts to rationalize putting actual garbage on tables, like broken trinkets, permanently locked file cabinets, and hopelessly obsolete computers. It’s a garage sale, not a garbage sale, yet no Maplewood garage sale is complete without a 200-piece Ansel Adams jigsaw puzzle containing 194 pieces, or a Barney plush toy that looks like it was thrown up on more than once. Barney just has that effect on some people. You can also tell a lot about a family breadwinner by the heavily branded free sweatshirts, tote bags, and mugs he turns around and sells on his front lawn. Nice corporate spirit!
We recently contributed several items to a multi-family garage sale. Among them were a small Sponge Bob aquarium that proved incapable of sustaining even the most primitive forms of life; a portable CD player minus headphone, batteries, or a working fast-forward; and a toddler security gate that may or may not come with all the right screws and brackets. The aquarium sold quickly at $5, but the other items didn’t fare as well. They probably fell prey to a rule of thumb among garage sale customers: don’t buy computers, stereos, or anything involved in the preservation of life or health.
At the sale, one could overhear the usual comments:
“It makes me ill to think how much I originally paid for that.”
“I’m sure it has all the pieces. Well, pretty sure. Well, would you take it for a dollar?”
“Yes, my mother-in-law got those for me…Fifty cents.”
“They sure don’t make hot-air corn poppers like they used to!”
“I’m sure it was washed. Well, pretty sure. Would you take it for a quarter?”
Running a garage sale is not the easiest job in the world. It takes a lot of patience, a lot of singles, and a haggling steadfastness worthy of Monty Hall. It also takes some masterful secret planning to sell toys your kids have forgotten long ago, but would swear were cherished future heirlooms upon learning they were being sold. A related law of garage sales: The resident seven year-old has immediate veto power over any transaction.
My wife and I do feel good about liberating ourselves from our accumulated junk. The house actually feels lighter, and we discovered several interesting things in our garage that had been hidden for years, like school yearbooks, lost tools, and small dead animals. To celebrate our purge, next week I’m packing up the kids and taking them on a tour of local garage sales, because like everyone else we’re in desperate need of seascape color prints, ancient humidifiers, and board games missing essential pieces.
And so the cycle continues.
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