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March 15, 2005
Garage Sale Etiquette (0)
Last weekend Karen and I worked at garage sale that benefits the girls' school. Lots of the parents donated clothes and other items. All of the money goes to the parents group, which is responsible for all sorts of things including playground improvements.
Now it has been quite a while since I have worked at a garage sale, the last one was in 1998. So I really was unsure how it still worked. I was happy to see that the cantankerous old guy who shows up at every garage sale I have ever seen and asks, "Do you have any old watches or jewelry?" is still around.
I also appreciate the bargaining dance that each shopper has in their repertoire. Sadly I would cut this dance short:
CUSTOMER: How much is this?
RICH: How much do you want it to be?
CUSTOMER: Fifty cents.
RICH: How about a dollar?
This was usually followed by money being handed to me and a smile. The other hard rule of the garage sale is the relationship between price and time. At 3pm a complete set of dishes is sold for $7, when it was priced at $25 when the sale started. Children's clothes which were selling for $1 an outfit at 10am are sold at $5 for as much as you can carry at 2:30pm.
The good news is that we raised over $1400! The amazing part is that by 10:30am, we had made $1100. The last $300 came between 10:30am and 3pm.
On Sunday I spent from 9:30am to 4pm working with 3 other dads fixing the fence on one of the school playgrounds. I am obviously ready for a break from school work!
Garage Sale Heaven
Whose Garage Sale Exploded Here
As a side note, I recently got a digital camera (they'll be an entry on this later), but didn't have it when the sale started, so I shot a photo with my phone. Thus the marked difference in the overall quality of these 2 pictures.
Posted by Rich at March 15, 2005 12:41 PM
