Another year's neighborhood garage sale has come and gone. While it was a flop overall, there were some highlights worth mentioning.
First of all, there was the weather. When you plan a sale in June, you know that there's always a chance of rain in upstate NY. You don't typically have to worry about snow though. Except for yesterday. We must have broken a record for the all-time low temperature for June 10th. I think it was in the 40s in the morning. I dressed my son in a sweatshirt and a fleece pullover. I even wore my winter coat! In June.
We had very poor participation this year. Usually several families put out their junk treasures, but this year it was a pretty pathetic offering. And we must have been sending out the "this street sale sucks" vibe too, because we usually get a fantastic crowd, being off a main road, but I guess everyone was home drinking hot cocoa on this particular freezing cold June day.
Our sale especially was homely. I wish I'd taken a photo. We really weren't into it this year, and it showed. We had a bunch of record albums (LPs), and while several people commented on my husband's good taste in music, very few albums sold. We had some bad videos, bad CDs, and bad books, too. Along with an assortment of ugly, plastic travel mugs. And then we had our machinery display.
Have you ever driven by a house that looks like a salvage yard? or a graveyard for old power tools, pieces and parts? Our front lawn had a little of that going on yesterday. It was classy. My husband had decided to part with one of the many lawn mowers he'd acquired, though for the early part of our sale, it didn't have a handle. Then he found one in the garage to attach to it. Because, you know, everyone has spare lawn mower parts, engines, and such in their garage. Don't they? He also decided to part with a lawn tractor he'd acquired. It even started eventually, when we had an interested customer. And then there was the drill saw (?) thingy and part of a generator. I'm probably forgetting something. It was a fine assortment of motorized doo-dads.
A high point of the day was the unforeseen sale of my Buns of Steel video.
I can't believe someone bought that thing. For a whole DOLLAR! And then she
complimented my husband on his "progressive" selection of books. She
gave him a thumbs up, and we laughed about it afterward. As I mentioned, we had an assortment of old, bad books. Naturally, someone buying a classic Buns of Steel classic has fine taste.
The sale of the mower and tractor were also big moments. Oddly, the tractor buyer hasn't come back or called about picking it up, though he did put 85% down on his purchase!
It was fun visiting and heckling the few neighbors who were out. That's usually the best part of the day for me. But the people across the street had a friend helping at their sale who did a "Come on Down / The Price Is Right" spiel, which he shouted down the street to try to lure people in. Not only was it ineffective, but it was annoying as hell. We were ready to give him a dollar to shut up!
I think my son had the best time of all. He got to stroll the sales all day long with Grandma, who ended up buying him half the toys in the neighborhood.
Now we need to have a garage sale. Again.
