A wrap up after my last post regarding our Garbage Garage Sale.
We still have the cat in case you were wondering. It ran away and hid on Saturday morning and didn’t reappear until about two o’clock in the afternoon. I told you cats are aliens. They know stuff they shouldn’t.
We are also still in possession of the hot rollers, the encyclopaedias, all the trophies, the pottery artefact, and the treadmill.
The foot spa was snapped up by a really old guy. I saw his car pull up to the kerb and take four metres and quite a lot of braking to actually stop. Then it took him approximately twenty minutes to extricate himself from the car and walk down the driveway.
“How much is that?” he growled, pointing at my foot spa.
“Five dollars,” I beamed.
“What is it?”
“It’s a thing you fill with water and it bubbles up and relaxes your feet,” I explained.
He seemed satisfied with that explanation and picked it up, tucking it under his arm possessively.
“What’s this?” he asked picking up a Fijian axe my son Thaddeus, brought home from a holiday years ago.
“It’s an axe,” I said.
“How much?”
I shrugged not really knowing the going price for Fijian axes,“Two dollars?” I suggested.
He handed me seven dollars.
“I hope you’re not buying that axe to keep your wife in line?” I said, half jokingly.
He turned and eyed me up and down. “It’s to protect myself from her,” he grumbled without cracking a smile.
There was another really interesting guy from Ireland, ‘Seamus’, who I noticed looking through the few poetry and drama books I’d put out.
“I have two bookcases full of Shakespeare, poetry and plays if you want to come in and look?” I asked him.
He followed me in and sat trawling through them, overflowing with praise at my collection. We had the best chat about the Romantic poets, Shakespeare and literature in general.
Scotto stuck his head in the front door and asked me to show an old lady a single bed she was interested in buying. As I took her up the stairs to the spare room, she kept looking down at poor Seamus and saying in a loud voice, “You shouldn’t be letting just anyone into your house you know! There are some terrible people around! People who’ll rob you in broad daylight. Thieves!”
I’m sure Seamus heard every word she said and felt her accusatory eyes on him as he lovingly piled up the books he wanted.
Seamus finally finished his fossicking and had a big box full of my precious classics. “You just tell me what you want to pay me for this and that will be fine,” I said.
“NO!” he replied in his lilting, west coast Irish accent. “You tell me what you want for them.”
“Twenty bucks?” I said hesitantly.
“Thirty!” he snapped back.
It’s not normally how people negotiate is it? Maybe it’s an Irish thing?
The fact is, I was thrilled someone truly appreciative is now in ownership of the books I took such great pleasure in collecting over the last twenty years.
There was another guy who kept seeing things in our garden and wanting to buy them. "Can I buy that?" he kept saying. "Will you sell me that?"
We are also still in possession of the hot rollers, the encyclopaedias, all the trophies, the pottery artefact, and the treadmill.
The foot spa was snapped up by a really old guy. I saw his car pull up to the kerb and take four metres and quite a lot of braking to actually stop. Then it took him approximately twenty minutes to extricate himself from the car and walk down the driveway.
“How much is that?” he growled, pointing at my foot spa.
“Five dollars,” I beamed.
“What is it?”
“It’s a thing you fill with water and it bubbles up and relaxes your feet,” I explained.
He seemed satisfied with that explanation and picked it up, tucking it under his arm possessively.
“What’s this?” he asked picking up a Fijian axe my son Thaddeus, brought home from a holiday years ago.
“It’s an axe,” I said.
“How much?”
I shrugged not really knowing the going price for Fijian axes,“Two dollars?” I suggested.
He handed me seven dollars.
“I hope you’re not buying that axe to keep your wife in line?” I said, half jokingly.
He turned and eyed me up and down. “It’s to protect myself from her,” he grumbled without cracking a smile.
There was another really interesting guy from Ireland, ‘Seamus’, who I noticed looking through the few poetry and drama books I’d put out.
“I have two bookcases full of Shakespeare, poetry and plays if you want to come in and look?” I asked him.
He followed me in and sat trawling through them, overflowing with praise at my collection. We had the best chat about the Romantic poets, Shakespeare and literature in general.
Scotto stuck his head in the front door and asked me to show an old lady a single bed she was interested in buying. As I took her up the stairs to the spare room, she kept looking down at poor Seamus and saying in a loud voice, “You shouldn’t be letting just anyone into your house you know! There are some terrible people around! People who’ll rob you in broad daylight. Thieves!”
I’m sure Seamus heard every word she said and felt her accusatory eyes on him as he lovingly piled up the books he wanted.
Seamus finally finished his fossicking and had a big box full of my precious classics. “You just tell me what you want to pay me for this and that will be fine,” I said.
“NO!” he replied in his lilting, west coast Irish accent. “You tell me what you want for them.”
“Twenty bucks?” I said hesitantly.
“Thirty!” he snapped back.
It’s not normally how people negotiate is it? Maybe it’s an Irish thing?
The fact is, I was thrilled someone truly appreciative is now in ownership of the books I took such great pleasure in collecting over the last twenty years.
There was another guy who kept seeing things in our garden and wanting to buy them. "Can I buy that?" he kept saying. "Will you sell me that?"
Then he went through the skip, full of junk on the front lawn and took a few things from that as well. I kind of felt sorry for his wife at home watching him turn up with a ute tray full of our crap.
Mind you, I gave away a lot of stuff to kids while their parents glared at me for offloading my garbage onto innocent children.
Bottom Line.
Money made from Garage Sale? $500
Money spent paying plumber this morning (a Sunday) to fix a burst water hammer regulator under kitchen sink? $242
The Lord giveth and then he taketh.
But looking on the bright side, we have a lot less stuff to pack when we move and my kitchen floors are now spotless after we finished mopping eighty litres of leaked water up this morning.
Fudgeerama!
Bottom Line.
Money made from Garage Sale? $500
Money spent paying plumber this morning (a Sunday) to fix a burst water hammer regulator under kitchen sink? $242
The Lord giveth and then he taketh.
But looking on the bright side, we have a lot less stuff to pack when we move and my kitchen floors are now spotless after we finished mopping eighty litres of leaked water up this morning.
Fudgeerama!
Have you ever had a garage sale? Do you go to them? Ever picked up a bargain?
