The Best Garage Sale Ever

On Sunday, I had what The Guinness Book of World Records will be referring to for at least the next three decades as, the best garage sale ever. I sold a record amount of crappy goods including, but not limited to: 4 used cans of paint, a 3-legged stool, and 2 frying pans, neither having a lid but both including substantial burn marks on them. By the end of the day I looked like a drug dealer with a fat roll of bills spilling out of my pants. The kids in the neighborhood starting referring to me as il padrino as I tossed them one dollar bills. The trick to having The Best Garage Sale Ever™ is in how you price your wares.

For example, I sold a DVD player for a dollar. Yes, a dollar. Now who could refuse that?! No matter that the DVD player was missing a power cord and its remote. Wouldn't you like to know if it worked for a dollar? A muddy nozzle for a hose? Fifty cents. A bootleg DVD of Mystic River bought on Canal Street complete with a black and white Xerox cover? Twenty five cents! You just can't beat my prices. Sell enough junk, ahem, treasures like that and it adds up.

Then there were the items for which I was so relieved that they were able to get a new lease on life. Like my red and white bottle cap metal stool, perfectly rusted and bent in all the right places. SOLD! To the spunky girl up the street who had to race back home for three dollars. My mid-century wooden arm chair that my ex roommate had left out in the rain one night and thus, permanently warped. SOLD! To the man on the bike who had just moved from Portland and had to come back with his truck.

The only things I was sad I couldn't find a home for were my canning supplies and my shoes. Many women tried them on but alas, there was no Cinderella that day. So I did what any shoe-minded woman would do in such a situation. I took them all back.

I was optimistic that we could have sold all four vacuum cleaners, each one representing a different 20th century decade, but my cohorts demanded we pack it in after the sun went down. Wimps! I am sure there were hoards still in route from the suburbs.

All in all it was everything I could have hoped for and more. I got rid of stuff. I saw some friends. I met new neighbors. And I only had to take home 2 boxes of items that, at the last minute, I couldn't bear to part with.