Ye Olde Garage Sale

It is finally over. I think we have recouperated, but I'm not quite sure. We better have -- Bob starts his new job tomorrow...PRAISE GOD... and I am teaching a cram course. But why I didn't take pictures, I'll never know.

We "opened" at 9:00 both Friday and Saturday. Our first customer came by at 7:02 when we opened the garage door so Torrey & Chris could start pricing their things. I think we probably had at least 100 people by before 8:30. So much for timing...

Friday started out looking rainish, and I was trying to imagine throwing tarps over the tables that were in the driveway -- or do we throw them over the books -- or over the furniture that dotted the lawn? Fortunately we escaped with only three drops (I counted them) and by noon it was HOT and sunny.

The people were fun. The Internationals would bargain even if they couldn't speak English. The Americans not so much. Some would walk in and definitely not make eye contact while they perused the 7 huge tables Bob had constructed. Some would stop and chat, some would just say 'thank you' as they walked out without buying anything.

Bob counted the books -- we had advertised "over 500 books." In actuality there were 1048. And there are still over 2800 in the house! Ultimately we sold about 425. We started at $1.00/hardback, 50 cents/paperback. By Saturday afternoon we had moved to "buy one get one free" and then to $3.00/bag. Some folks can really stuff a bag!!

I was SO glad we had Torrey, Chris and Tim to help. Don't know how we would have managed without them. We had everything tagged with red (us), green (Jill), yellow (Torrey) and blue (Tim) stickers so we could keep the finances straight.

Saturday we brought down prices a bit. Beanie Babies -- $1.50 each. We didn't sell nearly as many stuffed animals as we thought we would even when we made them $2.50 each. But Joyce bought 16 beanies at that good price. That helped. Both the microwaves went, as did all three computers.

Chris set up the refreshments each day -- we served lemonade and cookies -- free, help yourself. One person said, "I've never had refreshments at a garage sale, ever!"

I liked the "drive by" shoppers. "Do you have a canoe?" No, sorry. "OK, thanks!" "Do you have any bicycles?" No -- sorry. "Oh, OK." "Canes? Children's wagons? Fly fishing equipment?" No, no, and no. But we do have plenty of dishes, a toddler's push toy, an entertainment center, an antique dining room table, a bedroom set -- and did I mention the stuffed animals???

Saturday we didn't have anyone until about 8:00 or so. Much fewer on Saturday -- even periods of time where we didn't have anyone. On Friday we had two blocks of 30 seconds each where no one was there.

Bob estimates all together we had between 400 and 500 visitors.

We are thinking about doing this again for one day in August or September.

We'll see. After putting everything away, I'm not sure I'm ready to get it out again.

I'm still pooped.

But it was fun.