Thursday and Friday my dear Mom came to help with the boys while I was in and out for the sale. Friday afternoon Eli woke up early enough to watch the garage for an hour so I could run out to look for big boy pants. At one sale I found what I needed: four pairs of jeans in husky sizes (one pair still had tags on them!), three pairs of shorts, a pair of sweat pants, a pair of black dress pants, and snow pants which Gavin will need next winter, all for $16. For that price brand new I may have been able to get one pair of jeans and maybe a pair of the active-wear shorts.
Saturday dawned gloomy, and soon was raining true to the forecast. I had dim prospects for last-day sales, but during the last hour there was a flurry of rain-braving souls. We sold a lot of stuff I feared wasn't going to move. The "recipe-dex" went home with a lady who was super-excited about filling it with recipes, a couple came in and bought coats just because they were cold, and a guy fell in love with our Harley-Davidson clock hanging on the wall that wasn't even for sale. It sold for $5. The last things to go were the vintage brown-drip "bean pot" style soup bowls "because it's French onion soup weather".
This is what we were left with after the garage sale. Yes, it's a lot. If you need something for a boy, let me know.
My first garage sale ever, while we only had two boys, brought in $66. Our sale last fall during the motorcycle rally made $365. This year, despite the cold, the mist, and the rain, we made $268. This is especially surprising considering most of the boy clothes were priced at 25-50 cents a piece. While part of the proceeds will go toward camp for the boys next summer, we found out a wheel bearing needed to be replaced in the Suburban earlier in the week. That bill effectively absorbed the money we were going to put into the new house fund. Sometimes it feels like one step forward and two steps back around here.
As usual, there was a cast of characters that graced our sale. Some I remembered from last year, like the lady who could own no dolls as a child. I still didn't ask her why...it just never seemed appropriate. The mystery still haunts me.
Then there was the lady who argued with me on every price last fall, who was super cheerful this time and kept up a constant monologue about how various things could be repurposed. Perhaps it was because of the fuzzy pink camouflage hat with ear flaps she was wearing? It looked impossible to be in a bad mood with that on.
An ex-boyfriend's parents stopped by during the hour I was off hunting for jeans; they don't know I live here, so I can only attribute the peculiar timing to my guardian angel's whispers for me to leave.
An older lady raided the old sheets and pillow cases from the "Free" box for a church's quilting circle, and seemed surprised I would get rid of such treasures. When I told her I already had a whole tote of sheets and clothes to repurpose for quilting and rugs her face lit up, and she excitedly suggested dropping it off at the church if I changed my mind about keeping it. I had to laugh.
Another sweet lady picked out three well-worn cookbooks from the "Free" box for her granddaughters, and insisted on paying for them anyway. What's right with the world right there, folks.
One man stopped in and bought a movie, and then returned ten minutes later because he couldn't remember being here before.
There were a lot of Mennonite ladies who also had bunches of boys. They are ruthless on a pile of jeans!
Some old men have the best senses of humor. One in particular commented drolly, "I don't think you have anything in my size!" and chuckled, peering over all the boy clothes.
To the man who came for a leather coat, him-hawed about my old leather coat, and then returned the next day to show me the leather coat he bought for half the price: good for you, but not cool.
And about all the boy clothes: they inspired a lot of questions about our children. "No, they're not in school, they're in the house with Grandma and we homeschool." It's amazing all the fellow homeschoolers who were out, and the people who had family or friends who homeschooled. It really is growing. When I was being homeschooled a lot of people would ask, "What is that?" You never hear that comment anymore.
There were a lot of little girls (and moms of little girls) who excitedly traipsed in looking for girl treasures, only to shuffle out empty-handed.
One man (who I guess was in his 40's) said, "I salute you for having more than the standard number of children." He said it was a shame the large old families are disappearing, as they are such a blessing. He said, "It's too hard for people to take care of more than two kids anymore." You don't hear that very often; most often I get people's condolences as if our boys were "accidents". Thank you, sir.
There was a very frazzled mother accompanied by a young son, full of sighs and eye-rolls, who let that little guy walk all over her. Despite her begging and whining at him, little man insisted on sneaking into the back of our garage and stealing one of our boys' Tonka trucks. Instead of making him put it back, she commented, "And to think I'm pregnant with another one!" I could only imagine how afraid she was of a melt-down, but that horrible comment stung. I got up, knelt down by the boy, and put my hand on the truck. "I know you like this truck a lot, but so does my little boy. It's his, so I cannot sell it. Your Mom would like to keep walking with you to other sales, and you may find other cool toys there that you can have. I'm going to put this truck away now so you can listen to your Mom." The boy nodded and climbed back into the stroller. The mom whispered "thank you", to my relief. I hoped I hadn't crossed a line. Mamas: motherhood is hard. It's the hardest thing you'll do in this life. But when you rescind your authoritative role as parent, you are making it a 1000 times harder on yourself, and set your child(ren) up for heaps of trouble later on. And complaining about a pregnancy? Just don't. Your young son is hearing every sneer, every sigh, every humph. It's a horrible legacy to leave him, a horrible attitude to foster. Having lost three precious babies, and knowing the heartache people experience not being able to have children at all, I will never, ever complain again about the discomfort pregnancy has caused, or the children I was blessed with.
Then there was the lady who went into great detail about the surgery she was going to have that required five surgeons, because of specific and various parts of her needed work...while there were several other people browsing my sale. The garage cleared out fairly quickly.
I felt so bad when a (very tall) older gentleman hit his head on the garage door. Not ten minutes later another gentleman with a cane sauntered in, explaining how he was wearing a hat because he had cracked his head on a garage door only the day before. He had time to kill because he had just taken his 16 year old son to the emergency room with a broken finger from playing ball. He knew it was broken because he had been a boxer, and had broken all his knuckles before. He finally explained the cane: he was in the beginning stages of Parkinson's disease.
Then there was the man who couldn't stand to be at home alone because he had just lost his wife three weeks ago. I wish I knew just the right things to say to everyone. People need so many prayers.
I took a long nap this afternoon. The past two weeks have successfully drained me. Here's to no garage sale next year!
For other posts in this series, see:
The Great Purge: Part I
The Great (Furniture) Purge: Part II
The (Not So) Great (Book) Purge: Part III
The Great (Mostly Clothing) Purge: Part IV
If we lived closer to you guys those brown drip bowls would have been one of the first to go, I have 2 in storage and have salt and pepper shaker that match LOL I love vintage looking kitchen stuff
ReplyDeleteI was honestly surprised they didn't sell sooner! I even toyed with the thought of keeping them, but our kitchen is so small there is no room to store them. Plus, my kitchen is more of the earlier vintage, mint and yellow and red and cobalt blue.
Delete