The Goddess Speaks
The Goddess Speaks
I'm not a garage-sale junkie. I don't make it a habit to hop in my car every Saturday morning, to drive around from neighborhood to neighborhood, looking for garage sale bargains. I don't have a room full of junk, things I think I'll use or fix up but never seem to find the time to do it. Hooked on unloading
treasures at garage salesI'm a garage sale seller. (What are we called anyway? I hear people say, "I'm going to have a garage sale," but we don't seem to have a noun to call our own.)
I like to get rid of things that others could use more than I did. Like that sushi maker that I thought was so super that I just had to get it for $29.99. It will probably sell at my garage sale for a mere $2.
Or that chopper, grinder, smasher gadget I bought on the Home Shopping Network that I thought was so neat. Five years later, it still sits in its original packaging.
How about the black patent leather shoes that my children wore once to my cousin's friend's brother's wedding that cost me a fortune? They will probably go for a buck.
I suppose I could consider myself a semipro at garage sale selling. I know what to expect from bargain hunters.
When the sign says that the garage sale starts at 8 a.m., I can expect one man to show up at 6:30 a.m., hunting for McDonald's Happy Meal toys.
There's one woman who comes for videotapes, buys them all, and almost certainly takes them somewhere else to sell for a higher price, just like the man who bought my tennis racket for $2, who I found selling the same racket at the Kam Drive-In Swap Meet for $4. What a guy!
How about those ladies carrying Gucci bags filled with cash, trying to bargain a dress down from 25 cents to 10 cents, then asking if they can have the hanger. Hello!?! The hanger alone cost me 10 cents.
I must say it is an experience to see these kinds of behaviors. But I guess what's most satisfying about being a garage sale seller is making people happy.
The buyer walks away with something that would have cost her way more if she bought it at retail; my kids are happy with the money they make, which defrays the cost of new toys; my husband is happy to have the junk disappear; and I'm off to buy all kinds of new things at retail that I'll probably end up selling at next year's garage sale.
Paulette Suwa is a meeting planner for the Hawaii State Bar Association and a free-lance writer. She promises a garage sale junkie's paradise when the Mililani Mauka neighborhood unites for its annual garage sale from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday behind the Castle & Cooke Sales Office on Ainamakua Drive.
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