A Bit on Garage Sales

As the title says, here's just a bit on garage sales...

So this morning, my parents woke me up to let me know they were heading out to go "garage sale hunting." I grunted my acknowledgement and promptly went back to sleep. About three hours later, once I was finally dressed and out of bed, they got back home. My dad dropped my mom off in our driveway and then drove away. Mama rushed into the house explaining to me that they'd found this big multi-house, neighborhood-wide garage sale over by my old high school, and at one of the houses they'd stumbled across a great find. They'd rushed back home to go to an ATM and get more cash, and my mom had been dropped off so she could make herself and my dad some lunch so that they would waste no time in order to promptly go back and buy this magnificent piece. Now, I'm not a shopping snob, and I understand that there's nothing like a good garage sale, so when they extended the offer for me to come along with them for the adventure, I was up for it. Not like I had anything better to do anyways.

Less than thirty minutes later we were in the car driving back to this person's house. Sure enough, our newly discovered and highly cherished item was still there, awaiting our return. We loaded up the car, paid the nice people, and proceeded down the street on to the next sale. At least eight houses and at least as many awkward conversations later, I was minorly disappointed and minorly sunburned.

To be fair, I'm sure my parents didn't feel nearly as awkward as I did. But first off, I was imagining a scenario something like the following: driving down a street, seeing happy residents of all ages from every house displaying their goods at the edges of their driveways and lawns, excited shoppers meandering between rows of tables and bookcases and stacks of neatly labeled boxes, younger children looking through bins of toys and games while adults take more interest in the classic books and organized racks of clothes and furniture items...

Okay, typing it out, it does seem a little ridiculous. But I at the very least expected a bunch of yards to be filled with a bunch of stuff. My family had a garage sale right before we moved, and we had a bunch of tables filled with a bunch of stuff, so it's just how I remember yard sales working. What we actually found was about three or four houses participating per street, and, for the most part, each house having a few rather empty tables not very full of an assortment of unimpressive items. I did make an important discovery though - garage sales awkward me out.

Seriously.

One lady was selling old bras o.O Eww. Just, eww.

I just feel extremely uncomfortable walking up someone's driveway and looking through their old stuff, judging it in my own way and deciding if it's worthy of my time, attention, and, most importantly, money. And then I feel really uncomfortable when I look around and walk away without buying anything. Especially if one glance shows me there's nothing I want to buy. I always feel obligated to at least wander for a few minutes. Otherwise I feel like I'm indirectly telling the people that they have nothing of interest to me. Or directly telling them. Either way, awkward situation. And then some of them try really hard to sell you stuff. Stuff that you 98% of the time don't want at all, and they know you don't want it at all. But they want to get rid of it and you're morally obligated to feign interest. It's just an awkward situation.

My afternoon was not totally unsuccessful though! One couple did have a really good selection of movies, we just already had a lot of them. The lady also had an awesome pair of linen overall-shorts; I actually went inside and tried them on, but alas, they were barely too small =^( It was quite the disappointment. The lady was sweet though, and she had a cool house and two adorable huge dogs. At another house I did find a couple yards of really awesome fabric (and when you're into sewing, multiple yards of decent fabric for dirt cheap is a gift from God), a book of Edgar Allen Poe short stories for 25 cents (I have a love for Poe...) and a really epic straw hat. No, really, it's absolutely epic.

And it was fun to wander around with my parents. They're cool.

So that was my Saturday. It was more entertaining than most of my Saturdays, so I thought I might share it. Hope your Saturday was a good one too!