How Much For The Coconut Monkey?

I had a garage sale this weekend. Or, rather, I participated in my friend’s garage sale, something I hadn’t done in years. And may never do again.

First of all, even though you wind up with a sizable chunk of change, if you divide the money by the number of hours invested, it’s not really that great. Of course, the hourly rate for a blogger doesn’t quite compute, but my friends actually make decent bank. Second, you wind up with a wad of singles, making you feel what I call "stripper rich."

We rolled open the garage door pre-dawn, in order to have everything set up by our announced opening time of 7 a.m. Now, anyone who has ever had a garage sale knows that people COMPLETELY ignore the posted start and finish times.

Sure as shit, we had this rather butch lady show up at the crack of 6:30, flashlight in hand, ready to rummage.

Now, I know a lot of people who stand firm and won’t allow early shoppers. The way I see it, a garage sale is just people paying me to haul off shit I don’t want anymore. So, I was like, “Lady, knock yourself out. Feel free to start digging through the stuff we haven’t put out yet.” She informed us that this was her hobby. EVERY Saturday morning, she hops out of bed and is off to find a bargain.

Who are these people?

My favorite moment of the day came when a patron got into an argument with my Beloved (and TRUST me, you DO NOT want an argument with my Beloved) about what street we were on. “This isn’t xxxx street!” she said. “The sign said xxxx street.”

“The sign said yyyyy at xxxx,” answered my B patiently-ish. “See the house is on a corner. It faces xxxx. The garage faces yyyyy.”

“Well you shouldn’t have put xxxx street. I live on xxxx street. This is yyyyy.”

Meanwhile, I’m thinking, “but you found it Lady Miss Dumbass. Buy something or get the fuck out.”

By the end of the day I had come to realize that people buy the strangest shit. Old, beat up, worthless one-offs go like wildfire. The $200 Robert Graham shirt never sold. Nor did the fabulous sweater I bought in Paris. Actually, I pulled that one back off the pile. I love that sweater and I just couldn’t bear to sell it for a dollar.

The Robert Graham shirt was a gift from someone who no longer deserves my friendship, so I was happy to give it to a thrift shop at the end of the day.

Condescension mixed with altruism is a delicious cocktail.