Garage Sales

This wasn't even the worst of the downpour! But it got better - 

the sun eventually came out and our neighbor eventually 

moved his truck.

I would pay a dollar for homemade apple cinnamon coffee cake

 and hot fresh coffee in the rain. Apparently everyone else would 

only like to take it for free. "Can I just have a little bit of coffee?"

     Sometimes an explorer must lighten his or her load in order to more effectively wander. After weeks of deep house cleaning, I accumulated bags of Stuff to get rid of. My husband and I went through our closets, the garage and kitchen - making a good solid pile of unnecessary, unused or overused items. While not exactly "fun", weeding through my things did make me reevaluate what I own, and feel confident about everything that made the cut. When we lived in Redondo Beach, our street had a center divider where everyone put their bags of clothes, couches, bikes, washing machines, etc - and someone would usually pick it up. I loved this method because I could put something out and know if and when someone grabbed it. For instance, I finally put my cute albeit old and broken beach cruiser out there, and was happy to see my neighbor riding around on it just a few hours later. He didn't care that the chain fell off every few minutes, and I was glad to see him enjoy it. But that gets missed when you drop off your stuff at a thrift store; it's stuff you supposedly don't want, but still - you want someone to want it! This is why I decided to have a garage sale. If we didn't have a center divider, at least we could try to sell some of our things to good homes, and then give away the rest to oblivion.
     Extremely hot weather this week, and the fact that Jordi would be around on Saturday, prompted me to plan the sale for this weekend. We made signs, recruited other people's old stuff, and made coffee and coffee cake to sell as well.
    Early Saturday morning brought cold winds and ominous clouds. As soon as we finished loading our things onto the driveway, we heard rattling thunder, and the clouds turned into angry bursts of rain. RAIN??!! Really?? Come on! And not sprinkling - fat and fast pellets. Yes, while it was almost too hot to sit at the beach two days ago, I was now wearing my Uggs, soaking and freezing. Unfortunately neither vengeance, passive aggression nor any other methods work in revenging the weather, although I was racking my brain trying to think of something as we pulled our stuff from the driveway into the carport area.
    Luckily we have a carport, and were able to squish all our stuff back there. A few times throughout the morning the thunder came roaring the the rain came pounding. I hardly see it rain that hard in the winter! Apparently there was even hail in some parts of the town. I could not believe that hot weather could turn into this without any warning - these thundershowers weren't on the news or forecasts, no one expected them! Plus, there's nothing I like better than being cozy in bed at 6 a.m. during a good rain. But I was not in bed. I was standing in the middle of it, quite miserably, way too early on a Saturday morning. While Jordi thought it was hilarious, I thought I would cry, but we both shivered and sat through it. We were not going to give up - not after all the work of putting up signs, making coffeecake, and going through our closets the night before!
     When the rain subsided, people did venture over. Not one single person actually bought the coffee or coffee cake, so I was giving it away. The number one thing about garage sales that makes me mad is that although almost everything at a sale is a good deal, some people will go through everything asking to pay half of whatever I say - this is not only annoying, but rude. There are some things that we just want to get rid of no matter what, but there are other things that I would rather keep than sell to an ungrateful bargain hunter, and it can feel quite demeaning not to mention depressing to deal with some of these garage-salers. There's also the great garage-salers who take piles of the most random stuff and seem glad to do it, pay the asking price, or at least are polite in asking for something lower.
     At the end of the day, we made $100 exactly, and still had a good amount to take to the thrift store. Getting rid of our stuff was good, and $100 is nice, but I still have a distinct notion that I never, ever ever want to have another garage sale. Especially during a freak thunderstorm.
     I'm not sure what another option would be - but I would rather give my things to people who will appreciate them than auction them off to the lowest bidder. What are your garage sale experiences and is having a sale worth it to you? Besides a garage sale or thrift store, what are other options?