What I wanted was a clean garage. What I got was an existential crisis, a drunk uncle, and a dollar.
If you’ve never put on a garage sale yourself and tried to convince people they need to buy the crap you don’t want, consider yourself to be more sane than I apparently am. I conducted a yard sale myself a few years ago and feel I’ve recovered enough to talk about my experience.
And by “recovered,” I mean I no longer hear phantom voices asking, “What’s your best price?” while I’m trying to fall asleep.
The Night Before: You stay up late making tiny price tag stickers for all the junk you’re hoping people will buy. You’re naively (psychotically) optimistic, calculating the total value of your “inventory” at slightly over $5,000, give or take what you can get for those old ‘70s curtains that came with the house if you frame them as “vintage.”
6:15 a.m. The sale is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m., but a woman pounds on your door and tells you she “likes to get an early start.” When you walk outside to let her “window shop,” you notice there are five other cars in your driveway and at least one person with the focused intensity of someone who’s already mentally listing your belongings on Facebook Marketplace.
6:25 a.m. One of those cars is your crazy uncle, who has a black belt in flea markets, weekend auctions, and roaming the beach with a metal detector. He’s there to “help manage the situation.” He immediately lays claim to a yard tool he forgot he gave you last week.
8:20 a.m. Someone asks if you have change for a hundred. You do not have change for a hundred. If you did, you likely wouldn’t be out here in yesterday’s ponytail haggling over the price of a breadmaker from the Clinton administration.
9:30 a.m. You’ve sold a few things but are already annoyed with the fact that everything isn’t sold and your financial triumph has come down to a five, two singles, and distrust of humanity. A retiree who smells faintly of coffee and WD-40 offers you a dollar for your lawnmower, which is brand new and not for sale.
You ask him to leave.
10 a.m. You look for your uncle and find him drinking Busch Light in a can and offering extras to shoppers for $1. He tells you he’s sold three beers. At 10 a.m. To strangers in your yard.
10:25 a.m. A woman picks up a $3 vase, squints like she’s at Sotheby’s, and asks, “Would you take 15 cents?” You briefly consider setting the vase on fire just to feel something.
11:15 a.m. A man spends 20 minutes examining a $2 paperback, then puts it down and asks if you have it in hardcover. You gently remind him that this is a garage sale, and not a Barnes & Noble pop-up store.
Noon: You leave the operation in the hands of Uncle Beertender and go inside for lunch. A stranger knocks on your back door wanting to try on t-shirts. Another wants to know if you have “weenies to go with the beer.”
You begin actively regretting every life choice that led to this moment.
12:30 p.m. When you return, you find your uncle slightly manic because he’s sold a shovel, a set of garden tools, and a hose for 50 cents each. You tell him that they weren’t for sale. He says he wondered why there were no price tags.
You ask him to leave.
He offers you beer.
2 p.m. A group of college boys stops by and starts trying on your clothes in the driveway, launching a full drag queen fashion show with zero advance notice and absolutely maximum commitment. There are runway struts, spin moves, crowd work.
Your mom tries to tuck dollar bills into their belts (priced 50 cents each). Your uncle keeps yelling “Two-drink minimum!” from a lawn chair, having completely transitioned your yard into a dive bar.
They are possibly the best thing that’s ever happened at your address. You will not ask them to leave. In fact, you will give them the clothes, a Mariah Carey CD, and a standing ovation before they leave with their treasures.
2:30 p.m. You decide things are taking entirely too long, so you start drastically slashing prices until you’re eventually giving stuff away. It feels wildly liberating, especially because it enrages your eccentric neighbor lady who’s still trying to sell her holographic palm tree for $50 as if it’s a Picasso.
3:15 p.m. Someone asks if you’ll be doing this again tomorrow. You consider faking your own death.
3:45 p.m. The woman who showed up at 6:15 a.m. comes back. She wants to return the lamp she bought because it doesn’t match her couch. It was 50 cents.
4 p.m. You’re done. It’s hard to know what your take is for the day because at some point your uncle apparently sold the cash box. However, you find a dollar your mom dropped during the impromptu fashion show as you walk by your uncle, who’s digging through your “junk I’m throwing away” pile.
4:05 p.m. You go inside, take that dollar, and put it next to the Sharpies as a reminder that you’ll never do this again.
Epilogue: Months later you gather a couple bags of clothes you no longer want, and briefly wonder whether or not you have enough for another small sale. The flashbacks come hard, and because you’ve grown as a person, you decide to put those bags in the back of your car where they’ll stay for a good five or six months before you remember to drop them off at Goodwill.
Because, as it turns out, you can’t put a price on your sanity.
