At the last minute...

The call from the top office* came down at the last minute and I was given a LR. That’s Laundry Reprieve, in case you didn’t realize. To celebrate I walked three miles, thus missing the very beginning of Clean House.

If you haven’t seen it, it’s this terrific show where people who live like pack-rats are cleaned out, and their stuff is sold to pay for the renovations that the Clean House team does for them. This is different than Clan Sweep, on TLC where I think they get to keep the yard sale money although I’m not 100% sure.

Regardless, as I prepare for my own insanely large garage sale undertaking, I notice that the Clean House yard sales do not seem to attract the cheapskates that swarm your sale in the NJ area. The more I do these things (the last was when my folks moved a few years ago) the more aggravated I get.

Look, I understand that you come to a yard/garage sale to pick up some stuff on the cheap, really I do. I do it too. Back in the glory days of Ebay**, I turned a lot of yard sale finds into cold, hard cash, but lets be reasonable.

I love to haggle. I am the Bedouin Tribesman of the garage sale and flea market scene, baby. I drive a hard bargain, and I enjoy sparring with people from the selling side as well. However, I find people are now starting their haggling at a ridiculously low number.

For example, my folks had a Thanksgiving Turkey platter that was nice, made in Japan in the ‘60s or so and routinely sold on Ebay for about 35-50 dollars. We put it out for $10 firm. Aside from the teak folding chars, it was one of the pricier items in the sale. So a woman asks me how much it is, and I tell her, and she says “How about a dollar?”

So I say now, it’s 10 dollars, firm. I tell her how old it is, you know the whole shebang and she’s just relentless. “Come on! A dollar! Come on! Give it to me! Let me have it for a dollar…”

I say to her “no, I’m sorry.” I tell her it’s ten bucks, take it or leave it.

She smiles what I assume she thinks is a winning smile and says “So what do you say, you give it to me for a dollar right?” and she holds out a dollar.

I shake my head and chuckle. “Ma’am,” I say, “I’d sooner set it on fire in the middle of the street than give it to you for a dollar. Good Day!” and I turned and walked away and my dad is sitting there looking aghast. It was pretty funny, but I was mad as hell. I mean who starts price negotiations at 90% off?!?!? Honestly!

My garage sale ought to be fun. I have stuff from a quarter going up to $350. I can’t wait for the haggling.

Oh, and in the interest off full disclosure, no reprieve was granted to the leftover turkey.

* My wife, dummies!

** when people seemed to spend insane amounts of money on, it seemed, damn near anything you could ever think of posting. Remember that? Before it became Overstock.com’s little brother?