Today.....

We are having a garage sale today.

I HATE having garage sales.

All our stuff on display for random people to dig through and reject. It would be so much easier to drop it all off at the Good Will, but husband likes the feel of cold, hard cash in his hand so it's garage sale day at Casa Boy Crazy.

The husband had never garage saled until about three years ago. He didn't think it would be his thing at first, but I think he has started to enjoy it. He loves the bargaining, the talking, and especially the money. That first year we didn't make much money at all because he wasn't very good at it. I put out Banana Republic shirts with tags for five bucks and if someone came in and offered him a quarter, he'd give it to them, his goal to rid his house of junk. Those people told their friends and in an hour we had sold everything, yet only had twenty bucks. I had to give him lessons before the next sale. It's different now....I just walked out there and he's holding out for another buck on a Barney doll that doesn't work. At least he gets it now.

When we lived up north, I loved garage sales, having them and going to them. We met so many nice people that way and we got tons of cool stuff. My mom's friend once paid ten bucks for a Lladro figurine (didn't even know what that was) and we thought she was nuts because it was so ugly. A year later her brother was at an antique store and saw the very same thing for 1,000 bucks. Sure enough that figurine she bought is rare and desirable and costs a pretty penny. So cool. Of course, we've never had that kind of luck, but it was fun to try.

Down here, garage sales are crazy. People come in packs and they have a "system". A couple of the pack will corner you to ask a question or have you show them that something works or just chit-chat you all up, while someone else in the pack goes deeper into the recesses of your garage, you know back to the non-junk stuff, and starts picking through it. We almost lost Jacob's bicycle and some of husband's good tools that way last year. So, where the garage sale used to be husband's domain, now it has to be a joint venture just to keep our stuff from being stolen. Sucks.

So, that's what we are doing this weekend. Must go out and make sure my junk goes for a decent price. Wouldn't want to give up those size 2 80s pegged jeans up for the wrong price now.