Spent a better part of today getting ready for our BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG garage sale. For my foreign friends who don't know, a garage sale in the states is an exercise of which one takes all of the things one bought at other people's garage sales, that have accumulated in one's basement, or GARAGE, and tries to pawn off, for money, on other garage salers. It is the basis of our economic system.No doubt many of you thought the system was centered in NYC on Wall Street, and that cigar chewing fat cats were wheeling and wheeling out there on the stock exchange, where they...exchange...and...wheel. Not so. The core of our financial well-being is right here in Middle America, and Southern America, and Eastern America...and, Western America...whew. I can't speak to Hawaii, Puerto Rico and...the bear fat place...uh...Palinvania. I suspect they have so much dough in Palinvania, that they have no need to unload all the knick-knacks, and rusted tools that the rest of us have acquired on our weekend excursions into the suburban garages of the country.
My thinking was to raise enough dough to pay for the used riding mower I just purchased (my new old mower below):
Our other mower is a sumbitch on my arthritic knees, and well, my wife is...a...princess, and just can't get the hang of the old mower...as one would expect from a princess. My oldest daughter tries, but I decided that I would rather be the mower person of the family, rather than contributing to the coffers of my city's EMT organization. That is, I prefer the females in my family with both feet. They just look better that way. And besides, we simply can't foot the bill for those weird shoes...because we also have an Orthodontist in our immediate future...times TWO, that is, both daughters!
Naturally, this being America, our insurance...and yes, we are lucky to have insurance...does not cover orthodontic procedures...they prefer than America's youth have buck ass teeth, and gaping gaps, and why should they cover beautification? I understand. It's fair...the 3 figure number we pay each month is for the privilege of being able to say...we are insured.
But, I digress, because this post is about...GARAGE ECONOMICS.
What had started out to be a JJ, highly organized and well thought out garage sale, solely for the purpose of defraying the mower cost, became...a...as usual...my wife's dysfunctional family...fuking...MiL...involved...DEBAUCLE.
That's correct. We now have our garage filled with every bullshit Ladies Home Companion magazine printed since 1956...every half burned aromatic candle burned since 1956...every busted wire Santa Claus and every wire Nutcracker ever sold on the Central Plains...every baby pooped pair of baby bloomers my MiL owned since 19??...every worn out pair of ladies pumps that even Salvation Army wouldn't take...and two stained (of unknown origin, but suspected, by me, to be cat piss) bunk bed mattresses, which I am told belonged to my BiL as a child and which "somebody might want...ya never can tell", etc. Therein lies the heat and the beat of the matter.
This is now my mother-in-law's garage sale...and she lives in an apartment. The worse part is, she is totally out of touch with the real world of commerce...more specifically...garage sale commerce. People go to garage sales to get bargains. They don't want to pay near-new prices...they want something for nuttin.
Here's an example of out of touchiness. A baby's swing...at least 40 years old...scratched...faded...worn the fuck out. NEW, sold for $20 bucks...sells for about the same now. Her price? $18! "I paid over 20 dollars for that swing...they're not going to steal it...or I just won't sell it!"
Here's the deal. She has no more babies. She has had no babies for at least 4 decades. She will be dead before my children have babies. She does not need a baby swing. Put it out by the curb and put a sign on it that reads, FREE.
In fact, I suggested that maybe we should put her out by the curb with a sign that reads, heavily used and no longer functional, but I will pay YOU to take her...and maybe even throw in a riding mower. Inquire within.
