The Garage Store
Posted in True Story on Jun 30th, 2008
“This bag is full of glasses,” I said to the young man helping unload Homer at the Goodwill donation station.
“That’s okay. If it breaks, it’s just Goodwill,” he said. I wasn’t surprised to see that his shirt read: Yeah, I know. Go to my room.
“What? Man, that’s not right,” I said while laughing.
“Well, you know, this is going to a store where they won’t care.”
He and his co-worker then explained that the quality of goods and the prices in Goodwill stores vary according to their socioeconomic surroundings. In different terms, sure, but that’s basically what they said.
“So, are you guys volunteers, or what?” I said.
“We might as well be,” said the guy stacking boxes of our history into a trailer.
That scene played out on Saturday, just one weekend following a garage sale that brought in about $770, not including my in-laws’ take. A moving sale for Shannon’s mother and stepfather and an empty-the-attic sale for us, its preparation required hours of application of their elbow grease and organization skills. I tacked on a little heavy lifting just a few hours before the starting horn sounded.
What the heck could we have sold for that much money at a garage sale?
Click any pic for a look at the goods.
I know, I know, the truly charitable thing would have been donating it all in the first place — but we want a patio now, not after taxes next year. Plus, think of all the “economic stimulus” it provided.
Selling all the baby stuff???
You mean Benjamin will become an only child! *gasp*
(I need to send some of my stuff down there for you to sell for me…)
Pssst… Dave: Ben’s been an only child for nearly five years now!
:)
Sometimes you get Goodwill staff who have, you know, some amount of good will, and sometimes you get the folks who wanted a really, really easy job with plenty of room for moping and complaining. It takes all types.
We want to get rid of a bunch of our stuff in another garage sale this year, but we don’t have enough to host one of our own, so we’re waiting for a friend’s later in the year so we can unload our crap, er… precious memories at someone else’s house.
We just never amass enough for a garage sale. Moonshot is notorious for quickly loading excess stuff into the Subaru and carting it off to Goodwill before it piles up. Now, maybe after we have a second kid and are looking to unload our baby stuff. But even then… something tells me that my brother will be trailing along behind us on that one, leaching off all our baby stuff for his first kid. And don’t think for a second that he doesn’t plan this stuff out. He’s already eyeing our stuff an calculating his savings ;)
I’m impressed with your display. It’ looked like a regular thrift store. Nice.
Your sale was neater and more organized than my attic OR my basement… Is that a custom-designed garage sale room? ;-)
Glad it went well for you. PD has been rearranging and cleaning out the garage for a month now in preparation for our own sale. For some odd reason, he thinks that, once he’s finished with the garage, we’ll be able to pull the whole thing together in a weekend. Hahahahahahahaha.
OK, I have to admit it….I thought the same thing Dave did! All the baby stuff? What the???
Seriously, congrats on all the dough! Doesnt it feel good to get rid of all that stuff?
Wow….I don’t think you would find any flea markets that look that organized!
Out of curiosity, how did the baby stuff sell? We’ve had to hold onto ours for the new baby on the way for A and C, now that they know it’s a boy.
We used to have a garage sale every now and then, but now we just either give it to ARC, or take it to the women’s shelter.
It is SOOOOO much hassle labeling it and getting it ready to go that it doesn’t seem worth it. At $770.00, it’s tempting though.
Dave and Anna - Yes, only child is where we’ve been leaning for quite some time now. Had our first been a docile, go-with-the-flow child, who knows, our story could have been different. I doubt it, though. I think some folks are made to handle lots of kids, some a few, some one, and some none at all.
Simon - I think I was unfair to those guys. I didn’t stress their jollity enough. They had smiles on their faces and seemed genuinely ticked that the items were relatively expensive at the local Goodwill store compared to those communities with a higher percentage of folks in need. I guess it’s supply and demand, though.
Moksha and Charles - It was, by far, mostly the baby stuff that brought in the big cash. We typically give away bags and bags of clothes, and this time was no different. We displayed only a very small sampling of clothing.
Wink - They spent at least 52 hours between them in preparation alone. Yes, PD has a rude awakening on the horizon.
Holy crap. No wonder you made so much dough. That sale looks more organized than my local Walmart! (That IS a compliment!)