In World of Garage Sales, One Person’s Junk Is Another’s Jewel

Garage sales have become an American way of life along with football, baseball and apple pie.

For most garage sale addicts, just the mere newspaper classified ad-- Multi-Fam. garage sale, Sat.-Sun. 8 a.m.-4 p.m. No early birds, cash only!-- can set them into a department-store-sale frenzy. Normally nice, polite, serene neighbors, colleagues and relatives will nearly knock down their grandmothers in the attempt to vie for a premium parking space--and get to the garage sale before the fantastic bargains are gone.

I never could understand these people, and always stayed several car lengths behind autos with “Caution: This Car Stops at Every Garage Sale” bumper stickers. I certainly thought that I would never become one of them !

It all started a few years ago when I used to visit my folks in Encinitas on the weekends. My mother would urge me to forgo the luxury of sleeping in on a Saturday morning to accompany her to a garage sale.

At first I snubbed the idea and rolled over for another hour’s sleep--until she began returning from her sales several hours later, laden with beautiful jewelry for $1 (which I soon talked her out of), antique trunks for $4 and solid brass lamps for $2 (which I offered to take off her hands), and current paperbacks for 10 cents (which I borrowed). As Mother gleefully spread her bargains all over the living room floor, I became more open-minded and decided these sales should be investigated after all.

So I began scouring garage sales in the late afternoons (still unable to rise before 9 a.m. on Saturdays) when everything would be dumped into a box and the entire lot (clothes, books, games, miscellaneous junk) sold for 50 cents!

But after several weeks of great garage sales, the day of reckoning had arrived: My bargains were forcing me out of my one-bedroom Mission Valley condo and onto the balcony. I had to have a sale of my own!

Fortunately, at about the same time I was being forced to push a chair against my closet door to keep items from spilling out, and just as I could have won an Olympic medal for leap-frogging throughout my condo to avoid all the junk on the floor, my friend Lynn decided to have a “multifamily” (four singles) garage sale at her north Clairemont home. This would be my prime opportunity to dump the junk.

For several evenings I cleaned out cupboards and closets, boxing items that had been given as Christmas presents five years before and that I had never used, gifts from students when I taught fifth grade (bless their poor but sincere selections) and items I had attempted to make but had given up on at Direction No. 3. I mentally began adding up the money I would have coming in from the garage sale, and started planning an Easter trip to Cancun.

As I loaded my obnoxious-looking Mexican paper flowers with the broken ceramic vase (circa 1973) into the trunk of my car, I gloated over the idea of people actually paying money for my junk.

The four of us spent three hours marking prices on our items, color-coding the tags to keep track of each other’s windfall. (God forbid that Katie should get the $2 for my Mexican flowers.)

At 6 a.m. Saturday (amazing how one has the sudden energy to rise on a Saturday morning in anticipation of monetary success), we placed everything on the driveway and lawn of Lynn’s home. We strung clothes on a line that soon broke--but never fear, the Christmas light hooks held them just fine. Sheets, towels, a TV, stereos, bookcases and shoes were spread on a blanket on the lawn.

Ads had been placed in the local newspapers and the Pennysaver. Hand-lettered signs in bright felt-tip pen were posted at various street intersections, with arrows pointing to our mini bargain city. We were “Open for Business!”

The first carload of customers drove up at 8:15 (the sale was to start at 9) and poured out of the car, splitting up in five directions.

They quickly grabbed Katie’s sheets and towels, Jane’s TV and yarn, and Lynn’s stereo and bookcases. One of them bought a box of plastic trash bags from me that didn’t fit my garbage can, so I had 40 cents in my column. As the others’ lists grew and they continued to add up their profits, I slashed my prices every 10 minutes with my green pen. I kept tripping over the ugly paper flowers, and within a half-hour the price dropped from $2 to 50 cents. But still nothing more of mine was moving.

Then a family drove up, speaking some language I knew wasn’t Spanish. As it turned out, they were from Russia and didn’t speak a word of English, and they were having the time of their lives enjoying the American free-enterprise system.

“How much?” one of them pantomimed, asking Lynn about her orange juice glasses.

“Ten cents,” she answered. The Russian bargained gleefully, holding up five fingers and catching on fast to the American way of doing things. Lynn was firm on the 10-cent price. Finally, he gave in and paid.

Then the matriarch of the family motioned for me to wrap the glasses in newspapers for her. As I stooped down and wrapped them while she nodded approvingly, grinning a toothless smile, I knew Kissinger had never achieved such commendable international relations. Even Gorbachev would envy the bargains and our diplomacy.

By the time lunch rolled around, I had made $3.14 (the 14 cents from leftover Wash ‘N Dries I sold for a penny each). Katie, Lynn and Jane by now had calculators to figure their totals, and were busy doing that. We still had another five hours to go, and it was getting hot as the sun blazed on our backs. I had to forfeit the sale of my shorts (50 cents) and tube top (60 cents) to change into for cooling comfort.

By 3 p.m., the paper flowers were still unsold, and I dumped them in the trash. Katie handed me my earnings: a grand total of $13.54. By now I had resigned myself to an Easter trip to Tecate.

I hauled my unsold items (six box loads and five sacks) and new purchases from my partners (I still couldn’t resist a bargain) into the car.

I went home, put my feet up, poured a glass of Chardonnay, and scoured the ads for the next weekend’s garage sales-- and the condo and apartment ads. It’d be easier just to find a bigger place, I reasoned.

That was six years ago, and my three-bedroom house and garage are now brimming with garage sale bargains. And I’m getting ready to hold another sale!