GARAGE SALES : Selling Out : After years of looking down on retail housecleaning, you put your used possessions on display for weekend bargain hunters.

There are at least two things in life you have never understood: garage sales and the people who frequent them.

You’ve always sneered at anyone who would rise at dawn to peruse the “Garage Sales” column in the classified ads, then head out at 7 a.m. (“no early birds,” the ads caution) to get a bargain on an old thermos.

In your mind, people who would do this are a special breed: slow drivers on the lookout for homemade signs. On occasion, you’ve reluctantly accompanied a garage-sale junkie on his appointed rounds, trying to feign interest in some kitschy piece of furniture--generally pseudo-Danish Modern in early Peeling Veneer.

And you have always wondered about the people on the other side, the ones who would willingly display their used possessions--each with a price marked on masking tape--on the driveway. There they sit as strangers rake over “precious items,” “family heirlooms” and “collectibles.” Stuff, in other words, that the owner doesn’t want.

You admit it: Contempt is what you have felt toward these people. That is, until an impending move out of the country prompts you to assess the amount of furniture, toys and just plain junk that you’ve crammed into your studio apartment over the past few years.

You can’t take it all with you, and putting it in storage for a year or two would be financially ruinous. You could give it to family and friends. But why do that, you wonder, when you can make a buck selling it to someone else? It’s the American way.

A sign in the lobby of your apartment building brings only two inquiries. One person wants to know if your Nintendo set is for sale (it’s not); the other wants to know if he can have your apartment (it’s already been rented).

So with moving day nearly here, you swallow your disdain and admit that the only solution is to have a garage sale.

There is one big problem. You don’t have a garage.

There is, however, a swap meet every weekend at a local community college where, for $10, you can rent an area two parking spaces wide. It becomes your instant driveway, complete with oil spots.

After making a reservation, you begin sorting. Employing a ruthless sentimentalism, you try to determine what should stay and what should go.

Do you keep the life-size inflatable man given to you as a gag gift? Yes. Deflated, he takes only a modicum of space and he’s always good for a laugh at a party. What about the set of orange mixing bowls? No. Even though they symbolize post-divorce independence, they’re ugly.

You come across your beloved jogger-shoe roller skates. You were the first in Ventura to have them in 1978 and, as ratty as they are, you hate to part with them. But they’re too heavy and bulky to pack. No one will ever buy them, you think, but into the garage sale pile they go.

Eventually you have a small mountain of goods to sell. But will anyone want any of it?

What do you have to lose if they don’t? So it’s off to the swap meet. You arrive at 7:45 a.m., pulling into your assigned space to unload the truck.

Immediately, other vendors descend upon you, rifling through your boxes. Several start pulling things out and putting them into piles. You panic because you can’t keep an eye on everything and, besides, you haven’t even finished putting the prices on.

One man, with an assortment of your stuffed animals, the roller skates and a crepe maker, picks up your electric wok and asks the price. Harried, you tell him $3. He takes it, along with about a zillion other things that you thought you’d never sell. You make $20 and smile as you pocket the money. This is going to be easier than you thought.

Other vendors account for half your sales by 8:30 a.m. You’ve made $50 by then, so you sit back and watch the real customers wander by your “garage.”

You have heard the phrase “One man’s leftovers is another man’s banquet,” but figured they were talking about food or lovers, certainly not about old jigsaw puzzles, paperbacks, an ancient billiard cue or 45 r.p.m. records that predate the Rolling Stones.

But these items are popular, it seems. Strangely, it’s the things that were difficult to part with that people pick up, examine and put back down. Their rejection of your treasures feels like a rejection of you.

Don’t they know that decanter was given to you by your dear roommate before she moved to Germany? Don’t they appreciate how many times you’ve dusted that thing? Apparently they don’t. You finally give it away for 50 cents.

A man walks by with an electric wok under his arm. It’s yours, the one you sold for $3.

“How much did you pay for that?” you ask him.

“Seven dollars, from a vendor just down the way,” he says, smug with his bargain. “The guy has some other great stuff too. A crepe maker for $5.”

You sigh. The world of high finance has bollixed you again.

Things brighten when a friend stops by and buys your ice-cream maker. It’s a deal she can’t pass up, she says, especially after she sees what you’ve written on the box: “Never Ever Used! What a Deal! Just $3!”

Not until she leaves do you remember that it’s the ice-cream maker that she gave you on your birthday a year ago.

You wonder if she might be interested in an inflatable man.

* THE PREMISE

There are plenty of things you have never tried. Fun things, dangerous things, character building things. The Reluctant Novice tries them for you and reports the results. After all, the Novice gets paid to do them--and has no choice in the matter. If you want to tell the Novice where to go, please call us at 658-5547. If we use your idea, we’ll send you a present.

This week’s Reluctant Novice is free-lancer Karen McKean.