You Can’t Count on Spousal Support at a Yard Sale

The tag sale used to be called the garage sale, or the yard sale, or the rummage sale, but the name had to be changed because of fathers.

Fathers would be driving around with the kids in the car, and whenever they saw a sign for, say, a garage sale, they would say, “Hey, I wonder how much they want for that garage?”

Or if they saw a yard sale sign, they would say, “Hey, those people are selling their yard.”

And heaven forbid they would stumble across a sign for a rummage sale. Were this to happen, the brakes would screech, the doors would fly open and the father would begin cha-cha-cha-ing around the car shouting, “Everybody rummage.”

Fathers driving around with kids in the car see themselves as hilarious. Kids riding around in the car with their fathers see themselves as hostages.

The concept of the tag sale is pretty straightforward. You gather all the old, broken-down, beat-up, moldy, moth-gnawed, gaudy, tacky, junky junk you can find, and then ask people to give you money for it.

The whole process begins with the newspaper ad: “Tag Sale: Sat., 9 to 3 p.m., 100 Lois Lane, great bargains: hula lamp with grass-skirt shade, bottles, stuffed rodents, exercise equipment, ceramic figurines, tools, fur stole [might have been mink at one time], tires, books, golf clubs, dried flowers, used shoe [right foot], gum massager [hardly used]. No early birds.”

The early birds ban is key. If you fail to include this stipulation, a convoy of beefy people in smoking station wagons will begin camping out at the end of your driveway almost immediately.

Although married couples sponsor most tag sales, they see them as a two-edged transaction. On the one hand, the tag sale gives each spouse an opportunity to finally get rid of stuff inflicted upon them by the other person’s total lack of taste. On the other hand, that’s somebody’s favorite dogs-playing-poker painting you’re talking about there, bucko.

A typical tag sale transaction goes like this:

Tag Saler: “What will you take for the golf clubs?”

Wife: “Hmm, let’s see. They belong to my husband, and he’s not here at the moment. What’s the tag say?”

Tag Saler: “$100.”

Wife: “Give me a quarter.”

Tag Saler: “How about the hula lamp, stuffed rodents, exercise equipment and tools?”

Wife: “Give me another quarter.”

Tag Saler: “And the ceramic figurines?”

Wife: “$200.”

Tag Saler: “For the set?”

Wife: “Are you crazy? That’s each.”

Tag Saler: “Geez, that guy who was just here said I could have ‘em all for a quarter.”