People Studies: Lessons from a Yard Sale

So, I had my yard sale this weekend. It went about as smoothly as any yard sale could go. Having been to quite a few garage/yard sales in the past, I've learned what works and doesn't work and I was well prepared for mine.

It actually went off without any hiccups. It was supposed to be the annual neighbourhood yard sale but there weren't many participants. The first year I lived here, there were a ton of sales. Last year, there were less. This year, there were even less. However, I was fortunate enough to be part of a cluster. There was one next door at Mr. Enormous Trouser's house and two across the street at the older folks' homes.

Being in a cluster is good. When I got yard/garage sale-ing, I look for clusters. It makes it worthwhile to find somewhere to park becuase you're getting more for your time.

I did have an early start to the day. My intention was to take the girls for a walk and check out to see how many sales looked like they were going to be set up. Then I'd come home and set up since the sales weren't supposed to start until 9 a.m. It was a little alarming that by 7:15 a.m. when we started on our walk that both Mr. Enormous Trousers and the lady across the road were already setting up but we went for our walk anyway. I did notice that as we walked on by, some 'early birds' were already converging on the lady across the street's sale. This was the reason I had planned on setting up later. Also, since Mrs. Enormous Trousers is an Avon lady, that's primarily what they sell at their sale and it takes a lot more time to set up than my bric-a-brac.

However, I set up by 8:30 a.m. and was ready for my first customers who arrived as soon as I went to sit in my chair and peruse my magazine. My last customers came right aroun 1:45 p.m. In between the first and last, I learned a lot about people. I think if you want to study human beings, having a yard sale is a great way to do so. Here are a few things I learned:

1) People are very, very cheap. Sure, they pretend that they're just like to get a bargain but what this means is that they're cheap. If I'm selling a high quality musical piano for $30 when it costs about $120 brand new, NO, I WILL NOT sell it for $5. Be realistic. Yes, ok, so I came down to $20 because a young boy fell in love with it and both his parents were encouraging and, well, I'm a sucker but $5? Come on.

2) See #1. I had lots of nice messenger bags to sell. Some even had the tags still on them. I was selling them because I simply didn't need them nor do I have the space. When they're priced at $1 and they have a TAG ON THEM that says they were originally $10, do you really think I'm going to be happy when you offer me $.25? Come on. It's a dollar.

3) People are cautious. Someone asked if I had bedbugs before she purchased some books. Firstly, ewww! Secondly, even if I HAD bedbugs, do you really think that I would confess it in front of a yard full of people browsing my stuff? Thirdly, ewww! (I don't have bedbugs, for the record). Of course, as fate would have it, my nice Terminex inspector did decide to come and check up on the house after the problem back in May DURING MY YARD SALE but fortunately, she wasn't in her company truck and secondly, she came during a quite time. Oh...Murphy, your laws are funny.

4) People are discriminating. I had a little side table that I got for $12 at IKEA and was in mint condition (AND ASSEMBLED, take that, IKEA!) that I was selling for $2. I thought that was reasonable. I also used the table to display other items for sale. I had one lady take everything off said table, flip the table upside down, inspect it for about five minutes, put everything BACK on the table and then sigh and walk off. Lady, it was a $2 table, you're not going to find a designer stamp on it. Sorry.

5) People always have a story. I had a lovely dog carrier on sale. I originally paid $45 for it and got it for Sookie when I went to claim her. Since I ended up coming home with a Rory and a Sook, it was already too small. I had it up for sale with the original tags and paperwork for $20. A lady came and asked if I'd take $10. I said no. Then she launched into a story about her friend who rescued baby animals like racoons, possums and skunks. She works for a non-profit, has no funds to buy stuff but does it because she loves animals. I said I could take $15. We ended up at $12. What can I say, I'm a sucker. Also, I happen to think baby racoons are adorable and living with my parents who live on a major highway, we did have a few occasions where we were asked to foster baby racoons after their mothers were hit on the road and they were left abandoned so she hit a personal note. The lady was nice and even came back to thank me again and tell me all about her own experiences as a skunk rescuer/expert. She studies skunks.

6) People are cheap (yes, I know, I covered this in #1 and #2) but it's still true. I'm sorry but a Sony Playstation One with controller, power adapter and two games is a bargain at $5. Sure, the Playstation One is out of date and irrelevant but you can still find games on Ebay and it still works. I'm sorry but no, I will not take $1 for the whole pack. The same goes for the 27 inch TV I was selling and had marked at $10. It's a working TV that served me well for the entire time I lived in L.A. and until last year when I caved and upgraded to an HDTV. I will NOT take $1 for the TV. I did end up taking $7.50 but that was only because it was really heavy and I didn't fancy lumping it back inside.

7) Kids can be cute. I had a box of toys with an old pirate sword I had for a costume once. A little boy who was about five saw it and his entire face lit up. He literally dived into the box to claim it and he was NOT letting that go for anything. He even looked suspicious that I'd take it back when he proudly came to give me his quarter. The same goes for the little girl who couldn't have been older than four who proudly picked out an old Eeyore, Teletubby and a bear from my toy box and was so excited when I said she only had to pay fifty cents even though they were a quarter each. Kids can be so cute.

8) Kids can be a pain in the rear. Son of Dog Whisperer and his friends drive me a little crazy. For one thing, Son of Dog Whisperer oddly decided that my front lawn was his 'football practice field' at about 9:30 a.m. He proceeded to put his football down and do that thing that football players do at the beginning of the game- you know, where they're leaning with one arm down on the ball and the other pointed to the sky right before they do that "Hut" thing? Oh, you know what I mean. Anyway, Son of Dog Whisperer kept doing this except he just stayed in that pose for quite some time. It was a wee bit creepy, truth be told. I was a little annoyed he was on my lawn but since he wasn't doing any harm, I figured I'd let it go. Of course, that was before he actually started throwing the ball. At one point, he threw it and it hit some of my yard sale stuff at which point I told him he needed to stop throwing the ball and go play in his own yard. He did stop throwing the ball but didn't get out of my yard. The annoying part is that at some point, BOTH Of his parents were outside, doing stuff and only one time did Wife of Dog Whisperer say "Did you ask [captain monkeypants] if you could play in her yard?". When Son of Dog Whisperer said no, that was it. There was no scolding, no "Well, you should." It was clearly a formality that his mother asked. Even if I did tell them that I'd prefer it if he stayed off my lawn, it wouldn't stick. I know Son of Dog Whisperer has some kind of learning disability so I feel doubly bad for being such an old curmudgeon but, well, it's MY lawn...They have their own yard.

7) People can be creepy. There were a couple of older men who were walking around the sales. Two of them seperately sidled up to the table where I was sitting, looked around shiftily and asked if I had "any gold or guns?" Well, no...sorry, I'm not a gold and guns kind of gal. One of the men was quite persistent about the gold. He wanted me to go in my house and check. He even showed me his little scale where he could weigh my non-existent gold. Since I'm not in possession of much gold, I tend to prefer silvery jewelry over gold and most of my jewelry isn't exactly high quality anyway, I didn't oblige. Besides, I wasn't about to abandon my yard sale to find gold for Mr. Creepy. I had at least two others come by later and ask if I had any gold or guns. It sounded a bit too Old West for me, honestly. What, do they think I've got a collection of Smith and Wesson rifles and gold bullion bars under my floorboards?

8) If it's free, someone will want it. I had a set of curtain rods with brackets that I took down from my Tuscan room when I redid it. They were sturdy and in good shape but no one wanted them for $2. Later, when it was getting obvious I'd be making a Goodwill run to donate the stuff I didn't sell, I marked the curtain rods as free since I wouldn't get anything by giving them to Goodwill. Lo and behold, within seconds, someone took them. I know it's a bad economy but they were only $2 to begin with!

9) No matter how cheap something is, someone always wants it cheaper. I was offered a dime a couple of times for an item I'd priced at a quarter. Yes, this is a variation on #'s 1,2 and 6 but...well, I know people like to bargain and get a deal but, really, you don't think a quarter for something is a deal? Really? Even when it's in the original packaging and looks pretty new? A dime? Really? Sigh.

10) People buy the stuff you don't expect to sell and leave the stuff you had trouble deciding to sell anyway. I had a few treasures that I had reluctantly decided to sell because I didn't use them much and they took up space even though I liked them. No one wanted these. They wanted the, uh, junk I had decided to try to sell and intended to donate afterwards. This included the pair of slightly-too-big hideous patent leather shoes with a giant bow that I had bought used for a 1980's costume party ($1!), the terrible French cookbook that was only $1 from the dollar store and proved to be...terrible (I got my $1 back!) and the shower curtain rings that were a pretty bronze colour but were terrible because a) they weren't closed all the way and whenever you opened the shower curtain, they'd slide off the rail. Also, they left a nasty brown powdery residue where they rubbed against the shower curtain rail. I made $2 on those! Meanwhile, my lovely Mikasa Christmas oil/vinegar/salt/pepper cruet set didn't sell for $3 (I decided to keep it after all) nor did my nice new-ish pink and khaki messenger bag for $1. That old "Someone else's junk is someone else's treasure thing is very true."

All in all, it was a successful sale. I sold 75% of everything, made a little money though, because people are (say it with me) cheap, I didn't make as much as I should and I had a nice time meeting some of my neighbours. Of course, I did have two sulky dogs who couldn't figure out what I was doing out there all day and I got quite sunburned because after a while, you cannot scoot back under the overhang of the house anymore without being indoors- thus, I was in the sun a lot. Sure, Son of Dog Whisperer did eventually find his 'posse' which, sadly, still doesn't include Raymond and they converged on my sale, threw a bunch of the toys on the floor and then ended up only buying one weird little dolphin snowglobe thingy for 25 cents but it was an interesting day. Afterwards, I confess, I was a little exhausted but there was something satisfying about taking my last few boxes of stuff to Goodwill and knowing that even by just a little, I'd decluttered my house a bit.

It's entirely possible that I'll build up more clutter over the next year and decide to have another sale when the next Annual Neighbourhood Sale date comes around next year. I think if that happens, my strategy will be to double the price on everything so that when people offer me less, it'll seem like a deal to them even though I'll secretly be making what I actually wanted to make on an item. You live and learn...right?

Happy Monday!

Hot Days and The Politics of Childhood Friendship

It really is a hot one out there today. This morning, Mr. Weatherman said it was going to be about 95 degrees by 5 p.m. tonight but it would feel more like 100 degrees. He was right. It is a sauna out there at the moment. I’m a little amazed that he was right but, as with everything, if you try hard enough at something, eventually you are right about it once in a while.

I find super hot days like this change the vibe of a neighbourhood. Normally, when the weather is cool and manageable, my little ‘hood is full of activity. There are a lot of kids who walk home from playing baseball or basketball at the nearby community centre. There are parents fetching and driving their kids to sports, ballet and whatever activities the kids do. There is a buzz of mowers. There are people walking dogs, stopping to chat, jogging…you get the picture.

However, on hot days like this the neighborhood pretty much just stops. The lawns look dry and crispy and even those that desperately need to be mowed are ignored. There are fewer people thronging around and far more sitting on their stoops in lawn chairs, lazily watching the world. It’s like for a brief period, everything slows down.

I don’t mind it at all. I find it fascinating. People get up much earlier when they know it’s going to be super hot. When I drive to work at 7:50 a.m., there are a lot more dog-walkers and joggers than normal because they know later on it will be too hot to walk/jog.

When the heat hits later in the day, it’s hard to explain exactly how the vibe feels. The closest I can come is a scene in a movie where there has been a mass disaster that’s killed most of human life and only a rag-tag bag of survivors scuttle and hide in the buildings because, at night, the zombies come. While there are no zombies in my neighbourhood (that I know of, anyway), the deserted daytime feeling seems to be there. There is little life force outside- it’s too busy hiding inside in the sanctity of the air conditioning.

The pups and I tried to break this deserted feel last night and we went for a walk anyway since it was only 93 outside. It was still hot enough that Rory plonked herself down on the ground and decided she was too hot and tired to continue. This was about five minutes after we left the house. Normally, it takes at least ten minutes of walking.

We did run into a few brave souls who were trying to conquer the heat and work outside anyway. We met a new lady who lives in the pups favourite house- it’s got a lot of trees with squirrels and bunnies have often been sighted in the yard. She used to have dachshund so we had quite a chat. She used to have males and she told me a couple of horror stories about their viciousness that made me shudder a little because of what happened with Sausage. I do know that male dachshunds are known to be one of the more vicious breeds which is why I have females.

She was a nice lady though and we had a chat. She also told me it was quite ok if my dogs wanted to poop in her yard. I didn’t even have to clean it up. That was nice of her but I’m a firm believer in the scooping of the poop- leave no evidence behind.
We also met a rather nice, sad little boy named Raymond. He was riding his bike with a helmet on. Raymond is one of those kids you just know doesn’t have it easy. He’s a little heavyset for his age, had a slight lisp and has a wide eyed sweetness about him. Raymond asked me if I’d seen two boys on bikes. Given that Son of Dog Whisperer and his little friend had almost mowed us down on the other side of the block, I said I had seen them but I wasn’t sure if they were the same boys he was looking for.

When he told me their names, he confirmed that he was, in fact, looking for Son of Dog Whisperer and his friend. Apparently, Raymond was supposed to ride bikes with them but as soon as he’d gone to get his bike, they’d ridden off and ditched him. Just looking at him, I could see how hurt he was by this. He kept asking me where I’d seen them and I told him. They had been riding awfully fast so it was clear that for whatever reason, they didn’t want to play with Raymond.

Naturally, I felt horrible for the poor little boy. I think he is about eight or nine. He told me that he didn’t have many friends and how he thought he’d found some in Son of Dog Whisperer and his buddy. His lip quivered and my heart just went out to the poor boy. It’s been a few years since I was a kid but I remember times where I got ditched by friends or they basically ganged up and decided I wasn’t cool enough to hang out with. It’s a heavy feeling that just hangs over you and makes you feel unwanted.

There wasn’t much I could do for poor Raymond. He asked if I knew Son of Dog Whisperer and I told Raymond that he was my next door neighbour. I wasn’t sure of the politics of the friendship between Son of Dog Whisperer, his buddy and Raymond but I did ask Raymond if he wanted to ride his bike while I walked back home with the pups so I could show him where Son of Dog Whisperer lived. Raymond, lip quivering a little, was too proud to do that and I was pleased for him. Instead, he asked me that if I saw the other boys, I could please ask them to go back to Raymond’s house.

I didn’t see Son of Dog Whisperer and his friend so I couldn’t pass along the message when I took my poor, lazy, panting pups home. My guess is that if I had, the two boys would have cackled and said, “No Way.” Kids can be very cruel when they have a peer to back them up and it was quite obvious they were happy with just their own company.

My heart goes out to young Raymond. He’s the type of boy you know has a hard time making friends because he has a wee aura of neediness to him. Yet I bet he’d be a loyal friend to anyone who would let him. He also has an aura of sweetness and gentleness to him that the other two boys lack. It may sound strange and blame it on my need, as a writer, to watch and observe people. I’ve watched Dog Whisperer and his buddy and they’re a little wild- they have parents but their parents are too busy to pay much attention to what they do. This is why they can go bike riding, shoeless, shirtless around the neighbourhoods, occasionally veering into the road and always riding with determination. Raymond, on the other hand, seems well cared for- he might try to ride his bike ruthlessly without worrying about cars and such in order to keep up with his friends but, really, he’s very meticulously about crossing the street and being safe. That’s how he was last night when he talked to me. He was on the other side of the street and he looked both ways before crossing over.

I hope that Raymond finds some friends who appreciate him and won’t ditch him when they promise to play. It was hard to watch him walk off after giving me the message to deliver. His shoulders slumped and he walked with a very dejected air.

I know he’s just a strange neighbour kid but something about Raymond got to me. Maybe it was because he took me back briefly to some painful friend politics of my own childhood. Maybe it’s because no one wants to see a lonely kid. But, mostly, I think it’s because he seemed like such a sweet little boy and seeing those sad, hurt eyes made me just wish I could make Son of Dog Whisperer and his buddy change their minds and include Raymond.

But the world doesn’t work like that and I only have one side of the story. Besides, it does not do to meddle in the friendship politics of eight-year-old boys.

It still doesn’t stop me from hoping for good things for little Raymond anyway. Hopefully, the rest of the long, hot summer days will be a little kinder to him and he’ll find someone else to play with.

Although, hopefully, not all the days will be this hot. Especially as it’s not even really summer yet.

Happy Thursday!