The Great Garage Sale of '09

Time for another rare weekender from me. That is partially because I am too tired and sore to do much else and partially because the helpers (Hi mom, MIL, L, and Marlene) want to see how the pictures turned out.

Our great garage sale of '09 was slated to open at 8am, but that meant little to the pushy-loos who tried to get early cherry picking rights. {*grin*} As I was setting up tables shortly before 7am, the first of the people I had to tell repeatedly that we didn't open until 8am came driving up. In any case, by 8am it looked like this:

(Note my MIL heading back to the cashiers table and my mom in the blue jacket putting the finishing touches on the items on one of the tables. Also note that yopu can see a lot more detail if you click on the pictures and look at the full resolution version.)

 

A view of some of the other stuff as the crowd mills about, anxious for me to proclaim that we are open for business  These picture omit the furniture we also had for sale. Big heavy furniture. Furniture I got to move yesterday and then later today as people came to pick it up.

When I finally proclaimed us open for business, one of the ladies in the crowd would have made any linebacker proud. She quickly grabbed a color TV, a VCR, a DVD Player, and shouted she wanted the water cooler as well. She did all this while talking on her cell phone calling for the large transport support (her mate driving a pickup truck). Sales and visiting stayed brisk for the next several hours. (After all, one of the real points of garage sales in a small town is to visit with everyone!)

By the time the steady rush was slowing down around 10:30, we had sold a lot of the junk solid consumer goods on hand. Part of my collection of mice and engineering books were still available, along with some old computers and printers and decorative doodads.

 

 

Over the next hour a lot of this stuff sold as well. The chalk board was a late addition to the field since we forgot to put it out. It had been sitting in a family room closet for years, untouched by human hands. In fact, when we pulled it out, it had this on it:

It had been a back prop for a play/movie by the Son and Sarah, his cousin from Connecticut. To give you an idea of how long it sat there, the Son is now in college and Sarah started college this fall and this had to have been during their grade school years. Because we put it out so late, no one bought it and we got to keep it for another timeless string of years. Probably just as well since L and MIL were both pretty sentimental about it.

Spent the afternoon cleaning up and packing the remaining stuff suitable for charitable donation up to wait for the time later in the month when they are in town. Time now for me to to sit back and get ready for tomorrow since I have booth duty all day at the local Sugar Beet Days (harvest festival) for the EMS Authority ballot issue. I'll see some of you there.