Everything But the Kitchen Sink

You want it? We had it.  Clothes, media, furniture, decor, bikes, and the list goes on.  Gadgets and gizmos.  Widgets and doodads.  Everything but the kitchen sink.  I told you not too long ago how we love a yard sale, so why not hold one of our own? Here’s the full scoop on that big day.

It was cold that morning.  The coldest in forty two years, according to my morning weather man.  Even still, the majority of our building rolled out of our beds around 7 AM, wrapped ourselves in sweaters and scarves, and began set-up.  Although I thought we were on top of our game – giving ourselves time to spare for the 8 AM grand unveiling, we had some early bird customers anxiously awaiting in their cars since 7:30.  As soon as the clock ticked eight, they immediately began swinging open their car doors, adjusting the room in their trunks, and rummaging through our items.  We were mostly ready.  But hey, we had barely had a sip of coffee yet.  Perhaps next time we’ll have the coffee ready at 7, rather than 8.  Every second counts with caffeine.

Scott re-posted our craigslist ad late the night before our big sale, and again around mid-morning.  Our big pink signs led the way, and we had a pretty constant stream of happy customers, blissfully snagging our smaller ticket items, such as rarely used DVDs and Playstation games.  The hubs also supplied the sleepy condo owners with some sugary doughnuts fron Dunkin’, which came in as a handy bribing tool for undecided passerbyers: “You like that shoe rack? Tell you what, I’ll throw in a fresh yummy treat, too.” Mmm-mmm.

We had a bit of a slump around 10 (the families gathering for breakfast), and again at noon (late-night party goers gathering for breakfast), but the last part of the day was smooth and steady, with a decent flow of those who spotted our online ads, and those who were enticed by the oh-so-pink signage.

Some of my favorite yard-sale junkies of the day came in tiny, furry packages.  They don’t buy much, let alone have a dollar to their name.  But they sure are curious – and stinkin’ cute to boot:

Now let me tell ya’, you really start to find your inner salesman around closing time, offering deals too good to pass up and persuading those who are a just a little undecided to see your side.  And at three o’clock, we called it a day.  Our little booth started with five over-flowing boxes of riches, plus miscellaneous furniture goods, small racks, and college-day storage bins.  In the end, we were able to fit everything that didn’t budge into two smaller boxes. Ah, sweet relief.

My man and I made two promises to each other before we set up shop that Saturday morning: First, the items that don’t sell will never see the light of day in our home again.  Those babies are being packed in the backseat of our sedan and being shipped off to Goodwill.  Second, any profit we make will go towards a mini vacation of our choosing to celebrate our one-year wedding anniversary, coming up this November.  Once we give the vacation fund a little cush, it will be easier to keep building that pile of rocks.  Other than Scott’s one last attempt at selling his untouched Playstation games at the video store (where he actually scored a few bones), we stuck to our word.

Of course, what’s a multi-unit yard sale without rummaging through your neighbors’ goods as well?  We scored a nifty little power sander for $5 (I see many, many projects in our future), and I tearfully found a Mario Lemieux figurine in a neighbor’s box of collectibles.  I think he was so shocked at my utter excitement, that he gave me the little guy for nada.  Zip.  Zilch.  Those who know me understand this – those who don’t will learn soon enough.  And just for the heck of it, and to jab a little joke into my Detroit Red Wings lovin’ pals: my beloved Pittsburgh Penguins are the 2009 Stanley Cup champs! And the ‘Wings are not.  Simply put.

To sum it up, it was a pretty rockin’ day.  The weather did warm up after lunch – maybe not a lot, but enough – and when the sun hit our slice of tree lawn, we knew it was time to crack open the frosty beverages.  We made a chunk of change that we will happily spend this Fall, trimmed down the fat in our home, and relaxed with our friends and neighbors for a whole day.   There’s whisperings of a building-wide sale next summer.  But Scott and I made another promise to ourself at the end of that Saturday: we will not accumulate that much junk again in a year.  Give us another two, maybe three years, and then let’s talk.