Garage Sale

Are you out of your high-priced mind? Have you ever heard of the Dollar Store? You watch me, eagle-eyed, fearing that I may want to abscond with your lovely “Once You’re Over The Hill, You Pick Up Speed” coffee mug, rather than pay the oh-so-reasonable sum of two dollars. Again: have you been to a Dollar Store? Ever?

Are you aware of the dot.com bust? Nobody wants your CrockPot, priced handsomely at ten smackers. Here’s a hint: I have already seen seven CrockPots in my journeys today; you aren’t getting rid of that thing unless you pay someone to make it disappear. People who have the time to meander down serpentine suburban tracts in search of a house with a garage door open and balloons on the mailbox do not need to slow-cook their turkey chili all day long. Oh, I guess a few may want to; It all feels so trendy and housewifily efficient, but they already have two CrockPots, then. They don’t need your old avocado green model, circa 1972.

Those of you with a husband home to help sell your overpriced crap: send him back to work! He makes me nervous, trying to convince me of the usefulness of all that Windows95 compatible software that he’s pushing. Garage sales are chiefly the territory of old women, young mothers, middle-aged mothers, Russian immigrants, Vietnamese immigrants, nameless Eastern European country immigrants, and creepy guys of an undetermined age who haunt the sales looking for camera equipment and the possibility of cheating someone out of valuable antiques. Your young ambitious fathers and husbands try to run garage sales like a Fortune 500 company, what with the computer-generated price tags and all. I hate you.

Furthermore, where is all the good stuff? Did it go to those damned retiree early birders? The slackjaw yokels in the truck jampacked with three rooms’ worth of oak furniture? Why continue your enterprise when all that is left is musty camping equipment and your son’s hockey paraphenalia, scent included? You could at least put a warning flag out for those of us who wish to not waste our time!

Finally, those of you selling “All Baby Crap, Nothing But Baby Crap”, please just stop. I have no more babies to clothe or lavish with toys. I don’t need you putting an enticing ad in the local Penny Saver, drawing me fourteen miles out into the wilderness, only to be met by liquor box after liquor box filled with Onesies and baby socks. You make my blood boil. And no, I don’t want to purchase a cup of questionably-prepared liquid from your crumb-covered little darling. If I were the Health Inspector, I’d shut down your damn kitchen.

Thank you,

A Concerned Shopper