On Garage Sales

They say that one man's trash is another one's treasure. Personally, I don't see myself being drawn to someone else's rotten banana peel, nor them being attracted to mine. But I guess whoever said that really wasn't referring to discarded fruit bits. They were probably talking about garage sales.

My family and I had a garage sale this weekend and it was generally successful. We got a lot of junk out of the basement and pawned it off on someone else for whatever change they had in their pockets at the time.

My mom also likes to GO garage sale-ing. Nothing makes her day like her quarter find. That is to say that she comes home beaming with pride every time she comes home with a new trinket that cost her a mere 25 cents. Sometimes these finds are books or picture frames or potted plants or something. Over the years the term "quarter find" I think has come to incorporate other things that didn't necessarily cost a quarter, but were simply a great bargain. She's come home with furniture, movies, crafts, candles, you name it -- she finds it and can get a great bargain.

I'll admit, garage sale-ing is fun. I like to look at other people's crap.

I have noticed a few common denominators among garage sales.

The first is Beanie Babies. I find Beanie Babies to be a rather tragic figure. Ten years ago the general public couldn't get enough of them, stores couldn't keep them in stock, and people flocked to McDonalds for Happy Meals when they were giving away those Teeny Beanies. Now, they're tossed in dusty bins and boxes, the "TY" tags that made them so valuable crinkled and chewed on or completely missing, with a sign reading "Beanie Babies $1" beside them. Personally, I don't know who is going to pay $1 for a Beanie Baby. I sold mine for about fifty cents and that seems a bit more reasonable for a piece of the fad that died years ago.

People also put out VHS tapes. VHS??? Who is going to buy that? Maybe someone will buy an unopened one for a quarter and then keep it around for a while and maybe it will become collectable and worth a lot of money or something -- assuming that it doesn't completely deteriorate before that! As soon as you unwrap the tape, it will turn into dust and blow away in the breeze. I have a DVD/VHS player, but that's just to play the movies and tapes I don't have DVDs of just yet. And even those have started to go. They get all staticky and stuff and the sound warps and then you have to REWIND IT WHEN YOU'RE DONE!?!?! No thank you!

Along those same lines I also see a lot of VCRs. I'm reminded of Back to the Future II when Marty is buying the almanac from an antique store and the sales lady says someting to the effect of "if you're interested in the 80s, here's a little number they called 'the dust buster.'" That's exactly what it's like. I feel like going up to customers and being like "If you're interested in obsolete technology, this little number is called a VCR. It plays tapes that are made out of this strange material called film..."

Another thing I find a lot of are aquariums. Some of them are fish aquariums and others are the kind that you keep reptiles in. I don't know why, but nobody who lives around me seems capable of keeping a pet. And if the pet didn't die, it probably escaped in which case getting rid of the tank said reptile lived in is not their biggest problem. Maybe they should make sure good ol' Fluffy the Python isn't making a home in their plumbing system.

Garage sales are fun, though... and if you're in the market for Beanie Babies, VHS tapes, a VCR to play the VHS, or an aquarium or tank, might I suggest you stop at a garage sale first. Those quarter finds are waiting.