Garage Sales

Waking up at the absolute ass-crack of dawn on a weekend to sift through the most useless, crusty, undeswirable crap imaginable in hopes of finding hidden treasures or insane bargains — what's not to love about garage sales?

Who had the first garage sale? What forward thinker woke up one morning and decided to haul their household junk outside to hawk to passersby? Sure, emptying your archives and strewing the detritus of a lifetime across your dying lawn is a lot of work, but it's like killing two ugly birds with one stone. You get rid of all the extra stuff that makes your friends think you're a slob, and you make enough money for lunch. Meanwhile, some poor sucker will think your castoffs are the find of the century. Everybody wins.

Sure, it's a little embarrassing to flaunt your lowliest possessions before the neighbors, but you're practically guaranteed a decent stack of cash in return. Maybe it's the way the sun sparkles off of your Mount Rushmore snow globe (50 cents) or maybe it's just the delirium that comes with stumbling around town at 7 a.m. Whatever the reason, people will pay eagerly at a garage sale for the kind of thing they'd never look at twice in a store. Even if you sell nothing but absolute garbage — we're talking stained Easter dresses from the mid-1980s and British Knights high-tops with broken bulbs in the light-up soles— you'll easily clear $50.

Up the ante by throwing in retro-cool Journey records and size 12 suede bowling shoes and you're looking at $100.

Want to make some real money? Turn your driveway into an impromptu antique store. Got a Victorian tea set? That's a car payment. Throw in some 1950s Fire King mixing bowls — the Holy Grail of garage sales — and you've got a mortgage payment, plus dinner at a swanky restaurant.

Entrepreneurial spirit thrives on both sides of the card table . Semi-professionals arrive early and cherry-pick your pile, then set up a booth at the local antique mega-mall and achieve margins you never dreamed of. Or you can just skip the middleman and post it yourself on eBay, the world's biggest garage sale.

For the right price, anything can be worth buying. Can you beat $2 for a sack full of 1970s-era baseball cards? Three dollars for a metallic green Schwinn (with the curled handlebars and the banana seat), even if it's on the rusty side?

And there's the phrase that garage sale patrons everywhere long to hear: Or Best Offer. Sidewalk scavengers will offer $1 for anything, no matter how useless. There could be a busted waffle iron that leaks batter out of the sides — but if the little round price sticker on it says "$4 OBO," someone will ask if they can have it for a dollar. It doesn't matter that the wear and tear has turned the damned thing into a paperweight — it's the thrill of the haggle.

That's what makes garage sales great — the victory of a bargain. Maybe you will throw it all away within a week, but for the moment, you've beaten down that bastard capitalist with your offer. Hurrah! A broken waffle iron is a badge of honor — use it (or attempt to use that busted-ass thing) proudly.

The garage sale promises mind-numbing fun, even if your purchases don't make it any further than the Dumpster on the way home. As long as your financial losses are minimal (almost never is it OK to spend more than $20 — buyer's remorse is endemic in this part of the economy), your wallet will recover, and who knows? You just might find a gem or two. Anyway, what else would you be doing at 7 a.m. on a Saturday?

Oh, right... sleeping.

— Tom Hall (mrthomashall at hotmail dot com)

— graphic by Steve Carey (astrosteve@lycos.com)