Saling Away

Much fun was had by all at the garage sale, though I wasn't in the best of spirits to start. I even looked out of sorts. The first thing Eric said to me was "Hi baby. You look a little grumpy." At least my outsides were matching my insides. I did jolly up over the course of the day, but I don't think I was great company.

Aside from me, there were very many nice people, and a few odd ones. Because Eric was selling a lot of electronics stuff, he got more business, and hence, more weirdness. He spent a long time talking to one man who was an eBay reseller* who bought, as well as a bunch of Eric's stuff, the giant old vaccuum I found in my basement. I don't know where he's going to ship that thing. Or how. At the end of his transaction, which took quite a long time and involved lecturing Eric on his marketing techniques, the man shook my hand and said "I'll shake your hand because you're cuter than he is." Apparently I have the grizzled, pot-bellied eBay reseller market cornered.

We noted different kinds of garage salers. They range from the the car cruisers, who slow down imperceptibly as they drive by to those at the opposite end of the continuum, the people who pick up every item for a careful examination before putting it back down exactly where it was. Most people came on bikes. Some had the sidewalk park down pat, others, not so much.

It really wasn't so busy. We mostly sat around and drank beer and listened to records. First up was the Rubinoos record that everyone is in a flap about. The last sale of the day was that record to a guy from down the street who had bought the very same Rubinoos record for $7 at a used record store place. He bought Eric's for a quarter, I think. We also listened to some Freddy James and the soundtrack of a movie that seemed be based on CB radio stuff, and some disco, which we all hated, and a couple of other records that got saved because they were actually pretty good. We listened to them on this sweet little portable. You'll notice that the cover is also speakers. That kind of packaging is near and dear to my heart.

It had been a long time since I had used a record player, and thought I didn't let on, it kind of scared me a bit. I always find that on record players there are often many buttons that accomplish the same task (e.g. raise the needle) with no explanation. Maybe it's intuitive if you're used to record players. Anyway, I managed to put on a couple records by my very own self. People were very excited by the record payer, but it was not for sale.

I tried out the rollerskates before Mark and Eric used them as beer sleeves, and I also reacquainted myself with rollerblading. We all took turns with the pink and yellow skipping rope Eric never ended up selling. One woman did mutter that we needed more practice as she went by, so maybe it was our advertising that cursed the rope.

We had many nice visitors, too. Patrick came by for a long while, and took some photos of us and our stuff. Mark spent most of the afternoon with us, and was the initiator of the "roller skate beer sleeve" round of drinking, of which I have a shocking number of very similar photos. David Scrimshaw dropped by and bought a keyboard for a mysterious new project. And possibly the highlight of the day for me was a woman named Christina (I hope I have that right!) dropping by to say hello and that she was a regular blog reader and that she'd just been to Spain and had picked up a couple of very beautiful Camper catalogues. It made me really happy to have someone show up out of the blue like that, and I'm glad she liked my ramblings enough to bring me pretty things in return. Though I have been having serious shoe coveting ever since. Pictured is one pair: they are different, but they belong together. And on my feet.

Another contender for highlight was a visit from Grace and Fiona and Ruby. Grace bought the goils some party hats (a bunch for only 10 cents!). The first one she tried to put on herself broke, and then the ones that Fifi and Ru got, while very cute, were apparently not all that comfortable. So off they came. Then Fifi and Ruby inspected a wide variety of our wares, picked up some dirt and put it down, and made not one transaction. Their cuteness made up for it. Sadly and stupidly, I did not have my camera out to document their cuteness.


At the end of it, there was a lot of crap left over. We took boxes and boxes of stuff over to the super nice people who run a thrift store out of the basement of the Bronson Centre every Saturday and Sunday from 10 to 4 pm. They're raising funds for the A.P.P.L.E. program - A Post-Psychiatric Leisure Experience. They depend on donations to keep the store running. So if you have lots of stuff around your house that you don't know what to do with, and don't feel like drinking beer and listening to records on your front lawn while people poke through said stuff, they're the people for you.

*Not the man pictured here, who was only a little odd.