The yard sale mentality

I’ve always gone along with the notion that all people are basically the same.

Until, that is, I had my own yard sale.

Perhaps it is Northern Ontario, or maybe others have similar experiences. I’m not sure what a Florida yard sale crowd is like, or a British yard sale. Is the Japanese yard sale experience different?

I noticed something distinct about the yard sale crowd. And refrain from calling me a ’snob.’ These are observations.

First - lots of haggling. I don’t mind this one.

Second - I didn’t know anyone. Although I have a lot of friends in town and recognize a lot of people, I didn’t recognize anyone who arrived at my place. To me this indicates a different culture or subset.

Third - The money. I use my debit and credit card a fair bit and don’t carry a lot of cash. Any time I do have cash they are usually crisp new twenties from the ATM. First off, most of the people that came to the yard sale had a wad of bills. And not nice crips bills. Almost every bill I obtained that day was a matted, wrinkled bill. In my view, these bills lived in almost a pure cash economy, and probably have never seen the inside of the bank.

Fourth - I want it cheap. First off - Frugal does not equal cheap. But when I have a $1500 Vermont Castings BBQ out there, don’t offer me $100 for it Just because you don’t know the difference, don’t insult me.

Fifth- Start time. If I say the yard sale starts at 8 AM on Saturday morning, then 8AM is when it begins. Not 7 AM during setup, and certainly not knocking on my door at 6 AM when I am in bed and definitely not 7 PM Friday evening.

It was definitely interesting, but that’s a yard sale.