The things you need to know when planning a morning at the yard sales is throw all your plans away...yup, all those plans to stick to a strict budget, to buy only what is on your list, to haggle for the best price? Forget it!
Our little borough had a town wide yard sale today...add to that another town wide yard sale a few miles away, the garden club plant sale, and a flea market in one of the school parking lots and you know what happens? Traffic happens...lots of it...on narrow streets that were built for tiny little cars!
Here is how it all went down, and understand that I am not complaining...I had a ball! I was out the door at 8:00 this morning and hit the first five sales one block over...instant jackpot. Neighbors who I do not know had some great stuff for sale, and there were a few other shoppers stopping by, and all was very civilized. I picked up some lovely things which I will show you in my next post. Moving into town a bit, I hit another 15 or so sales, many with the little tykes, playschool stuff...baby clothes, strollers, etc., all good in my opinion...wish I had access to that when I was a young Mom just starting out...but I digress. After buying a little of this and that and moving closer to the center of town...now its around 9:00, I realize that there are people driving very large SUV's, some trucks, a couple of Uhaul style vans and they are cruising down the streets very slowly, letting people out to run over to the sale and the vehicles are sitting in the middle of the streets blocking traffic. Who does that sort of thing? After dealing with these fairly rude nuts, I decided that 2 1/2 hours was enough and went home.
Just had to get that off my chest! In the end, and so as not to taint the happiness of finding great stuff this morning, I will write a second post...with pictures. Would it be wrong of me to write a tutorial for yard sailers? Would I have the nerve to tell people that there are common decency rules to be followed? After 20 years of playing the sport of yard sale, I am pretty sure that I know my game...yeah, I do think that I might be an expert, but maybe the game is changing..maybe it is no longer the sport for the experienced, maybe it is time to make sure that everyone knows the rules. I'm just sayin'.
♥, Susan (thanks for listening)
Definitely go for it! I would love to have some of the people I have experienced read your rules of the Yard Sale!
Glad you found some goodies!
Becky K.
Posted by: Becky K. | May 15, 2010 at 04:00 PM
Yes, I definitely think you should write that! I went to one yesterday where a woman was parked halfway in the street! I said to whoever was listening: That car there is going to get hit. A woman said it was her car. But she didn't bother to move it! Idiots!
Brenda
Posted by: Brenda Kula | May 15, 2010 at 04:53 PM
Funny...same experience here! I only lasted an hour.
Posted by: christine | May 15, 2010 at 05:19 PM