Yard Sale as a Verb
Forgive me, Blogger, for I have sinned. It's been nearly six months since my last pointless tirade.
The Suz has been into yard-saling (as in, to yard sale, as in to drive all over town looking at crap people put out on their lawns in an attempt to purge their homes of accumulated crap) for several years. I think she got inspired the summer her aunt found a pipe at a sale in Connecticut and spent her entire budget for the day, $25, on it, then ended up selling to on ebay for about five grand.
The Suz and I never got a score like that, but we did spend one summer cruising around Boston and its environs as The Suz purchased various types of glass and porcelain and, in one memorable case a pair of resin pigs dressed in American flags. The Suz developed an understanding of maker's marks and stamps gleaned from many, many viewings of Cash in the Attic on BBC America and was able to turn those 50 cent sugar bowls and cookie jars into enough cash to cover her share of rent and the bills for about six months.
The resin pigs never sold, not even when we had our own yard sale upon vacating The Old Apartment. Now I wish I had a picture of them.
I never had an eye for glassware, so I accumulated interesting fabrics and at the same sale where she got the resin pigs, I bought a cedar-lined cabinet for ten bucks. And nearly broke my nose trying to wedge it into the back of my little SUV in an unlikely string of events that is too complicated to recount here.
We also never sold Puddles the Duck. I gave him a good home, though.
Yesterday we started the 2012 Yard-Saling season, but since The Suz moved to New Hampshire, it isn't the same. There's a different flavor of crap in The Granite State.
I mean flavor literally. Someone was selling boxes of saltine crackers at a yard sale in a particularly dodgy section of Manchester yesterday. Store brand saltines. Not Premium. Not Krispy (with a K). Store brand, generic saltines. At a yard. sale.
Yep. I'm judging. I'm judging a lot. It's late at night, and I'm putting it online, so people are looking, and I'm judging. I know the whole world is in the economic tank. I get that. But saltines at a yard sale?
That's not economic desperation. That's something they don't have a name for yet.
What I'm saying is, I don't doubt that there are people out there who have need of free or very very heap saltines. But those aren't the people going to yard sales. And the people who are putting saltines in a yard sale seem unbalanced and greedy. Most people who have surplus unexpired (and who knows how old those saltines were) food stuffs in their pantries do the normal thing. The decent thing. They send that stuff to the local food bank and hang on to their dignity.
Forgive me, Blogger, for I have sinned. It's been nearly six months since my last pointless tirade.
The Suz has been into yard-saling (as in, to yard sale, as in to drive all over town looking at crap people put out on their lawns in an attempt to purge their homes of accumulated crap) for several years. I think she got inspired the summer her aunt found a pipe at a sale in Connecticut and spent her entire budget for the day, $25, on it, then ended up selling to on ebay for about five grand.
The Suz and I never got a score like that, but we did spend one summer cruising around Boston and its environs as The Suz purchased various types of glass and porcelain and, in one memorable case a pair of resin pigs dressed in American flags. The Suz developed an understanding of maker's marks and stamps gleaned from many, many viewings of Cash in the Attic on BBC America and was able to turn those 50 cent sugar bowls and cookie jars into enough cash to cover her share of rent and the bills for about six months.
The resin pigs never sold, not even when we had our own yard sale upon vacating The Old Apartment. Now I wish I had a picture of them.
I never had an eye for glassware, so I accumulated interesting fabrics and at the same sale where she got the resin pigs, I bought a cedar-lined cabinet for ten bucks. And nearly broke my nose trying to wedge it into the back of my little SUV in an unlikely string of events that is too complicated to recount here.
We also never sold Puddles the Duck. I gave him a good home, though.
Yesterday we started the 2012 Yard-Saling season, but since The Suz moved to New Hampshire, it isn't the same. There's a different flavor of crap in The Granite State.
I mean flavor literally. Someone was selling boxes of saltine crackers at a yard sale in a particularly dodgy section of Manchester yesterday. Store brand saltines. Not Premium. Not Krispy (with a K). Store brand, generic saltines. At a yard. sale.
Yep. I'm judging. I'm judging a lot. It's late at night, and I'm putting it online, so people are looking, and I'm judging. I know the whole world is in the economic tank. I get that. But saltines at a yard sale?
That's not economic desperation. That's something they don't have a name for yet.
What I'm saying is, I don't doubt that there are people out there who have need of free or very very heap saltines. But those aren't the people going to yard sales. And the people who are putting saltines in a yard sale seem unbalanced and greedy. Most people who have surplus unexpired (and who knows how old those saltines were) food stuffs in their pantries do the normal thing. The decent thing. They send that stuff to the local food bank and hang on to their dignity.
Posts
1 comment:
You didn't NAME him Puddles the Duck; his name IS Puddles the Duck. He's part of a line from Metlox pottery, and don't store him too high as he's valued at $250.
Post a Comment