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The Villages
Friday, April 19, 2024

Garage sales are part of American life

Barry Evans
Barry Evans

Garage sales are part of American life.  They are omnipresent no matter where you go in the US of A.  That includes The Villages, of course, as it is not hard to find a sign indicating that one is down a street.  I would have thought that when people retire, that they would get rid of their excess “valuables” before making the journey to Florida and paradise.  However, the perspective of homo sapiens is broad and quite obviously some folks decide after arriving that “Hey, maybe we should have a garage sale!”  Good for them I say – up to a point.

The point is that I naturally have to try and keep The Blonde in the house away from them as the sale might include clocks and thus fuel her clock-a-holic affliction.  She also has a thing for flower pots.  That is because she goes to one of the big stores where they have “sick” plants.  She nurses them back to health and soon they require a bigger pot than that in which they came.  Our lanai is full of such plants – particularly orchids that have been “saved”.  Everyone who sees these “saved” plants is enthusiastic about them – which provides encouragement.  You would be amazed how much time I have spent at stores while she picks out the right plants.  Luckily, it is now cooler weather so I can read my iPhone without sweating!

One good thing about garage sales is that whatever the start time is for the opening of the garage sale, there are people at least an hour or so before that time who are standing outside with pleading eyes asking that the garage door be opened immediately – before someone else gets there.  From a personal standpoint this is a good thing as we are never in that group.  Thus, by the time we get there most of the good stuff is gone.  However, I have found that clock and flower pots are not necessarily items that go first, although clocks sometimes are.  Quite often though, the clocks are not running, and I spread a rumor that they are probably broken – occasionally that works.

I will have to admit that we have had our own garage sales.  Usually, they were when we made a move.  I recall one in particular when we were moving on to a new job, and I included some golf clubs in the sale.  They were not the best clubs, but they were pretty well unused.  I was city manager, and if the public saw me out playing golf they would get restless.  They would call their councilman and ask why that “bum” of a city manager was out playing golf when he should be saving the taxpayers money and reducing the taxes.  Therefore, I had determined that I would not play golf, and since I was going to a similar job, I might as well get rid of them.  I put a modest price of $10 a club on them.  I told The Blonde that I was certain that those early buyers would snap them up.

Well, they didn’t so about 10 o’clock, I reduced the price to $5.  There were still no takers.  So with the close of the sale rapidly approaching I put $1 on them as I didn’t want to move them.  At closing time they were one of the few things left.   We had even sold some flower pots that we did not want to move – this was before The Blonde knew about “sick” plants.  Just as I was ready to close the garage door the garbage man came by – so I gave the clubs to him.

Two weeks later the garbage man knocks on my door and thanks me.  He said that they were the best clubs he ever had.  He said he was coming back from playing his friends who he demolished on the golf course. He said they wanted to know if I had more clubs – and they would pay up to $15 a club if I did.  I didn’t!

Barry Evans writes about Life in The Villages for Villages-News.com

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