Tagless Sale

Saturday: Was meaning to wake at 6, but let it slide to 7. An "early bird" was at the door wanting to see the music gear. After some bartering, he pulled his van up, and loaded a bunch of stuff into it, giving me around $100. Did managed to get a brief sitting in. Then for the next 8 hours, it was almost constant "yard sale action." MB headed off to an OCBC event, having made me a lunch and some coffee. Wound up selling an old Jethro Tull boxed set to a Middle Eastern looking man. Sold my mandolin to a guy for $20. Two very cute middle aged women showed up. One spoke only Portuguese, and the other only Chinese. Somehow they managed to barter with me to fill up 4 bags of stuff for a grand total of $13.50. A man and his son bought MB's very old laptop computer for $5 "To be used in the spaceship." I threw the gun that shoots foam rubber donuts in for free. One man asked "Do you have any antique military equipment?" Sorry. Talked to my neighbor Jack, about Korea and the history of the neighborhood. This is always what I talk to him about. In a lull I ate the lunch MB had packed for me. An overcast day. Bits of leaves kept falling into my coffee. Sprayed some primer on the trip around the garage door. The over-spray got on the fuse-box. Cleaned that off with nail-polish remover.

MB came back around 1 PM, and relieved me for a bit... but not long. A (I'm guessing) Haitian woman who just moved from the area bought a bible from us (then chided us for selling a bible) and insisted we sell her an old answering machine. I did, but not before salvaging this recording. Quite a little time capsule. A young kid bought my old G3 Mac (upgraded 601 PPC Power Computing machine). I tried to talk him out of it, but he wanted it so, OK! $50. They also bought a white cabinet which we had used to hold a bunch of picnic related products we'd been given as an extravagant, but not much used, wedding gift. (Those mostly went over the course of the day also.) A couple came and spent about 20 minutes playing around with stuff, but only bought a wind-chime for $1. I also gave them two copies of the periodic table of the elements for free. The guy looked great with the African percussion instrument thing on his head. His partner didn't like the way he looked when he put the fur stole on his head as a hat. I stepped over the line of good natured joking, when I said "Ah, she's hard to please." Think I hit a nerve. MB headed out to a belly-gram.

Later on the kid who bought the computer came back saying it didn't work. I told him to bring it back and I'd look at it. When he did, he told me they had dropped it. The thing was trashed. The metal case was so bent the video card wouldn't even sit in the card slot anymore. I re-jiggered that, and the Mac actually started to boot. This seemed to convince him that I had not sold him a broken computer, but he realized he wasn't going to have much use for it. He told me to keep it and sell it to someone else, or throw it away. The Mac, not surprisingly, didn't fully boot. I think the hard-drive was damaged in the fall. So, it's junk. I can maybe re-sell some of the parts and the monitor. Talked to Mrs. Tetamen. She talked about an incident where some cars on the street were keyed (scratched) and how her late husband passed away one week shy of their 49th anniversary. This conversation also, was quite familiar.

And then, it was over. I packed the much diminished pile of stuff back into the garage, and closed up shop. Then, I counted the proceeds: $380, minus about $50 of bills for making change that we'd started with. Not bad. Nice to see less stuff, and more room, in the basement. A few items found their way back indoors. Most of it is destined for the Goodwill now. Drove around town, retracing my route from last night, and taking down the yard sale signs.

When I returned home, MB had gotten back from her belly-gram. She'd accidentally whacked a couple of children in the head with her cane, but not done any serious damage. We had some food (leftover Spanikopita and some of the eggplant/olive goulash she'd made last night). And then, a much needed nap. Woke around 7 PM. She got ready for a BD performance she's giving this evening. My plans for tonight fell through. Ate a sandwich watching the Led Zeppelin DVD. MB headed out. Now, a quiet evening at home is in order.