Since college graduation two years ago, I think I’ve come a long way financially. In 2017, I never would have dreamed that I could afford canned cat food, student loan payments, and my very own Netflix subscription in a single paycheck. Back then, I relied heavily on garage sales to furnish my life. But old habits die-hard. Nowadays I spend many Saturday mornings in the metro spending money on things I don’t need so my nieces and nephews will have plenty of useless crap to complain about going through when I die. And here are 10 things you almost always find at metro garage sales.
The Album, “Heaven’s Just a Sin Away”
I don’t know what kind of crazy ass fad was running through the metro in the late 1970s, but throughout my five years living in the City, I have come across five copies of The Kendalls “Heaven’s Just a Sin Away” album at various garage sales. I’ve bought two of them.
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Books from the Left Behind Series
From Soul Harvest and Apollyon, to Glorious Appearing and Kingdom Come, I don’t think I have ever spent a day out garage sale shopping in the metro without coming across at least one plastic bin with a neon orange 50 cent sticker advertising a hodge podge mix of books that include works from the Left Behind series. I don’t know if it’s because new age churches are moving away from the fire and brimstone tactics or the fact we’ve already survived at least 13 predicted comings of the antichrist since the last book was published, but suburban Okies are beginning to think the 50 cents they’re getting from the books is worth more than the stories’ ominous warnings.
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A box of hotel mini toiletries
I don’t know which is worst: that someone saved what looks to be 17 Best Western stays’ worth of mini shampoo or that there is always a woman in a 2003 Old Navy American flag sweatshirt willing to drop $7 on the whole box containing them.
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Creations from Wine and Paint nights
No one out garage sale-ing is going to drop $40 on your sunflower or bison painting you created while sitting four pinot grigios deep at one of those painting classes. Mostly because every other woman between the ages of 23 and 57 in the metro has already spent $35 on booze and lessons at Paint Your Art Out for the exact same thing.
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Multilevel Marketing Products
From Scentsy and Lipscense, to Avon and Plexus, North OKC/Edmond garage sales almost always have some sort of multilevel marketing product on hand. But buyers beware. If the product is displayed on a card table, you’re not going to come away with those Arbonne vitamins without paying full market price. However, if the Herbalife products are jumbled together in a cardboard box, the seller would probably pay you to take them so they can make room for the products of the next pyramid scheme they join.
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A kid making bank
Generally, I would not consider spending $4 on a stale donut and Styrofoam cup of coffee that tastes like dog hair. But one does not simply say no to a little kid with a card table at the end of their parents’ driveway.
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Wedding Décor
Suddenly $2,200 worth of burlap, mason jars, tempera paint, and wood panels becomes $15 worth of half-assed homemade wedding decorations that no one at the garage sale is even trying to haggle you for.
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Someone taking their job a little too seriously
Keeping a written log of purchases and having a lockbox for your garage sale earnings is one thing. However, wearing a metal coin changer like a 1997 Sonic carhop and offering to write me a receipt for the Ziploc bag of Pokemon cards I’m scoring for my nephew is a little too extra.
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People who don’t know the value of their stuff
I once dropped $2 on an original Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album with the original cutouts and advertisement mailers still intact. Some people don’t know the value of their own stuff.
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People who don’t know the value of their stuff
Last weekend one woman in north Edmond was trying to sell an unfinished 2x3 wooden kitchen island her husband made for $800. This was also the garage sale that was trying to sell a set of Uno for $20. Some people don’t know the value of their own stuff.
Hayley tried to tell that guy that the Sgt. Pepper album was worth more. Oh well. Follow Hayley on twitter @squirrellygeek
