If It's not an Estate Sale, Don't Call It One

That's right.  I'm an estate sale junkie, and I am fed up with wasting gas to drive all over town only to find out that some (I'd like to say idiot but I'm trying to be nice here) person has listed their garage sale as an estate sale.  Just because you are trying to sell Grandma's pickle dish and hand crocheted pot holders, doesn't make it an estate sale.

An estate sale is held inside the house.  If there is a garage and storage building you can have stuff there too, even on the patio or in the back yard, but it needs to be INSIDE the house too.

Today, four were listed in the paper.  First stop was one held by a professional estate sale company.  It was organized, things were priced, a little high maybe, but at least you had a starting point.  If there was no price you asked and they would give one off the top of their head, which is fine.  I spent fifty cents there.

The next one turned out to be a garage sale on the driveway.  It evidently had some of Aunt Soffie's or Uncle Bill's used towels or something.  Didn't spend much time there. Did pay a quarter for something I really needed.  It wasn't marked and I would have paid fifty cents, but the lady wasn't quite as smart at the pro at the first sale.

Number three was the reason I'm writing this blog.  It was advertised as three estates all rolled into one and "everything must go".  Well, I want to tell ya, for everything to go, it's gonna take two years, eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, and they are still gonna have junk left to throw out. I haven't seen a mess that big since we moved across town with everything we had  packed in brown paper sacks. It was in a commercial building, the lighting was bad and there was junk stacked six feet deep.  My son, Wesley, and I walked in about twenty feet, we stopped, I looked around and said "I don't have time for this", he said he was thinking the same thing, so we turned and left.  They had an add last week, but it was worded different and we didn't  go.  That ain't all.  We're not goin' again.  I don't care how flowery they make that newspaper add.

Sale No. four was truly an estate sale.  Most of the deceased kids, grandkids, and their families were sitting around or rearranging stuff. Maybe I should say the men were sitting around.  The women were doing the rearranging.  Any way, it was an estate sale, and I did buy fifty cents worth.  However, I think I'll do some cleaning out at home.  Too munch of that junk looked mine.

Went to a real one not long ago.  There was a tiny matchbook type car that I decided to give a home - I have a collection.  It was dirty, had a broken fender, the paint was messed up.  You could tell it had been played with a lot, had been some little kid's treasure, but there was no price.  I took it to the lady and asked "How much".  She must have thought I was dumber than dirt and said "How about two dollars?"  Now that filthy little car wasn't more than two inches long.  "I was thinkin' more like a nickle" I said.  She came back with "Well, things are half price, so that just makes it a dollar."  "Nope", I said "it doesn't need for me to give it a home that bad.  Just throw it in the trash."  And I'm sure that is exactly what happened to that little car.

Estate sales sure can be interesting though.  Wonder if I should clean out in the garage or start with the closets. Maybe, first, I should have a dump truck back into the garage and throw things down from the attic.  The kids probably would appreciate that.