Chapter: The Sh*t My Mom Sells at Garage Sales

Some form of this post will eventually be included in Living with People I Want to Punch in the Throat. It is unedited and in rough draft form.

---

Years ago I wrote in my book People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges about the love/hate relationship I have with garage sales.

Well, I’m back again with another garage sale story!

My mom and I enjoy a good garage sale. We usually do it at my house because I have better traffic, so she spends a week or so hauling all her shit—I mean excellent used items—over to my house where she can agonize over the pricing. She’s hilarious because she forgets it is a garage sale and not a resale boutique. Although, the way we garage sale it could be a resale boutique! We have a dressing room (because before women part with a buck fifty for a pair of pants that retailed for 80 dollars and were only worn once, they want to make sure their ass doesn’t look big in them). We have our tables organized and labeled neatly. We have racks of clothes hung by size and season. We don’t fuck around at our garage sale.

My mom is incredibly cheap. That’s probably why she has more money than me. It’s interesting to me what items she’ll haggle on (“I’ll take a dollar for this new Chico’s top with tags on it”) and what she won’t (“Those barbecue tongs have sentimental value. They’ve been in our family for 35 years. I can’t take less than ten dollars”).

My mom doesn’t miss the chance to sell anything. And I mean ANYTHING.