Yup, we've been married for ten years, but my husband and I were yard sale virgins until yesterday. It's hard to believe we held out so long considering we have to move every few years, but we've always just packed up, donated, or thrown out everything each time. We're not moving again yet, but someone in our neighborhood decided to round up a community yard sale this weekend. We live well off the main drag, so we figured this would be our best chance to get good traffic to our yard sale. In spite of having no clue what we were doing, only weeks to prepare, and the fact that I was already committed to be out of town that day, we signed on.
Finding things to sell around the house and finding good information online about how to set everything up was relatively easy. (By the way, that's not OUR sign. I got that image off of flickr.com but I wish I HAD made it!) The actual cleaning, pricing, arranging and cleaning up around the sale was a lot - a LOT - of hard work. We knew it would be, so that was ok, too. What we didn't learn about anywhere ahead of time was the emotional toll it would take on us. No, we don't need no stinkin' therapy or anything like that. But there were a few unexpected sides to our yard sale that I want to share with other yard sale virgins out there, so that you might gain from our experience.
My mother would never, ever have a yard sale simply because she would be horrified at the mere thought of strangers viewing all her stuff. She's a very quiet, reserved Bostonian, and putting her personal effects on display would appall her. Well, I'm not that prim and proper (sorry, Mum) and I'm a bit more outgoing and hey, we live in the South, so I'm ok with people going through my stuff. Or so I thought. For the most part, I didn't mind. Most people are pleasant and respectful and well aware that they're at your home and these are things that meant something to you at some point. To be honest, no one was mean at all. But the first time a car slows down, eyes you and your stuff over, and speeds away - it's pretty disconcerting. It's kind of like being rejected by a stalker. Creepy.
Once the sale was in full swing, our kids couldn't resist coming out to play. We'd hoped to avoid this because they're quite young and it's hard to watch your toys going home with someone else. On the other hand, they really wanted to know what was going on, and we had prepared them for weeks by explaining it as a way of recycling. Kids today, even young ones, are remarkably "green", and naturally kind, too. They were great about sharing their things with other families. Every now and then a toy would appear that they truly loved and refused to let go. We removed those few toys from the yard sale without question, remembering that this was about cleaning house, recycling, and working together as a family - not punishment.
The final emotional surprise, for me, was the broad range of guests we had. Some were obviously well off financially and simply enjoyed browsing, others were specialty collectors on a mission, and then there were the truly poor families. It was remarkably humbling to watch a young mother try to choose the very best of your used toys for the two dollars she has. Toys that we spent far more than two dollars on so our kids could ignore and forget them almost immediately.
So would we do it again? Yes, we've already agreed to before our next move. It's a lot of work and we wouldn't want to hold a yard sale more than once every year or two. On the flip side, we found homes for a lot of our things, met a lot of pleasant people, and made a few "fun tickets", as Jimmy Buffett would say. We had the opportunity to work together with our neighbors and enjoy a gorgeous Saturday in May. It may be a while before our next one though - I think I'm going to spend some time appreciating what I have.
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