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Sunday, July 15, 2007

Adventures in Yard Sale-ing

It's good to move every so often - it keeps me from accumulating too much unnecessary stuff. To pare down the nimber of boxes for the U-Haul, I usually have a yard sale. But having one with my resident son-in-law is a real adventure.

"Hey, Mom, what do you use this for?" he asked, pointing to one thing after another. No matter how I answered him, he replied, "You should sell it."

Before I realized it, he had sweet-talked me into selling several book shelves, a collection of assorted glassware and all sorts of miscellaneous stuff I thought I would never part with along with all the other items I planned to sell.

When our yard sale began on Thursday, he was up at 7 am, hauling, arranging and hanging up items like a pro. But his true colors began to show when our first customer arrived.

"How are you doing today? Excellent!" He greeted everyone as they stepped out of their cars into our lot. "This is a three family yard sale," he explained to each one, drawing them into a conversation. Soon he had found common ground and was conversing with them as though they were old friends.

By turning on his charm, he sold one item after another. Whenever he took a break, he cut it short if a customer came because the rest of us just didn't know how to "mingle."

I think he must have taught his children well because everyone who came up to pay couldn't get away without Eve asking, "Do you want a glass of Lemonade? How about a brownie?" All the kids had to do was smile and be polite and they were selling lemonade to EVERYONE! And even getting tips on top of their sales. They made over $30 in two days.

At any rate, I've never had such a successful sale. We lightened the load for our moving truck by at least 20% and made enough to purchase some new items for our future home. Not bad for three days worth of work. And Josh was right all along - I really did need to sell most of those items - after all, what did I really need them for?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good for people to know.