Will you take a quarter for this?

When Jared and I moved into our new home almost three years ago, we brought boxes upon boxes of stuff. In fact we filled up an entire large Budget truck with stuff in boxes that we never really used. That stuff went into our basement until further notice. A few months ago, we decided to finally go through the boxes from our youth and determine what would stay and what would go. In all honesty, we had so many things that just wouldn't fit in our decor. Especially since I just learned yesterday from my family that I did indeed have some weird stuff.

So maybe I did collect some weird things like sand art, mini snow globes, big snow globes, and mobiles. I had a ton of stuffed animals, an inflatable pillow filled with feathers, and knicknacks galore. I won't even get into my Little Mermaid collection...None of these things could be showcased in our nice modern house and it didn't make sense to just store them in a box for the rest of my life. I love to hold on to things though. They hold a sentimental value and getting rid of things was so hard!

But we did a good job and had a big pile for selling and a smaller pile for keeping. Jared and I ended up with a ton of stuff that would soon go into our big family tag sale that took place yesterday. A friend of ours also had a huge truck load that she gave to us. We made our way to my parents house for the family tag sale with so much stuff to sell it was ridiculous. We spent the early hours yesterday pricing things and organizing. My parents live on a busy road so there is no reason to advertise. As soon as cars saw tables being taken out, they were stopping to see what we had. Tag sales as a whole make me extremely uncomfortable for me. And here is why:

1. People can see you are still setting up yet they stop to see what is for sale anyways. They snoop around go in and out of boxes even if you are working at taking things out of the box. They walk right into the garage and don't even care if things are not for sale in there but snoop around anyways as if they own the joint. Being a non confrontational person, I just sit there and watch in disgust feeling totally uncomfortable.
2. You label things with prices - cheap prices mind you - this stuff is used. There is something for fifty cents and someone comes up to you and says, would you take a quarter? You are just dumbstruck at the haggling over a quarter. Again, I'm too uncomfortable to fight over a quarter and just say okay.
3. You label something as $1. Someone says, I'll give you fifty cents. Again, I'm too uncomfortable - being the wuss that I am. Then they give me a freaking dollar and I have to give them fifty cents back when it was a dollar to begin with.
4. My aunt was having none of the haggling. A woman came up to her with a brand new shirt she wanted too buy. She asks how much and my aunt says two dollars. The woman looks in disgust and says no, I pay one dollar. My aunt shakes her head and repeats, two dollars. The woman drops the shirt at my aunt and walks away. My aunt immediately starts bitching at how rude this woman is, Jared and the others chime in as the women is still in hearing distance. I start shushing them but they don't care. This makes me very uncomfortable.
5. My cousin is looking at something we brought to sell and wanted to buy it from us. Jared yells across the yard, while we have a bunch of customers browsing, oh you can just have it for free. Good job, Jared - tell people we're giving things for free.
6. This woman walks from down the street with an entourage of children and young adults. If Hitler had been a woman, she would have been him. I had never heard a woman so ridiculously rude to children before. They all browsed through our things and the woman was so loud and so condescending to the kids. My aunt was ready to go smack her or say something but it really was not our place. We all just sat there very uncomfortable wondering how those poor children would turn out in life. Some of the people that turn out at tag sales are not the best breed. But some are really nice I have to say.

Tag sales in general are just weird. You go through your things and decide you don't like it or want it anymore. But like that stupid saying says, someones trash is another man's treasure. I have to say, it is so true. My dad kept saying to us, no one is going to buy that. But then someone came and bought it. I had an old jewelry box that had a sticker with my name on it. Dad says, no one is going to buy that. Five minutes later a little girl gave me three dollars for it.

I have to say, I've never been a 'tag saler'; one who spends a Saturday going from yard to yard looking for the treasures. However Jared loves a good tag sale. In our town they have a big elephant sale once a year and a few other big town sales and he marks them on our calendar. Jared is the kind of person who will have to buy something just because it is three dollars, even if we don't need it or already have one. It is really infuriating. And when we go to these sales, we have a dedicated time limit and money limit otherwise I can't get him to leave and we can't fit it all in our car and we're broke...

Yesterday we made a good bundle of cash and we're going to buy flowers for our pots today so that is exciting. It was a lot of hard work carting all that stuff to sell and then getting rid of things that did not sell at Good Will. I like to think that we killed three birds with one stone yesterday: we cleared out our past from the basement in a good way, we earned some cash from some hard work, and we donated some things to the Good Will for other people. I'm pretty sure I don't ever want to have a tag sale again for a long time...haggling over a quarter...so annoying...