September 21, 2008
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Yesterday was the sequel to the garage sale we had for Dave to sell shit few weeks ago. Going into it I was a little concerned because we are at the end of garage sale season and I don’t know how much this would affect sales. This time though I was able to have some time to get together to sell some of my own stuff.
Dave got to my house right at 7 in the ungodly am. He impatiently called and knocked on my window to get my ass up out of bed. At least he was smart enough to show up with Dunkin Donuts coffee though!
The garage sale was not as successful as the one a few weeks ago, however we did have just as many crazy people show up. I don’t know what it is about garage sales that brings out the nuts and crazy fucks, but………….actually, come to think of it, I think I do know what it is. The people that go to garage sales are people who don’t have a lot of money. Because of this they need to bargain which makes them do weird things. Also, they just always seem to be quite eccentric as well, perhaps because they have issues and are unable to hold down a good job and therefore they don’t have money. Either way, a good portion of the people who frequent garage sales are nuts. I’m thinkin there ought to be a reality show about garage sales. I’m sure we all know which network would pick up that show: FOX.
So let me tell you about some of the people who were there. We had this one very old, cranky couple. The lady had quite the crab ass attitude and just generally was one helluva a miserable SOB. She and the husband picked out a couple of things and were ready to buy. So they came up to me to pay. The husband had this huge magnify glass which he handed to me and I looked through at him and said in a comically goofy way “wow, you are huge.’ Honestly, that wasn’t very funny but I at least expected to get a smile or s slight chuckle out them. What made everybody else laugh was that the comment did not elicit a single response from the old couple. They just stood there with an annoyed look on their face as if I was giving them a fucking enema.
Later on we had this huge guy with a Jammacian accent show up in this huge SUV and asked what we were doing to which I explained we were having a garage sale. He tried parking on my neighbor’s driveway in spite of the fact that I kept telling him he could not park there. I told him several times to park across the street and I don’t know if he didn’t hear me or just wasn’t paying attention but after the last time I told him he couldn’t park there he got all snippy with me saying something about how I wouldn’t tell him where to park.
We also had this one guy show up and walk around the garage sale. He then went up to my front window and stood there reading my garage sale permit. I was not thrilled out this as not only did it have my name on their but it also had my phone number. I don’t know what the fuck he was doing. One theory I had was that maybe it was an undercover cop checking to make sure we have the proper permit displayed. That theory just didn’t make any sense because why the fuck would Romeoville have somebody go undercover just to check out if anybody was having an illegal garage sale. Shit, I don’t think even Romeoville isn’t boring enough or have enough cops that they could spare one just to go undercover to bust out the illegal garage sale racket. I’m thinking he was just some nosy fuck who wanted to see what it was.
The highlight or should I saw lowlight of the day was this one dude who wanted to buy a pair of speakers that Dave was selling for $35. This is a long story and I can not nearly do it justice by telling it on here but will just try to summarize it up. He wanted to listen to the speakers first before buying them, which is fair enough. All we had out there though was a little boom box which we were listening to. So we kinda improvised and hooked them up to the boom box. Of course as you might expect, they didn’t sound all that great coming out of the boom box because they are really meant to be hooked up to a stereo. He started insisting that they were blown. Dave and Darryl tried telling him they were not blown and worked fine. This went on for quite some time. He then walked up to me and said “how much for your blown speakers?” I said that they weren’t blown but that the boom box was not powerful enough to handle their sound. He insisted that they were blown which is when I responded in a condescending tone “I don’t think you quite understand the concept of it (a radio and speakers) but they won’t sound good on a tiny boom box as they are not meant for a tiny boom box.” He again insisted that they were blown. After a couple of more minutes he went to his car and started to drive away. He then turned around and parked on my neighbor’s driveway and started again to haggle over the speakers for another 20 minutes. He was insisting that they were blown and wanted to pay only $25 for them. Dave and Darryl rightfully wouldn’t bend. My thinking and what I wanted to ask them was if they were blown, why would he want to buy them. Eventually he left. He came back a couple of hours later with his kid. Dave finally agreed to sell him the damn speakers for $25. I also told him that I had a 37 inch non high def tv that I was trying to sell. He said he had a friend who was might be interested and went inside the house to take a look at it. I gave him my number and he said he would call me if his friend wanted it.
Flash forward to after the garage sale ended. I was sitting at home watching the Cubs celebrate another division title (GO CUBS!!!) when he called me to ask some info about the tv. He also said that the speakers were blown and he wanted his money back. I told him that it was up to Dave and I would need to talk to him. He told me he would callback in a half hour. I then called Dave who was already on his way back over here to pick some stuff up. Dave was none to happy about the situation to say the least. While I was talking to Jt, the guy left me a voicemail saying he wanted to bring them over tonight. When Dave got here, I had him call the guy back. Dave told him right away that he was shit out of luck that he bought the speakers as is. The guy insisted that he wanted his money back and Dave told him “Look, this is a garage sale, you buy it as is. I’m not Best Buy, you can’t return it and get your money back.” As Dave talked to him I whispered to Dave to just do something to pacify the guy because it was my house and I wouldn’t want him to come back and but the damn speakers through my front window. Dave told him that he was the one who had insisted they were blown and had even asked “how much for your blown speakers?” The guy insisted that he did not say that. He was a total fucking dick. In the end, Dave told him to come over and he would give him $10 back for the speakers, even though the guy insisted on the whole thing. After they were done talking, Dave and I waited for him to show up and discussed the whole thing. After about 20 minutes he pulled up with his entire family. Dave walked up to the car before the guy even got out, shoved the $25 at him and told him to get the hell out of here and don’t come back.
