Crazies at the yard sale

[saturnz_dragon]

I used to go to yard sales all the time as a kid, as well as flea markets. I'm actually going to a flea market this weekend, which will be the first time in a very long time. I, however, will not be stealing things and haggling prices.

[Shalom]

I used to be regular garage sale shopper but now that I don't have a vehicle I rarely go to them. But one of the houses that regularly held sales had an interesting way to deal with the early birds that would knock on their doors hours before the sale was due to start - they would open their garage for the would-be picker and tell them that sales prices would be inflated to three times the marked price...for the convenience allowed to the picker.

Ah, so that's where they got the idea.

There's a long-running local camera swap meet on the second Sunday of every month at a firehouse in Wayne NJ. The official hours are from 9 to 2, and it costs five bux to get in. If you want to go in at 7, they'll let you, but it'll cost you an extra $25...

(Hmm, I just checked their website, now it's only an extra $10 for early admission. I guess there's not as much demand for it any more, now that they're competing with eBuy. Damn, that magenta background is painful...)

[Dreamstalker]

Ooh, that reminds me, the MIT Flea should be starting up soon and I'm in search of prop parts...

[Merriweather]

But one of the houses that regularly held sales had an interesting way to deal with the early birds that would knock on their doors hours before the sale was due to start - they would open their garage for the would-be picker and tell them that sales prices would be inflated to three times the marked price...for the convenience allowed to the picker.

I've seen several sales around here advertise on Craigs List "early birds will be charged double".

I also remember one woman was trying to haggle an older TV that was priced $50.00 down to $15.00. She didn't get it, because my grandfather didn't give in

I remember once at a flea market we were selling some stuff at, my brother in law got so fed up with some hagglers that everytime they'd state a lower price, he'd state a higher one - took them a few rounds to realize what he was doing, LOL.

[arminius58]

I used to go to yard sales a lot with my grandmother and mother when I was younger I was intended to pack the heavy stuff, but I usually got some oddly interesting books out of it. The only thing I ever tended to do was ask that it be plugged in if it was electronic just to make sure it at least worked there.

[Lots42]

Fifty cents, yeah. But god help you if it comes priced at less then fifty, because this means there is something wrong with it and they will be angry.

Even when nothing is wrong with it. You can't win.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

I love the ones who adhere to the "touch rule," where anything you are touching is yours until you aren't touching it anymore. I've seen people get a finger on a bigger item like an appliance or a chair and then act like it is a leash on them, straining to see other things while still touching the item. I've even seen one lady demand that the people running the sale bring stuff over to her while she is holding down an old crib.

People are repulsive creatures most of the time.

The logical thing would be to buy whatever it is you have held, take it to your car and put it away, then return to do more scrounging.

[Andara Bledin]

I remember once at a flea market we were selling some stuff at, my brother in law got so fed up with some hagglers that everytime they'd state a lower price, he'd state a higher one - took them a few rounds to realize what he was doing, LOL.

Nice.

One co-worker will get hagglers on the phone, sometimes, who always ask for a "better price." Her repsonse is to raise it. When they complain that it's "not better," she tells them, "it's better for me."

There are a lot of people we get calling that department who claim lower quotes from other sources or mouth off that they're never calling us again. They nearly always come back with a PO for us, because more often than not, we've not only got the lowest quote but we're also the only people who have it in stock at all.

^-.-^

[Midorikawa]

When I was younger I was a bit of an electronics hobbyist. I lent out a "special" Nintendo game (this was in the days of ROM cartridges, not CD-ROMs) to neighbours who were having yard sales.

Oh that's evil...and oh so good. I've never sold a single nintendo game I've bought, just because if nothing else, I love the games, and my NES generally gets more use than any newer console, but if I ever got around to selling my old electronics, I may have to have something like that. >:-D

[dendawg]

When I was younger I was a bit of an electronics hobbyist. I lent out a "special" Nintendo game (this was in the days of ROM cartridges, not CD-ROMs) to neighbours who were having yard sales. What was special about it? I had opened up the shell and replaced the contents (didn't have a Nintendo machine myself - this was a "dud" which friends had somehow fried and were going to throw away) with an EEPROM that would display a screen I'd made up (straight text along the lines of "I hate thieves - you're going to regret your sticky fingers"), a homemade DC-to-DC converter feeding off the power buses to the ROM chip to charge up a capacitor, and a simple timer (IIRC, a couple NE-2 lamps in series that would "trip" when the capacitor reached the firing voltage of the string, approximately 270 volts) that would turn on an SCR and discharge the capacitor into one of the data lines the system used to communicate with the ROM cartridge. Of course, this was "Oops! Didn't mean to put that one out - it's not for sale" if a customer brought it up and wanted to buy it. After a couple yard sales, it got stolen, but I didn't mind.

Oooooo, that's evil! I like it!

[BaristaTrav]

Brings back one of my early memories of one of my first brushes with suckiness within the general population..

When my parents split, they sold the house and we had a huge yard sale. this was about.. circa 1986 or '87 I was about 10. My dad was selling a bunch of his old Motown records.. This old man was sorting through them.. being the helpful naive little kid I was, I went up to him:

me: Is there any album you're looking for? Maybe I can help you find one.

old man: Nope.. All you have here is this damn n***er music

me:

[EricKei]

When I was younger I was a bit of an electronics hobbyist. I lent out a "special" Nintendo game (this was in the days of ROM cartridges, not CD-ROMs) to neighbours who were having yard sales.
... After a couple yard sales, it got stolen, but I didn't mind.

Sounds like that "special" GameShark from Acts of Gord...

[Sightings Reporter]

By "crap," I mean most of it was just that. The sort of thing that really needs to die, yet some idiot thinks they can get a penny or two for it at a garage sale. You name it--costume jewelry, old books, shoes, purses, bottles--seemed the boxes full of that stuff were endless. After she moved up to Maine, to live with my aunt, we literally hauled several truckloads of crap out of my grandmother's house. Nearly all of that shit was carefully stored at our house, in the hope that we'd be able to sell it.

And this is why when my MIL dies, we will search the house for money, then torch the place (Okay, maybe not torch the place, but we will certainly have to be getting back out our lives in Other State after the funeral and search for money )

[Ironclad Alibi]

Sounds like that "special" GameShark from Acts of Gord...

You beat me to it. Story here.

But you forgot to mention the N64 cartridge trap which is similar to the one posted.

[draftermatt]

And this is why when my MIL dies, we will search the house for money, then torch the place

I told my parents to just set my grandmother's house on fire a few times it was so full of crap.

When they refused I told them they had better not accumulate so much crap in their golden years or I will torch their house when they're gone.