Complaining on Saturday
Most people like to complain and bitch about something every now and then. I’m no exception, especially on Saturdays.
My wife and I have been going to yard sales for about fifteen years now. Almost every Saturday we make our rounds and hope to find something cool for a good price. Over the years we have acquired quite a few items for indoor and outdoors. Hence the fact that our interior is very eclectic. Nothing matches and we don’t care. We are comfortable with the environment.
And we also have been able to buy items and sell them on with a profit. Some extra pocket money is always welcome.
The last two years results have been very disappointing. There are considerably less sales than in the past and the quality of the merchandise has gone down as well. Even some of the community sales that have been great in previous years were very disappointing.
It is what it is of course, and I can’t buy what’s not for sale. But I do get somewhat frustrated if five sales in row show nothing but clothes, shoes, and kid’s stuff. That’s not what we are looking for. And we don’t want to see cheap plastic stuff that we could by at a dollar store for the same amount.
But I get upset when we drive for many miles just to find stuff that can be described as pure junk.
This weekend we followed signs that led off the beaten path and arrived at the place that resembled a junk yard. Electronics and small kitchen appliances that clearly had been sitting outside for a long time. I would be very hesitant to plug them in. Boxes full of outdated stuff that was filthy, broken, and incomplete.
If the owner had offered me the lot for free with delivery included I would have given him the address of the local dump.
Sometimes I chuckle when the owner of such a sale is greeting me with words like: “Please look around, I have some good stuff.” In that case I’m temped to answer: “Where do you keep it?, I certainly don’t see it here.”
There is something else that annoys me to no end. We did stop at the sale that had decent stuff. I greeted the owner with a friendly “Good morning.” He did not reply and didn’t even look up from his phone. His wife was looking at me from inside the garage and did not open her mouth either. I put the tool that I was interested in down and left telling him that I would not do business with someone who totally ignores a potential customer.
We shrug it off and try again next week.