Yard salin'

Before I lived on Ocracoke, I was not a person who went to yard sales. There was so much I didn't like about the whole concept: getting up early in the morning, having to dig through people's stuff to see if you happened to find something you liked, and possibly haggling with someone over what they wanted to sell it for.

I had several yard sales, mostly out of neccessity when we decided to move to Ocracoke and had to downsize, and I didn't enjoy being on that side of the process either. No matter what time I advertised as the starting hour for the sale (and it was never earlier than 7 AM), there was always someone banging on my door at 6 AM (not to mention the people who showed up the day before). I had people tell me that I must price my items, insist on buying things after I explained that they were not for sale and I had not known they were brought outside, attempt to buy entire knife sets (worth $250 new) for 50 cents, and respond quite rudely when I explained that the price on the tag was 50 DOLLARS, and walk right into my house even after I told them that there was nothing for sale inside. Some - not all, but enough to be annoying - people who go to yard sales are just plain rude.

And then there's yard saling on Ocracoke. I actually enjoy it here, and try to go to every yard sale that I hear about. First of all, they usually start a bit later (8 AM is an early one; the one today started at 10), so I can sleep in before shopping! Generally, I know everyone at the sale (the seller and the other shoppers), so there's no unfriendly haggling. Often, there's no haggling at all, as most shoppers just pay what the sellers are asking. Usually, there's friendly non-yard-sale-related conversation and gossip instead. And the prices go down as the sale goes on, since people want to get rid of their stuff more than they want to make a buck. It's just a kinder, gentler yard sale all around. I like it!

Fairly often, there are large community yard sales on the island. Multiple people will get together at a single large site (frequently the lawn of the Pony Island Motel), each bringing his or her own table and things to sell. We had one of those today. I arrived a bit late, and didn't sell much (I think I came out just slightly ahead of even, in that I netted 50 cents after making my own purchases from the other tables), but still enjoyed it. I got to sit around and chat with friends, and also eat a meal of fried chicken (John went to pick it up for us and a couple of other people, from the fundraiser lunch at the Assembly of God Church). The fact that there was a yard sale going on was really incidental. The only bad thing about it was the cold wind which blew in gusts every few minutes, sending sale items flying and rolling around, and freezing ears and hands. Maybe the cold was the reason I didn't sell much stuff. No, it's probably because it was odd random stuff, and on this particular day my trash just wasn't anyone else's treasure.