Introducing TK and Yardsale MADNESSSS
[Editor's note: I have tried to get a few friends to come up with something for the site... most have failed (I'm looking in your direction KS and BB). One has not however - presenting for the first time... TK! You may remember her as the confused traveler in "A Concert Story II". She used to live in San Diego but she recently moved to San Francisco and is slowly but surely becoming a dirty hippie (kidding... but not really) This post and any future posts from her will appear in green. My snarky comments appear in black. Without further ado...]
After a Saturday cleaning effort of prolific proportion left the Beach House with an overload of random, albeit interesting items that we could no longer keep, we decided to have an impromptu yard sale/ BBQ the following day. Saturday night we made some yard sale signs and posted an ad on Craigslist that was sure to draw at least a few brave souls*
*Loud Rock Music Garage Sale! – $111 (Richmond / Seacliff)
We got a late start, as expected. Our 10 am start time became almost 11, once we went to Safeway for supplies and got all of our junk laid out in front of the garage. We carried down the grill from our regular spot on the roof and the day on the hill commenced. Amongst the lot being sold was a misfit collection of skateboards, records, books, clothes, a cabby gorilla, a beach ball, and an epic Phil Collins poster [That picture is more than epic - it is amazing - if you still have it I want it. Who knew he was such a badass? Check him out in the upper right of the below photo - something is In the Air Tonight... and it is Phil's middle finger!] Also being sold were refreshments, such as cookies and root beer floats. Even though the day started off on the slow side, it was beautiful outside and the worst thing that could happen was our day would become a monetarily unprofitable BBQ, not unlike most Sundays at the BH.
Throughout the day we had many visitors from around the neighborhood, a lot of which were friends. The humor in this is that many items that were sold, happened to be sold to people who we probably would have given the shit to for free, if they had asked any other day. But “free” is not what makes a successful yard sale, so they coughed up a $1 here and $2 there for books and posters and other crap. Obviously this is a good thing for us, because we would rather have a $1 than nothing and of course the free advertisement of 15 partying yard-salers grabs attention. However, as a patron and friend of our yard sale we made it worth their while… Music, sausages, beer and an all-day good time!
Although we did have many familiar faces in attendance, we had a lot of walk-bys, as well. We would holler at people getting on and off at the bus stop on the corner and solicit business with the flaunting of our wares to pedestrians and cyclists alike [It works for hookers, why shouldn't it work for yard sales?]. Within the seven hour period we spent outside, met the majority of neighbors on our block, many of whom I did not know existed! We were visited by the cooks from the Hong Kong Style Chinese restaurant down the street and everyone walking their dogs within the vicinity of our garage. I even sold tater-tots on a stick to a family of four, who were scoping out the house for sale two doors down. It goes without saying that after looking at our crowd of loud and partially drunk twenty-somethings, that house is still for sale!
Overall the day was a success on all fronts. We made some money to buy new shit, so we can fill the space of the old shit ["Consumerist" statements like that remind me that you have not TOTALLY gone hippie... there is still time to turn back!]. We ate like kings and drank like my mother. We met some wonderful people, as well as some people that made us remember why we have locks on the door. We didn’t even get a complaint when our party had overflow seating in the street! For an event planned the night before, I was amazed that we could turn a day fueled by the desire to relax with friends into something productive and profitable. Now as I sit in my newly cleaned house, I can’t help but look at all of the remaining items and wonder what we could sell next…
[Selling black children? Is that what they do up north? That is totally out of line, this isn't the Amistad - oh wait... that's a POSTER... carry on then...]