Unexpected delights snapped up at garage sale - Kevin Page

Not everyone got a bargain at the Page family's garage sale. Photo / Getty Images

OPINION

So, it’s a rather chilly early autumn Saturday morning and Mrs P and I are attending that most Kiwi of Kiwi things - a garage sale.

Well, actually, we are not so much attending as helping to run the blasted thing.

That’s because the Boomerang Child and her bloke Builder Boy have decided to up sticks and try a new adventure. Consequently, all those projects they’ve been meaning to get around to over the past five years and all that stuff they’ve collected for those projects, plus a lot of really good building gear, has to go.

A garage sale, they reasoned, would be the best way to get shot of it all and make some money. I’m assuming they also reasoned that Nanny and Grandad would be keen to come over and see the grandies and, gosh, you know what, they could help out while they are here.

Joking aside, of course we are delighted to have any chance of a quick catch-up with Poppy, aged nearly 3, and Master 11 Months. On that basis, we got to the job site the night before and stayed over.

What we didn’t realise was that in the short time since we’d seen him last, Master 11 Months has, well, got a bit louder.

While he’s still only big enough to fit in a large shoe box, he seems to have the lung capacity and voice box of an exuberant 29-year-old celebrating an All Blacks win throughout the night.

Consequently, he managed to keep us awake most of the night.

And naturally, because that is just the way things happen, while we are standing here looking somewhat dishevelled and bewildered, hoping a cup of coffee will revive our spirits and reset our internal clocks, the little ... er ... cherub is blissfully dozing upstairs, completely unaware of the mayhem he has caused.

So, here we are in the middle of all this stuff and it’s not going too badly.

We’ve had a steady influx of people since the driveway gate opened at 8am. Naturally, there were a few people outside at 7am wondering if we could open early so they could check the stuff out before anyone else. I gather it’s quite a common thing among the professional garage sale goers.

We stuck to our guns and carried on laying the stuff out until we were ready. And now, a couple of hours in, the initial rush has ended and we’re down to a bit of a trickle. Items aren’t so much flying out the door as crawling out on the back of a tortoise, if you know what I mean.

And some of the stuff that people are buying is really eye-opening.

We had a bloke pick up a ball of builder’s twine which was about, let’s say, 20 metres in length. We had 50 cents on the item, essentially just to make it easy so there was no messing around with change.

The customer decided he didn’t actually need 20m, more like 5m. So would we take 20 cents?

To be honest, I wanted to direct him to the nearest lake. As in, go jump in it. But I didn’t. I just fixed his gaze with an equally vacant one of my own which I hope suggested he should not mess with this grandad who’d had bugger all sleep and was not inclined to haggle over 15m of string.

My method was successful and after a standoff of some seconds where I honestly could feel my eyelids starting to close, he coughed up the full asking price and departed.

We also got rid of a lot of baby clothes. The girls decided to package a number of items together and knocked them out for a couple of bucks each. That seems to have been a big winner.

And, likewise, some of Builder Boy’s construction bits and bobs have found new homes.

One guy practically did a cartwheel when he spotted a 6m long steel rod, used for concrete foundations, laying down the side of the driveway. We had basically left it there because we didn’t have enough time to cut it into more manageable lengths. And because it was so long and bulky, there was nowhere else for it to go other than on the ground behind everything else.

Our storage and presentation problem didn’t seem to be an issue for the new owner who gleefully handed over $5 and proceeded to walk off down the busy weekend footpaths of suburbia with 3m of steel rod poking out in front and behind him.

I’ve no idea how far he had to go but I’d imagine his arm would have been aching by the time he got home. Hopefully, he didn’t impale anyone on the way.

Morning tea and lunchtime came and went with the arrival of a couple of muffins and another cup of coffee which was gratefully received.

By then, the crowd was thinner and we had time to chat a bit more with some of the browsers, many of whom had just been passing and thought they’d stick their nose in and see if there was anything they’d fancied.

A couple of books and a set of curtain rails were picked up on a whim which made everybody involved quite happy.

Eventually though, It was time for the fun to come to an end. And as we started to think about what we would do with all the leftovers - either a dump run or a quick whizz around the op shops of the town to see if any were open - I spotted a pair of industrial strength builder’s earmuffs still on the table.

I remembered them from the time Builder Boy and I had built a fence. I was in charge of the ultra-loud drop saw and the ear muffs had been perfect for reducing the noise to practically nothing.

Obviously, with lack of sleep still fresh in my mind from the previous night, I figured they would be great to snap up to help me ensure a good night’s slumber.

I kid you not, as I moved forward to secure the item, a guy who had walked in the gate not three seconds before plucked them from the table and handed over a $2 coin to Builder Boy before heading out the gate.

I was gutted.

Now I don’t know what possessed me to do the following, Maybe it was the lack of sleep, Maybe it was the 15 cups of coffee I had had to that point, which put me over the edge, but I was desperate. Before I knew what was happening, I was off out the gate and running after the purchaser before he had a chance to get away.

The look of initial surprise on his face changed to one of amusement as I explained my predicament.

Thankfully he was a good sport and my garage sale experience came to an end with me wandering back through the gate and up the driveway with a pair of industrial strength earmuffs I knew would ensure I got a good sleep that night.

And I will.

I just have to wait for Mrs P to drift off first.

That’s because I don’t want her to see me wearing them. If she does, I will have to tell her I had to pay $20 to get them back.