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Garage Sales | 7.29.01
I had a little club when I was in elementary school, of about four kids. We were all Korean boys who lived near each other and were also in the same class. As the leader of this club, I wanted to raise money so we could have a club treasury that paid for field trips or bought software. I already had a steady business of selling pirated games to the rich Jewish kids in my class, and I had a virtual monopoly because I was the only fifth grader who even knew how to copy files in MS-DOS. I knew that selling diskettes would not bring in the income that the club needed, so I looked around for viable options. It occurred to me that having a garage sale would work because of the following: it required no expenses, we could just sell our old junk, and all we had to do was sit around and wait for people to come. Plus, my father had been a great fan of garage sales the first few years he lived in America. Because we didn't have much money, he would make frequent stops at garage sales and buy all sorts of things for very cheap prices. He bought me 200 issues of National Geographic in 1st grade and I remember myself flipping through endless pages of that yellow magazine. Our family still lugs around a 50 lbs Merriam-Webster unabridged dictionary from about 75 years ago whenever we move. I also have a ceramic pink dove that I bought for a nickel when I followed my father to a garage sale. My friends bought into the idea and we staged our first one at my friend Thomas's house. We set up a few tables of cheap items such as children's books, our old clothes, action figures, comic books, and Nintento games (Super Nintendo had recently replaced the original Nintendo system). We made a few sales and by day's end, we managed to have about $20. During summer and spring months, when the weather was nice, we held a few more garage sales. I held some in front of my house and had much success because there was a gardening store across the street that helped the visibility of our garage sales. My mother was kind enough to donate some old clothes and spare them a day or two of the garbage can while increasing the volume of our offerings. There were many things I liked about a garage sale. First, it taught us valuable lessons in retail early on. We learned to be nice to potential customers who came to browse. We were courteous and as helpful as possible. Secondly, we experienced raw capitalism. We would set our prices a bit high for individual items, but offer discounts if someone bought a lot of things. I remember these old Indian women who came to buy Nintendo games for their grandchildren. We sold each Nintendo cartridge for $4, but to sell more, we offered three cartridges for $9, a sum they easily accepted. But aside from the things learned, I enjoyed garage sales because it simply allowed my friends and I to hang out for an entire day. When there were no customers, we would throw a football around or play a board game. If we got hungry, we raided the refrigerator inside the house. It was a relaxing way to make money and also have fun at the same time. Our garage sales raised us enough money to have some fun times. We were able to go to a movie together, with my sister included (because she frequently helped out at the sales), and we paid with our garage sale money. We also had a partially paid group trip to the Liberty Science Center (geeky? perhaps, but not so much for a 5th grader). But the most memorable result of the garage sale money was Windows 95. It was the most hyped operating system in the early to mid-90's and I was very, very excited to get a copy. As a computer enthusiast, August 15th, 1995 was my most anticipated day of the summer. Months before, I had told my friends that once I got Windows 95, I would personally go to each person's home and install it for them. Little did I know then that Windows 95 would be so buggy and cause big problems for us all later. But my friends bought into the idea and we raised about $60 with my father covering for the rest of the $30 for us. When the package arrived on the 15th of August, it was pure joy opening up the package. After a few frustrating hours, I finally had the Windows 95 operating system installed and I called over all my friends to check out the new interface. Yes, I was a geek for being so excited, but for someone whose only video game console ever was Atari, this was what brought me joy. With my peers having jobs at the mall or working in offices as assistants, I know that a garage sale wouldn't be such a great idea to make money these days. But once in a while, whenever I drive by a garage sale, I think back to the days when I sat under the shade in a lawn chair, counting the money we earned over and over again, and feeling the satisfaction of carefree work. |
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