Completely tuckered out

I made $111 at the garage sale today. Sold the table and chairs for $70 bucks (I only paid $75 for them a few years ago) and $25 for the coffee table (which I bought for $30 less than two months ago. It was too big). The rest was from small items.

Katrina made $171. Not too shabby.

And no em, I didn't sell most of the clothes. And yes Torn, I only charged a quarter for most things. I think that garage sale buying habits are regional. I've never had good luck selling clothes at a garage sale. I don't know why. Today I had some almost new Eddie Bauer, Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger jeans. I finally cleaned out my "someday-they'll-fit" box. You know those pants you try on that look good for about 15 seconds and then you realize you just can't sit down comfortably in them? Yeah, those. Not one pair sold. Hmm...

Yet, the nasty old raincoat, which was missing its belt and one of it's buttons? Sold for 50 cents. I wasn't even going to put it out, too embarrassed, but nope, someone bought that. Of course.

Then there were the early birds. We clearly stated "no early birds" and that our sale was starting at 8 am, but that meant nothing to these folks. We started moving stuff out around 6:45, and by 6:55 we had our first "Can I just look?" person. Katrina is great at being brusque when she's not pleased, and her dog Jelly barks and runs at people like he's going to chew on their legs (we don't tell people he's really just going to lick their legs). This is good because I'm not so talented at turning people away.

And, about 10 minutes after we started, there was this guy who wanted to buy a $2 vase.
"Do you have any change?" he asked, while pulling a hundred dollar bill out of his wallet.

Excuse me? Who the hell goes to a garage sale with just hundreds? Really? I said no, and then went to help someone else. What does he do? Pulls the same nonsense on Katrina. I know he was trying to get the vase somehow as a deal, but what were we supposed to do? Just say, "nevermind, here you go"?

As the morning went on, I was trying to pay attention to what I was selling. Whether it was Katrina's or mine. Of course, she had more stuff to sell than me, and it's easy to say "whatever" when we're dealing with quarters, but still. I noticed once or twice that Katrina sometimes sold a pile of stuff, but didn't realize that some of the things were mine. The third time, I said something like, "No, I think you owe me a dollar, not 50 cents." (If you think this is petty, well, I'm petty then.)

Her reply was to roll her eyes, and sigh as she dug out another couple of quarters. She then said rather tersely, "well, are you going to pay for half the newspaper ad?"

Of course I was. Sheesh.

And I did, when reminded of it later by her husband. Oh wait, didn't I buy the mochas and pastries this morning? And yes, didn't I pay for the yard sale signs and the price stickers from Office Max the other day? And didn't you say "oh, don't worry about it," earlier when I asked how much the ad cost? I'm kinda pissed, but also feeling like I should just shrug it off.

It's just that it's not the first time something like this has happened. And it's not that I don't love Katrina or think she's trying to cheat me or anything like that. It's that she makes me feel so small for trying to make sure things are even. I should have brought up the coffee and the signs, but because of what she had done earlier, with the heavenward direction of her eyes and her exhale of breath, I felt I would look chintzy to ask her to split it.

This is the deal. I don't think I'm cheap, but I do have this thing about being fair. I suffer from a fairness problem. You know when you're a little kid, and whine "it's not fa-air!" to your mom and she answers, "life's not fair"? I never understood that. I thought it should be. I still do.

I made, after the eight bucks I gave Sam for the advertisment, 103 dollars. I should be happy with that, and just let it rest.