Why?

Guess how much the cute little "hang-it-all" costs. No really, guess.

Now double that.

A few years ago, my girlfriends and I were on a garage sale kick. We'd scour the ads on Friday, make our plan, get together early for coffee, and set out. Now we're having our own garage sales, but that's another story.

One lovely Saturday, we decided to hit the chichi (I thought it was spelled "chi chi" but no, no space) town of Montecito. You know, where Oprah and assorted other rich people live?

Now, there are basically two kinds of people who have garage sales. Those who want to make a little cash on stuff they're going to give to Goodwill anyway, and those who have no clue. Those who have no clue don't understand that it doesn't matter how much he or she paid for it, because it's used now. Used items are not worth as much as new items. Most of the time anyway. I hope you aren't selling your grandmother's Chesterfield at a garage sale.

Anyway, we went to a house that was obviously being renovated. There were all kinds of building materials, and tools and things like a kitchen sink for sale. One of the items was the above coat rack.

Even though it's for children, I love colorful things. I thought it was cute, but there was no price tag on it. I asked the guy and his response?

Are you ready for this?

Seventy-five dollars!

Can you believe it? I nearly had an asthma attack. For a wire and wooden ball coat rack? He said it was a "Blahdiblah" and was new, never used. Silly, provincial me, I'd never heard of the "Blahdiblah" brand, and laughed. Said "No thank you," and went on my merry way.

Imagine my surprise this morning, thumbing through my Domino magazine (which is a lame magazine, btw, which replaced Budget Living, which was a great magazine that went belly-up several months ago now), and seeing it on the pages. No price was listed, just this website, highbrowfurniture.com, which is a really pretentious name for an on-line store, in my opinion.

So everyone, now knowing how much the guy asked for it at the garage sale, and knowing it is sold at a place with a name that really should be just "Costsadamnlot.com" have you adjusted your price guess?

That little hanger thingee, which looks like something sold at Ikea, retails at... One-hundred and fiftydollars.

Some people have just too much money to throw around.

Note: No matter how many times I go back and try to add spaces between my paragraphs, blogger won't let me. Of course, it let me once, at the beginning, but now, no way. It looks right in my draft, but then on the blog itself? The spaces disappear. No idea why.)