In an attempt to be more neighbourly – and due to my love of a petty neighbourhood drama – I joined our housing estate’s Facebook group a few months back. I was delighted when I found it, but my delight soon turned to rage when I realised that my husband was already a member, and had never once mentioned it to me.
“Oh, the Facebook group?” he replied to my incandescent accusations of treachery. “Nothing really happens in there.”
My husband, as it happens, is terrible at reading passive aggression in the seemingly calmly typed words of others. Now that I mention it, he’s not that great at noticing it when it comes from my own mouth, through gritted teeth, either.
Since joining the group, I have witnessed several barely disguised expressions of rage relating to fence height, displacement of garden chair cushions due to wind and, also wind-related, the movement of someone’s trampoline from their own back garden into the flowerbed of a disgruntled neighbour.
The latter incident resulted in the eviction of said disgruntled individual from the Facebook page. “This page is meant to be fun!” said the page admin, announcing their elimination. “None of us need to be absorbing that kind of negativity.” I, for one, was disappointed.
The Homeowners’ Association rules get brought up a lot. HOA rules, as they are called, are, as far as I can tell, wide-reaching and largely nonsensical. Fences can only be of a certain height, unless said fence faces on to the pond – there are many ponds in our housing estate, each one murkier than the last – in which case it must be slightly shorter than regulation, non-pond-facing fences.
We are not allowed to keep poultry in our back gardens; we can have an underground pool, but not an overground pool. Political or activist signs are forbidden, as are flags. Our rubbish bins must be kept “out of sight”. Trampolines must – here’s the rub – be “tethered”.
“In case you didn’t know,” the disgruntled neighbour had written, “tethered means tied down, so that it can’t blow out of your yard and into someone else’s!” Very helpful of them.
A few months ago, rumblings began in the Facebook group as to the planning of an estate-wide garage sale, as had – apparently – happened the previous year. We moved in last April, and the garage sale was held in May, but I don’t remember seeing anything about it, which is probably for the best.
Anyway, when, earlier this year, people began to ask if anything was being planned, I jumped in with both feet. “I’m happy to help organize!” I wrote, using American English so as not to upset anyone but still adding, “I’m Irish and I’ve never had a garage sale before, so I’m very enthusiastic!” so they knew I was special.
I designed some flyers in Canva, the gist of which I copied from a similar flyer I found on Google. It took me at least an hour to figure out how to transfer said flyers from Canva to Microsoft Word, place two to a page and email them as a PDF to one of my neighbours, who had offered to print them out at their place of work.
I somehow imagined this action, of volunteering to make flyers, would see me, shortly thereafter, sitting at one of my neighbours’ kitchen tables, stitching patches into a quilt or something. This is my way in, I thought.
I was wrong.
Garage sales are, by their very nature, solitary activities. Once I had emailed off my flyer design, our communication ceased. I saw some signs pop up at the entrance to our estate. I posted in some local groups I’m in – Fort Wayne Garden Party; Fort Wayne MOMS and so on – and waited, alone, for the riches to roll in.
I bought some clothing rails in anticipation – one, I filled with women’s clothing while the other contained the myriad baby items my tiny infant has already grown out of, some never worn (but washed in Dreft because I got tricked into thinking that was necessary, so they no longer had tags on them) – and gathered up bits and bobs from all corners of the house, making sure they were of good enough quality to warrant buying from a display in a stranger’s garage.
My husband, to his credit, had warned me that garage sales are not the great money makers I was hoping they would be. I marked the women’s clothes at $5 apiece; baby clothes were $3, or two for $5. “People don’t want to spend money at garage sales,” said Brandin. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, I thought to myself, carefully arranging my 3D-printed boob planters on the work-from-home desk I bought and barely used (that’s what kitchen tables are for).
Traffic at the garage sale was slow. Cars would drive by at a crawl, passengers peering out the window at my home-made sign – LADIES’ CLOTHES! BABY CLOTHES! TOYS! BOOKS! – and then speed up, deciding it wasn’t worth stopping the car and getting out.
Lone men would get out of their cars, walk up the driveway and then immediately walk back down. “Nothing for me, thanks!” they’d shout, over their shoulders.
“How much are these earrings?” one woman asked, of a two-pack of branded silver earrings, bejewelled and glimmering in the (dim) sunlight.
“Five dollars!” I said, enthusiastically. (They were worth at least $20.)
“Will you take three?” she asked.
“Sure,” I replied, trying not to let the dip in my positivity levels show.
I sold three mid-range designer T-shirts to a mom of four, who also bought six babygros for her newest grandson. “No offence, but his mom probably won’t even put them on him!” she said chirpily. I pocketed her $30 and smiled through pinched lips.
A young man in a baseball cap and a pair of Ray-Bans bought a fake flower as a Mother’s Day gift. Nobody bought any vases, or shoes. Brandin’s protein cookbook sold for 50 cents; some lucky person bought Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half and the latest Jack Reacher novel for $1, a transaction dealt with by my friend Hannah while I nipped to the loo. It pained me to miss even that single sale.
By Friday evening, I had made $58 – but spent $20 on garment rails and $25 on lunch. I prayed for a better day two.
My sister came over in the morning with all four of her children. “I’ll come and keep you company on Saturday!” she had promised, “and I’ll bring Starbucks!” It hadn’t occurred to me that she’d also be bringing her boys, although I suppose it should have – they’re kind of a package deal.
Four-year-old Fox, whose birthday it was, proved the hit of the morning. “Awe you gonna buy somefink?” he asked people brazenly, and he had a 50/50 success rate. “It’s my burfday!” he would then announce, as if they hadn’t felt enough pressure, being quizzed by this tiny, friendly redhead.
Around lunchtime, we had a visit from a family of four. “I like yo Minecwaft sawwwwd!” Fox announced, snatching said sword from the hands of a shocked six-year-old. “You can twy my ‘finity gauntwet!”
“Are you… Rosemary and Beatrice?” asked their mom, who then laughed. “I listen to your podcast! My sister-in-law lives in Scotland, she actually told me you were having a garage sale so I thought I’d stop by.” (She bought a boob planter for $4; I suppose she felt she couldn’t leave empty-handed.)
By the end of day two, I had spent 14 hours sitting in my garage, sipping coffee, nibbling croissants and – for a few blissful moments on Friday – eating a meatball sub. I had $112 in my crossbody bag – “we recommend keeping cash on your person, ideally in a fanny pack” [lol] I had written on the flyers – and had managed to resist the urge to browse my neighbours’ garages.
“The aim is to de-clutter,” I had told Bea, when she asked if I’d like to have a wander. But really, I didn’t want to risk missing another sale.
I was going to say that I’m not sure I’d bother participating in next year’s sale, but who am I kidding? It reminded me how much I used to love working in retail, chatting to strangers and packaging their purchases, wishing them well with whatever they’d picked up.
Plus, items I had shipped from Ireland – they were picked up from my parents’ house last November – have finally cleared customs in New York. By the time they get here, I’ll probably have another full garage of bits to offload.
Adventures in my Garaaaaaaaaaje