Garage sale

On Labor Day weekend we had a garage sale at our house. For once, I went through my video game collection and culled out duplicate, old PC games and otherwise lame ones. I ended up with quite a few to sell (see picture).

Long story short, I made $194.50 and had a couple of shoeboxes worth left over. I sold three NESes, two SNESes, a computer, two monitors, and a bunch of games. I put eBay-high prices on a few games that I knew would pull a lot in auction, and only had one of them stolen.

This little punk came in and started moving stuff around as he browsed. Suddenly he turned and left without buying anything. I went over to the table to straighten up, and found what he had been trying to hide: He’d swiped Banjo-Tooie for N64. I walked to the garage door and looked out to the truck he and his family were getting into. He was looking back at me nervously. I calmly approached the truck and said, “I’m sorry, but did you take one of my games?”

“No, it’s under that box.” (I never said what game I was missing.)

“Uh huh. You sure you don’t have it in your pocket?”

At this point I realized I wasn’t going to get anywhere, because his parents were staring straight out of the truck windshield, ignoring me. They were helping him, knowing what he did. I just turned and walked away.

They drove to the end of our dead-end street and hung out for an abnormally long time. I think they were discussing whether or not they could go off-road through the field. Finally they came back by the house. I was standing in the yard with my hands on my hips as they went past (I was too dumbfounded to bother taking their license plate number). All five of them were deliberately staring at the opposite side of the street.

After something like that you always think of cooler/better things you could have done, but it doesn’t really matter. It was only $8 bucks for something I was trying to get rid of anyway.

That evening Sid and I went to Hastings to pick up a few games I’ve had on my list for a while. We bought Uru Complete: Ages Beyond Myst, Tales of Symphonia, and the MegaMan Anniversary Collection. Later last week I bought Burnout 3 for PS2. It was between that and Silent Hill 4: The Room, and I couldn't find that one.

Comments

[Momotaro]

Your fine Christian upbringing and level-headed parents raised a fine boy, David. You should be proud of them. If it was me I would have made that little jerk turn his pockets out, or taken down the tag number if he refused. Just to be a jerk, I would find out where he lived, then knock on his bedroom window at night while laughing in a deep, Barry White-gone-crazy kind of way. For good measure I would follow him to school and walk him to all his classes while dressed as a clown. A Cirque du Soleil clown...

Ah sweet! I'm getting good ideas here, I need to be writting this stuff down!

Actually, I think his parents either knew or didn't care, and probably a bit of both. Apathey is the blight of the 'Aughts sadly. They need me to follow them around in a clown suit too.

[Momotaro]

Looking at that picture closer, is that an accordian on the table? What is that thing?

[SuperPope]

Heh! I should have just gotten their license plate number and given it to you!

That thing on a table is some kind of electric keyboard I bought at a flea market a while back. Plugging it in merely turns on a fan so that it will play music when you press the keys. It is accordian like.

It also didn't sell. Want it? Five bucks.

[Momotaro]

Let me ask my uncle Tommy if it's a good deal. I might try to get it down to $3.75 if it's worth it... :-)

[SuperPope]

One of the sad things I forgot to mention is that I had a huge tub of videos for sale. Lots of great movies and quite a few horrible ones. All of them sold except for one: Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy. Come on, folks! You bought Jackie Chan in "The Flying Meteors" and not Brain Candy? I was only trying to sell the tape because I've got it on DVD...