Estate Sale

I am now 100% convinced. If you want to bring out the worst in otherwise civilized people, put the words “Estate Sale” and “jewelry” in the same sentence.

We had a yard/estate sale this weekend and a hockey game broke out. I suppose I should have expected it, but it still kind of caught me off-guard.

This was the weekend we decided to try to sell off some of BJ’s (MJ’s mom’s) junk. “Nine o’clock! We’re not opening until 9:00 AM!” we shouted to all those cars that pulled up at 7:30 and 8:00.

We thought we were so organized, but I confess that my heart wasn’t totally into it, and not for sentimental reasons, either. Our friend, Rx, the paramedic, lent us a couple of his pop-ups to keep us out of the weather, and some tables, and even came by at 7:00 am after his shift was over to help us put them up. First, came the clothes and purses (this woman was the Imelda Marcos of the purse world), then a bunch of the “collectibles” and some books and paper ephemera. But what was the crowd all waiting for? The JEWELRY. Which I deliberately started to bring out last. For what I think were obvious reasons.

“Is this all you have?” Not by any stretch of the imagination, but you people won’t give me a break. “Oh, no. We’ll wait. Please.” I went back in the house for another container, and when I returned, no fewer than 6 “people” (and I do use the term loosely) tried to dive into the container and started grabbing and elbowing each other and shoving and pushing! “People! If you can’t play nice, LEAVE! Si no pueden jugan bien, VAN!” I shouted in my bad Spanish. What the hell?!?

Then there was Mr. RollingInDough. Mr. RollingInDough is of distinctively Caribbean heritage. MJ tells me that he appeared at our door Friday afternoon, pulled out a wad of cash (100’s on top), and offered to buy everything so we wouldn’t have to do the sale. MJ politely turned him away and asked him to come back for the sale on Saturday, and took his card: “One Call Does It All = Drywall and Plaster, Estate Sale Buyer and Buyout” Also “Screenplay Writer / Write All Types / Don’t Guess, Call the Best” Really.

Mr. RollingInDough appeared at the crack of 7:00 am Saturday, attempting to give me his hard-sell. “Don’t you know who I am? I was in the paper – rags to riches story. God’s been berry berry good to me.” Sorry, no. Please come back at 9:00. Mr. RollingInDough didn’t leave, but sat in his car. He came back, rifled through some things, bought some things, went back to his car, waited a little while, came back, rinse, repeat. “Why are you bothering with this? These people ain’t got no money. They ain’t got money like me.” as he flashed his (what I suspect to be a New York bankroll) cash. “You just tell me what you want for this (holding up a bag of miscellaneous jewelry) – name your price.” Okay, $300. “What?!? for this?!?!” You just said to name my price. I don’t know what the hell is in that bag you jumbled everything up in.

Mr. RollingInDough returned on Sunday. Then he started to sniff the jewelry. When it appeared that he was actually sticking something (I don’t know what) up his nose, MJ had enough and told him to put it down and get lost. I told Mr. RollingInDough that he was no longer welcome and asked him to leave. A shouting and swearing match ensued. I believe he called us “racist bastards” but MJ swears he said “honkeys”. Some of the other “customers” applauded what they deemed to be my creative use of some multisyllabic swear words, that I admit I have never used out-loud, in context, and actually addressed to an individual. I believe it was my delivery.

We made some money and met some nice people from the neighborhood, but all in all, it wasn’t worth it. Volume-wise, it seems like we have just as much as we started out with. Crap. In every sense of the word.

Please, kids, don’t try this at home. And don’t do it to your kids.