You never know how it’s gonna go when you have a yard sale.  Take it from me - I’ve got experience.  Some days you’ll have mobs of people, and others just a slow trickle.  Yesterday was not as busy as we’d have liked even though we did everything right.  And yes, I mean right, because there are unspoken yard sale rules.  Here are the guidelines:

• First off, yard sale hosts must have good signage.  I recommend large, cardboard signs with big bold print.  The can be terse.  In fact, all they have to say is “Yard Sale” with the address and a big old arrow.  Station these at the end of your block and at busy intersections.  We happen to live near the main street in our town, so big signs with arrows guide drivers right to our home.
• Advertising is helpful.  You could post an ad in the PennySaver, but that costs money and it would be awfully annoying to dish out dough and then have it rain or something.  But craigslist is free, and there’s no character limit so you’re free to include a whole list of items for sale - typically the items that are most desirable and make your sale unique, and not the same crap you find everywhere else like mismatched mugs and half used candles.
• Tantalize.  People like to drive by.  Dragging your more alluring items to the front is a great way of getting them to actually park their cars and check it out.
• Price your items.  I’ve been to sales and asked, “How much for this?” and gotten the most ridiculous responses.  My general reaction is a “What the…?” look and putting it back.  Some people just don’t want to ask.  So we put prices on most of our stuff.
• Keep it cheap.  You want to get rid of this stuff after all, right?  Most of our little stuff was priced at 25 cents a piece or so, even though the antiques sported some hefty price tags.
• Be friendly.  I hate going to a yard sale and feeling like you have to track someone down so you can ask about a price or pay.

Being friendly has two benefits.  Not only are you more likely to get someone else to walk away with your junk, you make friends!  We always have a few “characters” who we get to chatting with.  My favorite this year was an older gentleman who claimed he was 39 years old and drove a convertible Saab.

I didn’t get his name, but he seemed like an Art to me, so that’s what I’ll call him.  Art started with the slow drive by, top down, bald head gleaming in the sun.  ”Whatcha got?” he calls out to me and my mom.  ”Everything!” I respond.  ”Whatever you want, we got it!” my mom follows up.  He blinks, (turns out he was hard of hearing) and parks his car.  

Art comes ambling down the driveway.  ”Ya got any Frank Sinatra records?”  I shake my head no, we have no records.  ”Cds or anything?”  I do own a bunch of Frankie cds, but I’m not getting rid of them.  ”I’ll take a look around anyway.”

Halfway down the drive he stops and comments on the antique coal stove from 1906, as most people did.  A few minutes later he comes back up the drive.

“This is the weiyadest yahd sale I’ve evah seen!” he nearly shouts at us.  I chuckle because he is right.  ”What ah ya moving to Florida?”  And of course, we aren’t, this is just the junk that absolutely won’t fit in the house, the antique store, or my dad’s workshop anymore.  

“What about you?” my dad asks, “Why aren’t you in Florida?”

“Florida’s not for me.  I sold my apahtment in Manhattan three years ago and moved to Long Island.  This is as far from the city as I want to be.”  I had to laugh at the thought that this old geezer probably takes advantage of the close proximity of a metropolitan area much more often than me.  As a 24 year old artsy loon of a musician, I should probably rectify that.

“Yea, plus you can get heat stroke,” dad counter-offers.

“Or a heaht attack from boredom!” Art bellows.  I notice he has a hearing aid, but it doesn’t seem to be helping much.  I was also getting a kick out his accent and the rings on his fingers.  He wore the most darling deep pink polo and he had a big little belly on his very thin frame.  His fingernails were long but trim and cared for.

My dad offers him a beer, and he proclaims that he just gave up beer last week.  We laugh and in defense he says, “I know, it’s sounds funny, but I did in fact give up beeha last week!  Let me tell you why…”  He breaks into a long story about the doctor telling him that Art’s uric acid was high.  ”Aftah he told me that, I said, ‘Oh,’ because what else do you say aftah that?  I says, ‘Is that something to do with my urine?’  And he says, ‘No, no,’ but he never explains to me what uric acid is!”  He then tells us about tingling in his feet, and doing research in health books (books!) and in the end tells us that he has gout.  

Gout.  The word creeps me out.  It reminds me of the gothic south, of something from a Faulkner novel, far removed from today’s modernity and white antiseptic doctors’ offices.  

Said story leads my father to rather authoritatively tell Art that this was Schaefer Light, and so it is “ok.”  (I’m not sure that my father is qualified to make such statements, but I just let it slide.)  Art says, “I didn’t know they still made Schaefah beeha!  You had that in your fridge a long time or something?”

This leads to a whole debate on beers, on their alcohol content and percentages, American versus European beer, and I slowly sidle away.  When I return, the two old guys are discussing diets.  ”I don’t eat red meats or dairy.  Every morning, I eat mixed nuts - pecans, almonds, cashews…”  I overhear something about only newborns needing milk, and my father raving about the book Back to Eden.  I wasn’t sure if I felt worse for my father or for Art.  They both seemed to be struggling to be a health authority and it was hard to tell who was winning.  

Following that there was a discussion of farmer’s markets and thrift shops, especially of the Union Works chain in the city.  I tell art about Unique right in town.  ”I drove by theya.  Is that what is is?  I thought, ‘Unique what?  What’s so unique in theya?’  It used to be a big place with cheap imported crap and I nevah found anything in theya.”  He is, in fact, correct.  The store used to house a National Wholesale Liquidators.

Finally Art says he has to go.  I suppose he and my father had sparred enough, and besides he had somewhere he needed to go.  He starts to shuffle back to his silver car.  But before he does he asks, “Ya got any Frank Sinatra records?”