Garage Sailing

Outside Looking In: Garage Sailing

Flowers are blooming, lawns are greening, and, at last, the signs of preseason Garage Sailing are beginning to show. Now, I am an English teacher and “sailing” is not a misspelling, rather a specific (and wholly correct) use of the verb sail. Of course, the term is traditionally coupled with nautical pursuits, but it is not limited to such, to wit: “to start out on a voyage or journey; to move along or progress smoothly or effortlessly.” Thus, “sailing” is a more concise and descriptive term for “going around to garage sales hunting for bargains.” Indeed, the practice of Garage Sailing is an adventure in the free market, and if done with some forethought, it can be even more. I would like to see Garage Sailing as an Olympic summer game, the basis for a reality television show, or at least elevated to a higher status in our American pop culture.

The casual observer could start with the Garage Sale sign. These handspun, garish icons of what’s still right in our free economy are just beginning to pop up everywhere. Their kin, real estate and political signage, may market mansions and mayors, but they are not true Americana. Those other signs (frustrations for avid Garage Sailors) are manufactured, printed, properly permitted and posted by regulation. The signs of Garage Sales, however, are a randy hodgepodge of creativity.

Sometimes, when my budget can take no more Sailing, I’ll simply cruise and admire the advertising for Sales: the hand-painted T-Shirt tacked to a fence, the refrigerator box standing at the center of an intersection, the wanna-be graffiti artists spray painting of country blacktop. This is American spirit at its zenith. This is among the best of our culture’s industrious, creative expression.

All this promotion is not for naught.

Like many underrated bastions of pop culture—Roller Derby, board games, roadside points of interest—the Garage Sale is often disregarded. Some snub them for their lack of presentation, cringing at the jumbled, dusty, assemblage of miscellaneous merchandise. These same folks then turn around and pay much more for the same goods at swanky antique stores and emporiums. Garage Sales may be a bit humble; a good Garage Sailor may have to stumble and rummage through hazards an OSHA inspector would condemn. I offer, however, that an honest Garage Sale is free enterprise at its finest: frank person-to-person transactions without gimmicks, sales staff, taxes and red tape. The Garage Sale is the next best thing to a barter economy.

Some stigma stems from our disposable lifestyle. Our culture is ever-more inclined to “just junk it.” Instead of finding the intrinsic value, say, in a used egg carton, we tend to trash it. (Why not knit some together with yarn, a pie plate in the bottom, and make a trash can? Use that carton at Easter for a decorative egg container. Save an egg carton for your own garage sale to use as a change tray.) At best, if some object like an expensive brass elephant is no longer in vogue, people have a tendency to wrinkle their noses and relegate the goods to their own garage sale. Often such stuff stores up until it is overly burdensome, dirty and constantly in the way. Some people just can’t take it anymore and call a thrift store to haul it away. (These hapless souls, alas, are missing out on the social and economic dividends of hosting their own garage sale.) A lot of negativity builds up toward those piles of unwanted, yet valuable, goods. I would offer that these bad vibrations can carry over to one’s whole perspective on Garage Sales.

However, a novice can overcome such nose wrinkling and angst. I’ve now lost count of how many people I’ve taken out on a weekend only to behold the transformation. We’ll pull up with all the other poorly parked vehicles, size up the teeming mass of madness, and my guests will offer to sit this one out. I tell them an anecdote of some treasure I’ve found amongst the trash, coax them from the car, and lead the way. The first sale or two, they may not even touch the merchandise or make small talk with the sale’s host. They return to the car, digging for their sanitizing hand gel, shuddering. I’ll buy a little something like an old Life magazine, remarking on the amusing ads or the coverage of some dated fashion. An eyebrow raises.

A few stops later, maybe I find a complete 30 gallon aquarium setup for under $10. I recount a few purchases I’ve made, subtly pointing out the difference between retail and Garage Sale prices. Questions begin. The novice starts to notice the GAP clothing in mint condition, the toys of their childhood, the uniquely handcrafted chichi lampshade… Soon, gaining his legs, I find him picking through old albums and smiling at the memories they bring. The excitement begins with some rare find or great bargain. It is fueled by some creative quibbling I’ll do on his behalf to further beat down a price. I know when I’ve made a Sailor of someone when they start leaving me messages, asking when they can go again. Some will call with calendar updates on city-wide sales or up-coming auctions. Some will call me, on a given weekend, from their mobile phone, asking for directions as they seek to find some obscure address where a bargain might be waiting. A true convert can soon spot a good sale from the signage, the write up in the paper, the traffic at the sale.

I once broke in a newbie and hooked him so thoroughly we could not stop shopping. We trolled two city-wide Garage Sales and many individual sales. Altogether, I set a personal record of 45 drive-bys (not every Garage Sale is worth getting out for) and 47 actual stops. It took the rest of the weekend to retrieve all the stuff we bought that would not fit in or on my Suburban. His wife may not like me much, as she curses his knick-knackery, but he continues as an avid Garage Sailor to this day.

Fortunately for me, my wife is my navigator and crew, one of my earliest converts, and together we mount the high seas of low prices every weekend of the season.