Yard Sales in Australia

I was so excited to receive a brochure in my mailbox from the council about upcoming ‘Secondhand Saturdays.’ Basically, you could have a yard sale on your zone’s Saturday and get free advertising, and the shopper only needs to go to one area and shop at several yard sales.

On the first Saturday Don didn’t need the car until 10:45, so I left at 9 (that’s what time they all started, slackers!) and drove to a nearby neighbourhood. There weren’t many in Rozelle (a suburb about 10 minutes away), but I found a place to park that would put me close to about 4 sales – very strategic.

I have only been to one or two other yard sales in Australia, but I decided to put those memories behind me and to instead think about all the fun I had piling into the car very, very early in the morning with Grandma, Aunt Penny, and Mom, laughing and shopping our Saturday mornings away before stopping for a danish on the way home.

After I found the perfect parking spot (a good omen, right?) I jumped out of the car and was so excited as I saw heaps of kid’s toys on the footpath (Aussie word for the day – means sidewalk). I started to dig in, not noticing many price tags – I hate when they do that – I asked about the price of the kid’s DVDs. Answer - $1, perfect! I grabbed five and moved on to the bigger toys. I found this ancient toy (well, the kids I saw were about 8-12 and in kid toy world that equals ancient), it was one of those that you could put tapes in and push buttons so they were ‘interactive’ but back before LeapFrog and FisherPrice made interactive toys. Anyway, it had a Dora the Explorer tape and Makoa is really into Dora lately so I thought what the heck. “How much is this?” I asked. “$25 plus $10 per tape,” the woman told me. After I choked down my cough/laugh I told her that I understood wanting to get your money back on a toy, but that it was just a little more than I planned on spending at a yard sale. She muffled something about thinking that if she didn’t get the price that maybe she should hold on to it – for who I wanted to ask. But I kept my mouth shut and kept looking – I really wanted to have a good time and wasn’t going to let a silly lady ruin it. I picked up a toddler board game listed for $8 and along with my five DVDs that should be $13, right? Well, I had $11 in change or a $20 in my wallet. I decided to offer $11 . . . she said no. WHAT? NO? TO LOSING $2 ON YOUR LISTED PRICE AT A FREAKING YARD SALE? In my shocked state I put down the game and gave her $5 for the DVDs – I did have a few other places to stop at and I wasn’t about to pull out my $20 for a $11 offer. As I walked away I heard the two women selling stuff say, “I hate when people do that, I wrote down the price.”

I walked away quickly and did a mental slap. Duh, Jules, you are in Australia. Did you forget? Why didn’t you prepare yourself for Aussies who don’t know how to have yard sales, who think their junk is worth more than it is, and even though you can barter at electronic stores at the mall, they don’t want you to barter in front of their house. Oh my goodness.

I walked around lost in thought for a few blocks and then stumbled upon two ladies chatting on the front porch with a few items for sale. I didn’t have high hopes but thought I’d check a few things and either completely ruin my Saturday or maybe find something to salvage it. As I was about to walk away I heard one woman say, “well, you can take BART . . .” What was this? Was she talking about the real BART? I interrupted her and said, “Sorry to eavesdrop, but did you say BART?” One of the women was from Canada and was moving to the San Francisco area in 3 weeks, and the other grew up around San Fran. This Saturday was to be saved after all! We ended up chatting for an hour all about California, kids, and about the fact that Australians don’t know how to have yard sales!!