Time for another random musing - hold your applause until the end.
* My sister decided to have a yard sale yesterday (she actually was working on it for about a month). A yard sale is a lot of work for little payoff (unless you have some awesome stuff, or very specific buyers). You find the items, get them out, "warehouse" them until the event, price them, and try to sell them. Then if your stuff doesn't sell, back to the closet with it.
i decided if she was going to have a yard sale, that i might as well throw a couple of things in. Ok, maybe a couple is a bit of a misstatement (i have almost 11 pages of tables in Word, two columns landscape orientation). My "couple of things" were mostly video games, board games, and puzzles.
The stuff a Gen Xer or an older millennial might have in their closets: video games (Xbox, Dreamcast, Nintendo DS, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii), a few too many games based off the 80s (the best decade), and some pop culture references familiar to that generational cohort. i did have 4 versions of Trivial Pursuit and a VH1 Pop Up Video Game. i even had a Mr. Potato Head called "Taters of the Lost Ark".
If you can't see (photo looks a little hazy to me) the headings are: Item (Name), Suggested Price, Minimum Price, and Sold for Amount. Not necessarily in those words. Zero in the Sold Amount means no sale. The $220 means that some buyer actually offered me $220 for some Santa Claus is Coming to Town action figures. Let's just say that transaction and video games were the saved the yard sale (for me at least). i could buy so much useless crap from $.25 store vending machines if they still existed.
The prep for a yard sales suck - getting all the stuff out of storage, guessing on prices (video games are a little easier with places like Game Stop setting price floors for some items). Other than that, there is eBay - which will always give you a little bit of a skewed view of what something is worth. Then you (or your siblings get to sit out in the summer heat) for hours at a time. Dealing with people, don't sign me up for that.
What the hell is a Venmo? i hate cell phones and apps, so that one is something i don't understand.
What surprised me since the last yard sale (don't have a garage or even a car hole) was how passive the buyers were. In the past they would actively make offers on almost everything - the display tables, the totes/crates/etc. Now, they are passive with very little real negotiation. i really didn't expect that.
i probably messed up pricing a little: dvds/box sets should have been less, my Rocky and Bullwinkle Stuffins should have been "make an offer", my board games should have been priced lower (if that would have made a difference). i did sell 8 puzzles but was $1.00 too high (or just not the right buyers), i didn't sell 29 others.
Aside: i always hoped my "life" would have turned out differently, i guess i was holding onto hope that it could have got back on track and i could have done things like game nights with my own family/friends - like they do on the movies/tv/my grandmother's house.
* Another Birthday is upon me, though i've always rejected the horrible concept that i was born. The people and mechanics involved would be too horrifying to considered. i had to have been created in the lab or by aliens - it's the only explanation that makes sense.
This year, i'll be 15.76 years old. The 76 is in no way important - i couldn't really be that old (feel that old, definitely. Be that old, inconceivable). Just because i used a Princess Bride reference doesn't make me old. i still carry a 1976 $2 bill with me most of the time i go out.
For the last few years, i have been getting myself LEGO Architecture sets around my alleged birthday. i think the Giza Pyramid was the first. This year's sets have been underwhelming (i'm ok with the LEGO Tower Bridge, but i don't want to pay $350 for it, even though it is 3,745 pieces).
The yard sale sister (never been conclusively proven by science) gave me a fat stack of cash. i told her she didn't need that many $1 bills for her yard sale - and i benefitted from her optimism/delusion.
* Speaking of 76 (from a few "paragraphs" up), but this time 1976, US coins have undergone a change for this year only. Call it the Semicentennial of the 1976 change (which was the Bicentennial). Unfortunately, i haven't seen the coins in the "wild". Heck, i still need about 4 quarters from the American the Beautiful releases.
i did find something on Amazon, that has a couple (especially the dime that i wanted). i also tried to order an Uncirculated set from the mint (haven't heard anything since they allowed me to back order it). Crazy that people are stripping the pennies out of the uncirculated sets (only way to get the Philadelphia and Denver version) and trying to sell them on eBay for up to $150 dollars.
Here is what i have from Littleton (on AMNZ). Yes, i paid almost $15 for a 90¢ (ATL 0162) face value.
Sorry my photos today really suck. Questionable focus on what i want, bad lighting, should have zoomed in a little, etc.
* When my parents were younger, they had 5 and dimes. Is the dollar store going to be another relic you will have to explain to newer generations? At least the 5 and dime sometimes sold decent merchandise. The dollar store is mostly cheap Chinese crap and factory second/overstock food.
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