Why I go to garage sales.

The last few weeks my wife and I have gone to a lot of garage sales. If you're city folk and you don't know what a garage sale is...basically individuals or families hold garage sales when have stuff they need to get rid of for whatever reason...maybe they're planning on moving and don't want to haul an extra few boxes on the way...maybe they've run out of space to store it...there are usually a lot of clothes offered for sale simply because they don't fit the original owner anymore...lots of reasons people have garage sales (which ostensibly take place in the seller's garage, although these days the term is mutually exchangeable with "yard sale", which naturally takes place in a yard). Because the merchandise is used and generally unwanted by the proprietor and because noone expects much of a profit, the prices are very, very low. Last week I got a Kurt Vonnegut novel foe a nickel.



Books are generally the only thing I look for at garage sales. If we drive by a garage sale and it looks like they probably don't have any books we'll drive on. We never buy clothes at them (I think it's kind of nasty when they try to sell shoes). My wife buys knick knacks and that sort of thing, but for me, it's all about the books. A few weeks ago I bought a box of books for a dollar. Of course all but one book was soaked in water and useless. But the one I wanted, a nice hardback edition of the Koran (in Arabic with English translation), was in very good shape. So I got a good book for a buck and the trouble of throwing away the ruined ones (which really stunk, I must tell you).



But this morning I really hit it big!











The first TEN of the original eleven "Wheel of Time" books by Robert Jordan. I read the first two about 10 years ago but stopped when I couldn't find a copy of the third at the used bookstore I frequented. I thought those two were pretty good and I've been meaning to collect the others.

I snagged 'em all in one fell swoop at a garage sale that was being conducted by a guy who used to be a good friend of mine when we were in school. We always did kinda like the same things (TV shows, movies, music) so I knew when I saw his sale ad in the paper that there would probably be at least a couple of things I might like.

The first thing I saw when I got there were these Jordan books. The first three were in paperback, but the remaining 7 were hardbacks in EXCELLENT shape.

The combined total price of those books, if purchased new, would have been over $200. Even if you were to buy them used, you'd still have to shell out at LEAST a hundred bucks...

I got all ten of them for TEN DOLLARS!!!!!

Can you believe that? Not $50...not $20...just $10.00, NO TAX!!!

And this, my friends, is why my wife and I always hop in the car on Saturday mornings, take the sale ads in the classifieds with us, and go "garage saleing".