So today I got involved in an exciting weekend activity subculture for the first time. Yard/Garage sales! I had no idea about several aspects of it. I got up at 7:00am to go over to a friend's house to help her move a ton of stuff from her garage to her front yard, and get it all set up.
Two of her neighbours also pitched in to help, and also sell a few of their own things that did not sell in their own sales last week. For my own contribution to the spread of loot, I took a couple of dreadful yard chairs that I'd inherited (from the previous owner of my house). She provided coffee and freshly baked scones to help the work along. This was very welcome indeed (Tip: Don't stay up to 4:00am talking about braneworlds and extra dimensions if you've got to get up three hours later).
The amazing thing to me is the dedicated group of people who are on the streets early in the morning trying to be the early birds, to get the good stuff. While we were setting up they were already pulling up in pickup trucks and vans, trying to buy things out of your hands! And it is really well organised. Apparently, people routinely advertise their yard sales on Craig's List (I've
been hearing more and more about this thing every day... I'm still behind the times though, having never even visited the Ebay website in my life) and other people scour the region looking for all the sales that are happening. Then there is lots of haggling and rummaging and more haggling. You get everything in these sales, and some of it is just great. I helped myself to three lovely glass storage jars before the wolves came. They were supposed to be $2 each, but I got them for free for my lifting services. Whoo-hoo! But I want to know who buys the really.... unusual stuff.... such as the Western Union slippers (above right!), or the Nevermore Thing (as I call it) pictured left. I've no idea what it is intended to be. My friend is an actress, and gets invited to a ton of those Industry things where you are given gift baskets and other bizarre free stuff. She thinks that this piece came from one of those events, held at Halloween. Have a closer look. There is a black crow/raven on the top of the handle, and the entire basket itself -painted entirely black, of course- is lined with black feathers. I was told by one of the neighbours, who works in production, that no doubt someone who works in the Industry will buy it to use as a prop for something or other. You never know what is useful to someone else. Once everything got going, I decided to come home and get some shuteye. (I have to go to see an invited screening of the almost-certainly-excruciatingly-dreadful "The Da Vinci Code" tonight. The only reason I am going is because it is at the Director's Guild, which is a splendid facility I'd like to check out. Should be fun, but it won't do to fall asleep there.) On the way back home I found that someone in my neighbourhood was having a yard sale, just a few doors away (kind of). So I pulled over, deciding to be a customer at one of these things for the first time - and actually meet a neighbour). I came away with a little round table for $8, the ricketiness of which I thought I could cure easily. I had a feeling that it might fit into a corner of the living room and support with a lovely round soapstone chess set that I've been looking to put out for a long time. I took a guess that the radii would match.
I fixed it easily and -almost unbelievably-the chess-set fit perfectly, almost as though it was made for it. Score! I think I'll be doing this every weekend! I just had a thought. Maybe we should have Yard Sales in science (and, more generally, in academia). We've all got lots of unused things in our labs, in our notebooks, and on our blackboards. You know those half-baked ideas and/or computations that never turned out to be good for anything, or that old custom made vacuum pump or regulated power supply you never use any more? Might be useful to someone else! Maybe every now and again it would be worth opening our doors and letting people come and browse through those neglected notebooks, or lab equipment. You never know what useful stuff -to someone- might be out there! "How much do you want for this cumbersome proof of this obscure theorem you've got scribbled here? How about I take it off your hands -along with this Standard Model commemorative coffee mug- for $7?". This could catch on, you know. :-) -cvj
