I grew up in a family where garage selling was a norm. Every Saturday started out with being woken early at about 6:30-7:00 AM by my Papa, and hitting the road from there. 

I gotta say, garage sales are so convenient. You simply drive through neighborhoods near you and find things that are useful to you for a very reasonable price. I really don’t know why more people don’t go to garage sales. I think that some associate the term “garage sale” with being gross or dirty, but in reality, you can find some really valuable and handy things. 

The thing about garage sales is that they are pretty much hit or miss. Sometimes I go and find absolutely nothing, but other times I may get a few real nice name brand items. 

On one Saturday morning, my papa and I woke up, stopped at fry’s to get a few items, obviously purchasing one of their bakery donuts, and headed out to get some good deals. Little did we know, this would be a very good day for me. 

We went to about three garage sales before the big one. I didn’t purchase anything at those ones but I’m sure my Papa did, probably collectables or some holiday decorations for my grandma. Then there was garage sale number four… 

When I was younger, if I saw a garage sale with a bunch of clothing I wanted to completely avoid it. We would skip it and find a more entertaining one filled with toys. I didn’t fully appreciate the luxurious sight of sweet body garments. 

When you stop at people’s houses to find these treasures, you don’t always take your wallet out of the car with you. You don’t want the people hosting the sale to smell the money in your wallet. You have to make a bargain for the things you desire. Sometimes you have to be tricky and tell them that you only have five dollars on you when the seller begs for eight dollars. It’s just the way it goes. 

Something about garage sale number four was different. My eyes were locked on the amount of clothing there. It was table, after table, after table, after table of ALL name brand clothes. Clothing that I had always longed to wear but had never been able to get myself to buy due to the insanely high price tag.

 My wallet definitely made it out of the car this time. I didn’t want to scam this lady. She was a goddess in my teenage girl world. 

The original tags were still attached to most of the items. This showed me the deal that I was getting. I mean, there were up to 90 dollar items in the stacks of clothing. This lady had all types of brands! She had Nike, she had Champion, she had Pink, etc. but the brand that I laid my eyes on was Levi’s.

I found myself a pair of Levi jean shorts. These weren’t just any short however, they had the pattern of cowboy boot stitching across them. They were glorious!

I asked the lady how much she wanted for them and she simply stated, “mmmh, ten bucks” as she proceeded to shrug her shoulders. I was shocked. I was confused. Did she not remember that she had purchased these at one point for $70 as listed on its still attached tag? Maybe the right thing to do at that moment was to remind her… but I didn’t. 

My favorite part about wearing the famous shorts out and about now is seeing the looks on people’s faces when they ask where they are from and I answer with, “oh these? I got them at a garage sale!” 

So it’s not true. Garage sales aren’t all old run down toys and broken lawn mowers. They can provide many new and well working things. Things that may even bring you a few compliments.