Tagging — It’s All the Rage

I’m telling you, all the cool kids were doing it on Saturday.

I decided to add a social element to the tag sale I had at my place this weekend – the latest installment of my fundraising effort.

Because, let’s get this out front: The truth is mounting a tag sale kinda sucks. Waking at 6 in the morning. Hauling heavy boxes and furniture. Swatting off early birds and haggling with the ruthless.

Yeah. Not so much fun.

But add burgers and beer, and suddenly your annoying yard sale is a summertime social event. So my roommate, Katie, and I invited friends to come over, hock their own stuff and cap it all off with some backyard grilling.

We got things started early, dragging the first of our items on the front lawn more than an hour before the 8 a.m. go time. And don’t you know, we had barely hauled out a table and a chair when the cars started pulling up? How much you selling this for? a woman asked about a bowl whose price I hadn’t yet considered. Another woman, who I had actually stood behind not an hour earlier for my 6:30 Starbucks, ambled wordlessly onto the lawn. She started rummaging through an unopened, unpriced box of items donated to the sale by Cindy. I had to shoo her away like a mosquito.

But at the crack of 7:59, we were a-sellin’. On account of my impending move, I had some bigger ticket items that helped – couches, tables and chairs. So the dollar bills started piling up fast. Still, make no mistake. It was not a breeze.

One woman tried to make off with a pair of Katie’s earrings tucked in her pocket. (Eagle-eye Melone stopped her in her tracks). Another customer’s young daughter came to the porch holding out her own plastic cup, demanding we fill it with ice water. And all around, we kept getting chided for our too-high prices. Our respective defenses fell on deaf ears. They didn’t care that Katie’s clothes and jewelry were barely-used designer items and that my sale benefited a volunteer service program. The thrifty mean business. (Example: A woman tried to get me to slash by half my price on a Lenox bowl. I explained the charity. Her response? “Yeah, I know, but…” A blink and a shrug and she said nothing more, just held out that Lenox bowl. What’s on the other end of that sentence, I want to know? Yeah, but what exactly? Yeah, but I’m cheap? Yeah, but I’m cold and unfeeling? Yeah, but I want this Lenox bowl for the price of dirt?)

There were plenty of nice customers to make it worthwhile, though. It’s so much fun to see people walk off the yard genuinely happy with their new treasures, and that really gets to the heart of why I chose this route to raising money. A lot of the taggers asked about the trip. And small world that it is, one had just come off a Global Volunteers trip herself from Ecuador. She gave me all sorts of pointers on what to bring, but also told a lot of the heartbreaking stories about what to expect, and about the children she cared for in the orphanage there. She said it was a life-changing experience for her, and said it would surely be the same for me.

Friends started to file in by early afternoon, with Kim and Mark getting some pretty swift business on the items they brought. (Except for that darn Goldfish tea set. I promise, we’re gonna find it a good home, Kim!)

With things starting to wind down sale-wise, and with Regine and Ted refusing to trek into West Hartford Center wearing sandwich boards advertising our sale, we packed it in somewhere around 4 or 5.

Our pockets were happily full. I’m so thrilled to report that I raised just over $300 for the fund! (Check out that red bar. It jumped nearly 10 points in one day. Sweet.) Thanks again to all of you who donated your items to today’s sale!

And so, with Grillmaster McPadden firing up the burgers, Mark serving up his fabulous chicken and everyone steadily unburdening the heavy cooler of its beer, we feasted and chattered into the night. We learned that John Tesh has it out for Bob Costas and that Jon Bon Jovi is, indeed, from Sayreville, N.J. (don’t mess with a Jersey girl with Google at her fingertips). We learned the Bradford Pear tree has some serious odor issues. And we learned that, should you ever be arrested, it’s probably best not to reference the movie “Traffic” to the arresting officer.

Who knew tagging could be so much fun?

** Extra special shout-out to Katie, my partner in tagging-crime, for diving into this with me and for all the great set-up and signage. And thanks to the sale support squad, who helped in all sorts of ways, from donations to set-up to clean-up: John, Ted, Mark, Kim, Monica, Jesse, Bill, Regine and Fulvio.