Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
My life among the nickle-and-dimers
The good: we made $480 at today’s garage sale. That’s not counting the $230 I made selling our various doors.
The bad: the big stuff didn’t sell. And by “big,” I mean “heavy,” not necessarily “expensive.” In particular, I wanted to unload our junky furniture the sight of which is a pox upon my eyes. As an example, we have an old desk whose current role seems to be cat bed, and that thing weighs a ton. And we have a lot of dirty old aquaria that I’ve been dying to sell.
Okay, here’s the experiment. I’m going to put out one aquarium with a “FREE” sign on it, and we’ll see how fast it disappears. If that works, maybe I’ll do it with a few more.
The ugly: a family came by with all their little kids in tow. Cute kids. We were nice to them, sold them stuff for next to nothing, and I gave away a few things, too. The dad kept trying to bargain us down on little stuff. You know how it goes —
Him: How much do you want for this?
Me: Five dollars.
Him: I’ll give you two.
Me: Make it three.
Him: Two-fifty.
Me: How about THREE.
Second or third time at this, his wife (who appreciates what we’ve given away to her kids) says to him, “Hey, these are nice people! No need to get all Jewish with them.”
Um, as a Jew, I can generally sniff out fellow Jews. These folks weren’t.
It’s sort of like the N word. Black people get to use it, the rest of us don’t. I’m allowed to kid a fellow Jew about being a cheapskate or a hard haggler — though I never would, because it’s an inaccurate and not very funny stereotype — but the rest of y’all back off.
When she left, she thanked us again and gave us a parting “God bless!”
“Blessed be!” I should have said. “May the Goddess shine upon thee!”
I never think of these things until it’s too late.
Live blogging later, maybe eight? I’ll stick around for a while and see who shows up. Hope y’all are having a great weekend. I’m tired and sunburned, but otherwise life is peachy.
D.
Good job! I’m up for a little live blogging, but with the time difference (two hours ahead of you), I may poop out. We just got home from a cocktail party.
I keep hearing the “Jew ’em down” phrase round these parts. It’s quite disturbing to hear it pop out of the mouths of teenagers. I don’t remember hearing it as a kid. Wonder what happened there.
Wildly successful shit sale there my friend! Anything approaching $500 qualifies. As for the guys with the “J” word, you were too nice. I would have bounced them off the property. Buttheads.
Oh, I remember hearing it in school. What bugs me the most about it is the inaccuracy. While most stereotypes contain a kernel of truth, this one — well, you have to dig back into the days when the Jewish practice of charging interest to the goyim but not to other Jews was a cause of great scandal. Or at least, I think that’s the origin of the stereotype.
I really, really need to unload some of this heavy stuff, though!
Around here, the biggest blight on the garage sale landscape are the professional sale-goers who arrive at least an hour before the advertised starting time while you’re setting up and want to start pawing though the goods and try to haggle before you’re even ready to start talking to them. Solution – advertise a starting time an hour later than the actual intended time, and be ready to be hard-nosed with them.
Bummer that you live on the other side of the country. I’m generally a sucker for aquaria, especially the free kind. I have 6 of them, I think, only 2 of which actually have anything living in them. One of the other 4 is missing a pane, so can’t really use it anyway, though I have on occasion used it for a lightbox.
That doesn’t count the plastic aquariums.
Scrooge be nace to the all LOL
About ten years ago I heard an NPR commentary by Juan Williams. He was going to buy a christmas tree with his son.
Juan told the guy at the Christmas tree lot that his prices were too high.
“Hey, you don’t have to jew me down,” says the lot attendant.
In a spirit of racist empathy, Juan refused to business with the man.
AND HERE’S THE KICKER…
IF I’M LYIN’ I’M DYIN’…
The last line of Juan’s essay:
“So I Scotched the deal and Raphie and I moved on.”
God strike me dead. I’ll remember that turn of phrase to my last breath.
“Blessed be!†I should have said. “May the Goddess shine upon thee!â€
I would have gone with “Thanks! I killed Christ!”
DW: reminds me of my college roommate Roger, an American Scot, who used to get irate over the local market’s “Scot’s Buy!” sales. He’d say to me, “What if they called it ‘Jew Buy!’ Not so funny, eh?” I agree. It’s a good point.
MEL: one of my patients has a bumper sticker that reads, in big letters, “I pray for the day when Jesus returns,” and on the second line in small letters, “so we can kill him again.” It was an amazing thing to see in our small town. I was surprised he hadn’t been stoned yet. (As in, erm, biblical stoning.)