You’re asking 10 cents?

Came home the other day to find boxes, bins, tables, toys and all sorts of other random odds and ends scattered all over the back steps.

Oh Lord, that could only mean one thing — garage sale time.

As I negotiated my way around a tattered “Battleship” game and a large box of plastic dinosaurs I thought, “Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to get rid of those things that we haven’t used and obviously haven’t missed in quite a while.” Then Glenny passed me with a clear bin that was full of toy cars.

Now, wait a minute.

So, sometime in the next few weeks, some of you die-hard garage sale people may very well be swinging by my place to rummage through whatever things my wife and I — mostly my wife — have decided to send on down the road. You’ll know you’re at my garage sale because there will be a Filipino-American gal sitting outside and her husband won’t be anywhere to be seen.

OK, maybe I’ll be popping in and out of the house as needed. It’s not that I don’t want to get rid of some of this stuff that’s just been taking up space. On the contrary, I’ve been nagging for a long time that I’m tired of holding on to things we clearly don’t use or need anymore. But my way means tossing it into the back of a truck and hauling it off to donation or the dump. Bang, done!

But, again, Glenny is smarter than I and knows that it’s better to try and sell it first. And this is where the light conflict begins. She sees something worth $5 and I say 25 cents or give it away as part of a “buy one, get 10 free” deal. (If you stop by and she’s busy, hurry and grab me! I’ll make you a killer deal! All you can carry for a dollar!)

Then there are the lookie loos. The people who like to just wander around and look at the items you’re trying to sell, and then look at those things that aren’t anywhere near your garage sale and ask if you’re selling those, too. One time, I had a guy drag his buddy to the complete opposite side of my property, away from the garage sale, to where he had evidently seen a tiny part of my ’67 Beetle poking out from the shop.

“How much are you asking for the Bug?! It’s in great shape!”

Yeah. I know. Thanks. Hey, uh, you mind getting out of my shop? It’s not for sale. I mean, I know it looks like I’m using a clever marketing strategy involving hiding it way over here, away from the sale, inside my shop, behind (mostly) closed doors, but honestly guy, it’s not for sale.

But I am entertained by the hagglers. It doesn’t matter how dirt-cheap you lowball something, they’ll want to talk you down. It’s like some sort of “garage sale code” or rule.

“How much you want for this? 10 cents? Would you take 8?”

Um, tell you what buddy, I’ll do you one better and let you have it for a nickel — just because I’m so nice and I don’t have a pocket full of pennies.

We don’t have a date yet, but I’m guessing somewhere around mid-June. You’ll know when we’re having our sale because it will be pouring rain that weekend. It doesn’t matter what the weather forecast is, if the Comptons have a garage sale, the sky will dump buckets of water. I’m not sure why that happens, but it does. I’ll have to run it by a meteorologist one of these days and ask him to show me where in his books it lists the formula that means “Compton garage sale = heavy rain.” Luckily, I have plenty of tarps.

Well, we’ll see what Glenny has in mind to get rid of. The standard garage sale stuff I’m sure: dressers, tables, kids’ toys and the like. I’ll go through the shed and pitch in any tools or hardware I don’t use. I don’t know if she’s going to try and offload kids’ clothes that are too small. If she does, I’ll add some of my old socks and underwear. Just kidding. (Always wanted to do that as a joke but she won’t let me.)

Ben Compton is a Palmer resident and publishes his column as “Compton’s Corner,” the same title used by his grandmother, Phyllis Compton, a longtime Frontiersman columnist.