Dickering for doughnuts

Maybe you don’t know about yard sales. Maybe you’re one of those hipster urbanites who would only stoop to have a garage sale as a goof on the trite suburbanites who have so over-filled their tract homes that even they can’t stand their gross consumption.

Well, fuck you.

Sorry. After yesterday (which I hope I never have to write about in any detail), I started drinking. Then, to go to sleep, I popped a Melatonin. Then I spent a few hours of restless, tawdry dreaming and one wakeful moment where my dog stood up, puked up a piece of broccoli, and went back to sleep.

When the alarm went off at 6:30am, I wondered if maybe I’d just dreamt the last 24 hours or so. Dogs don’t eat broccoli do they?

So, as you’re probably a hip non-suburbanite, that means you’re well-rested and have a dog that eats hipster doggie granola and saves the whales in his spare doggy-time.

Again, sorry, but fuck you.

Me? I have a rickety tract home and a dog that eats Chinese food. And, because of my sickening amount of consumerism, I had too much stuff. And I live in a neighborhood that hosts a communinity yard sale twice a year. And, so, yeah, on little sleep, bad dreams, and an impending sense of doom, I had a garage sale this morning.

As you probably don’t know about yard sales, you don’t know the lingo. Perhaps one of the key words to know is “do.” That is, “can you do $5 on the VCR?” In shopper speak, that means, “Can you drop your price to $5 on the VCR so I can feel like I got a good deal?”

Overall, the sale was a success. I over-caffeinated myself (drinking six diet sodas and a Captain and Coke around 10am) and became a rabid capitalist for a few hours, netting about $500.

As part of the sale, the wife and I sold Krispy Kreme doughnuts and soda. We marked them up by about 50% and preyed on the hungry and thirsty bargain-seekers.

I’d been dickering all day long. I’d marked everything up by about 50% so I could come down 50% and make people feel good about purchasing an old pair of rollerblades and a TV that once witnessed me and the wife having about six hours of college nookie (okay, who is wishing the TV had a built-in camera? –stop it).

The only highlight of the day: A fat woman (exceedingly Southern-fat with a northern accent) grabbed a 75-cent Krispy Kreme and headed up to my tiki bar cash-out stand.

“Can you do 50 cents on the doughnut?”

It was one of those moments that it takes you two hours to come up with a decent response. My wife later suggested I should’ve said, “You should pay me 50 cents to keep you from eating the doughnut, bitch”

Instead, I said, “Sure,” and watched her dickering fat, yellow-pant-suited ass waddle down my driveway with sugary icing falling behind her in little snow drifts of excess.

I can’t fucking believe a lady actually dickered for a doughnut.

Back to drinking.

Brad Willis

Brad Willis is a writer based in Greenville, South Carolina. Willis spent a decade as an award-winning broadcast journalist. He has worked as a freelance writer, columnist, and professional blogger since 2005. He has also served as a commentator and guest on a wide variety of television, radio, and internet shows.

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2 Responses

  1. “a TV that once witnessed me and the wife having about six hours of college nookie (okay, who is wishing the TV had a built-in camera? –stop it). “

    Yeah, but who can afford 7 years of videotape?

  2. I had people buying things when I was cleaning out the garage the week prior to our garage sale.