How to Sell Things at a Yard Sale A ridiculous attempt at August Poem month. I hope you don't got blind =_=
Spoiler! :
A box full of toys sit by your feet, a rainbow array of your childhood. Old kitchen supplies from the time flower print was in, and a few shards of glass hide in your cupboard.
Broken lamps and rusting old keys, Overused gym shorts and underused denim jackets from the time they were considered fashionable. Fads and the fashion, time passed by. These are the remains of the past, sort of like an unorganized timeline.
Now what do you do with the past? Leave it in a box, leave it to decay. They don't disappear, like memories; they sit there, in the back of your mind, in the back of your garage, covered in a layer of dust.
If you can't make them vanish into thin air, you sell them. Maybe someone else will put your stuff to good use. You can even get a buck or two out of the situation, but that's only if you know what you're doing. I'd suggest googling about it first.
If you don't want to sell, Salvation Army, the keepers of time, would happily accept your stuff. Correction, your old stuff.
So here it is....
How to Sell Things at a Yard Sale:
Rule number one-- make everything look nice and colorful, hide anything (and everything) faded or decayed. Yes, that means pulling out your disco pants from back in the seventies, your neon green fish nets from prom, and draping them over the sides of the clothes bins. Your grandpa's old fake mustache... You hide that, deep inside the boxes, beneath those purple and white roller skates you said you'd use to exercise and get active, but never used.
Arrange your boxes in a nice line, set your tables in a special formation.
Rule Number Two--- grab that collection of Wal-Mart plastic bags from your drawer, those Ziplocs from your pantry, and as many trash bags as possible. Sell in bulk.
"Fill a bag of clothes for 5 dollars." It makes people feel like they're getting a good deal, plus people like filling bags over the rim. Who doesn't like a good bargain?
"Fill a trash bag for twenty dollars!"
Look, there's a lady with her dogs that could pass for bears. You have a cart full of unused, unloved stuffed animals. She wants to buy them as play toys for her dogs. Talk to her about your love of dogs and distract her while she fills her shopping bag with your merchandise.
Two hours ago, your cart was full.
Now it's empty.
She bought them all, except the ones with beads, of course.
You can gives those to the kids who are looking at them right now, the ones whose parents are telling them to put it down because they have enough stuffed animals.
It's only a quarter, just give it to them.
Rule Number 3-- Sound professional, make pretty signs.
Yes, sugarcoat everything from glitterfying your "SALE" signs to saying
"these are high quality slippers, they hug your feet."
Maybe add in a few "fabulous"'s or "since I like you, I'll give you a deal"'s.
Rule Number 4-- Go with your gut feeling. Know the value of what you are selling, and sell your old games at Gamestop first.
Don't want to be the one who sells a collectible bobble head for 50 cents, do you? Check the value of your items, and if you think someone might come later with a better offer,
then don't sell it.
Raise the value of your items by being confident with your prices and your deals and your decisions.
"It's five dollars."
"I have two."
"Deal."
You bought it from the ninety nine cents store anyway.
Rule Number 5--- Look around for thieves, especially that person known as "the Shady Lady."
Yes, the Shady Lady is a woman who goes against your super amazingtasticful deals and wants a cheaper price. She's the one who sneaks in 5 dollar slippers at the bottom of her bag when the deal was "fill a bag of clothes for five dollars."
She filled it over the rim too.
She's the one who'll break the stitch on one of the dresses you never wore just to lower the price. The one who'll question your prices and will leave her bags beneath your umbrella while she and her friend check out the other sellers in the Swap Meet area.
So to make the game fair, you remove those slippers she hid in her bag and that expensive winter jacket she tried to fit in there.
She'll never notice.
What do you do at the end of the day, when all the unwanted items are left laying around?
Simple.
That lady from earlier, the one who wanted to donate to the village she came from, you give her everything for twenty dollars and help her and her husband move the items to the back of their truck.
Hey, you've made over five hundred bucks. Everyone else selling their junk didn't make anything close to what you made because their prices were too high.
Remember your goal is to get rid of everything. Make it cheap and set your mind on getting rid of everything by bulk.
Now... with your five hundred and twenty six bucks, you can go over to one of the other stands and buy a brownie for you and your friend, and now you can get that new DSI you wanted, and so can your sister.
All in all, it was a good day. Your feet hurt, a lot, but I hear that the DSI takes photos.
-Shina
EDIT:
A box full of toys sit by your feet, a rainbow array of your childhood. Old kitchen supplies from the time flower print was in and a few shards of glass hide in your cupboard.
Broken lamps and rusting old keys, Overused gym shorts and underused denim jackets from the time they were in. Fads and the fashion, time passed by. These are the remains of the past, sort of like an unorganized timeline.
Now what do you do with the past? Leave it in a box, leave it to decay. They don't disappear, like memories; they sit there, in the back of your mind, in the back of your garage, covered in a layer of dust.
If you can't make them vanish into thin air, you sell them. Maybe someone else will put your stuff to good use. You can even get a buck or two out of the situation, but that's only if you know what you're doing. I'd suggest googling about it first.
If you don't want to sell, Salvation Army, the keepers of time, would happily accept your stuff. Correction, your old stuff.
So here it is....
How to Sell Things at a Yard Sale:
Rule number one-- make everything look nice and colorful, hide anything (and everything) faded or decayed. Yes, that means pulling out your disco pants from back in the seventies, your neon green fish nets from prom, and draping them over the sides of the clothes bins. Your grandpa's old fake mustache... You hide that, deep inside the boxes, beneath those purple and white roller skates you said you'd use to exercise and get active, but never used.
Arrange your boxes in a nice line, set your tables in a special formation.
Rule Number Two--- grab that collection of Wal-Mart plastic bags from your drawer, those Ziplocs from your pantry, and as many trash bags as possible. Sell in bulk.
"Fill a bag of clothes for 5 dollars." It makes people feel like they're getting a good deal, plus people like filling bags over the rim. Who doesn't like a good bargain?
"Fill a trash bag for twenty dollars!"
Look, there's a lady with her dogs that could pass for bears. You have a cart full of unused, unloved stuffed animals. She wants to buy them as play toys for her dogs. Talk to her about your love of dogs and distract her while she fills her shopping bag with your merchandise.
Two hours ago, your cart was full.
Now it's empty.
She bought them all, except the ones with beads, of course.
You can give those to the kids who are looking at them right now, the ones whose parents are telling them to put it down because they have enough stuffed animals.
It's only a quarter, just give it to them.
Rule Number 3-- Sound professional, make pretty signs.
Yes, sugarcoat everything from glitterfying your "SALE" signs to saying
"these are high quality slippers, they hug your feet."
Maybe add in a few "fabulous"'s or "since I like you, I'll give you a deal"'s.
Rule Number 4-- Go with your gut feeling. Know the value of what you are selling, and sell your old games at Gamestop first.
Don't want to be the one who sells a collectible bobble head for 50 cents, do you? Check the value of your items, and if you think someone might come later with a better offer,
then don't sell it.
Raise the value of your items by being confident with your prices and your deals and your decisions.
"It's five dollars."
"I have two."
"Deal."
You bought it from the ninety nine cents store anyway.
Rule Number 5--- Look around for thieves, especially that person known as "the Shady Lady."
Yes, the Shady Lady is a woman who goes against your super amazingtasticful deals and wants a cheaper price. She's the one who sneaks in 5 dollar slippers at the bottom of her bag when the deal was "fill a bag of clothes for five dollars."
She filled it over the rim too.
She's the one who'll break the stitch on one of the dresses you never wore just to lower the price. The one who'll question your prices and will leave her bags beneath your umbrella while she and her friend check out the other sellers in the Swap Meet area.
So to make the game fair, you remove those slippers she hid in her bag and that expensive winter jacket she tried to fit in there.
She'll never notice.
What do you do at the end of the day, when all the unwanted items are left laying around?
Simple.
That lady from earlier, the one who wanted to donate to the village she came from, you give her everything for twenty dollars and help her and her husband move the items to the back of their truck.
Hey, you've made over five hundred bucks. Everyone else selling their junk didn't make anything close to what you made because their prices were too high.
Remember your goal is to get rid of
everything.
Make it cheap and set your mind on getting rid of everything by bulk.
Now... with your five hundred and twenty six bucks, you can go over to one of the other stands and buy a brownie for you and your friend, and now you can get that new DSI you wanted, and so can your sister.
All in all, it was a good day. Your feet hurt, a lot, but I hear that the DSI takes photos.
-Shina
Side Note: xD Yes, this is sort of a vignette, a window of my life. I had a yard sale sometime in April and the other sellers came up to me and said "I could tell right from the beginning you were going to make the most sales. I saw you rolling that cart of stuffed animals around earlier and wondered why I hadn't thought of that. Good work." He was an old guy. I made more money than him. Cool.
Nice! I loved it - simply awesome! Your personal touch highlights your talent and it is obvious you're Pulitzer in the making! I loved the rhythm and the words. Keep it up!
I have to admit, the length and style of the piece make it more difficult for me to review--I guess I'm just slightly out of my reviewing comfort zone on this--but I'll do my best to point out anything I noticed. =) Forgive me if I end up putting in more than a few just nitpicks.
"Old kitchen supplies from the time flower print was in,
and a few shards of glass hide in your cupboard."
These lines confused me when I read them, and had to go over them again to make sure I was getting it. I think it's the comma's fault. You meant the kitchen supplies etc and the shards of glass were in the cupboard, right? With the comma, I didn't really see what you were saying about the kitchen supplies, and why they were in the same sentence with the glass until I reread the sentence. =) (silly me)
"Don't want to be the one who sells a collectible bobble head for 50 cents, do you?" Please forgive my nitpicking, but every little bit helps, right?
I just think this line would sound better if you did put the 'you' at the beginning of the sentence.
"then don't sell it." I don't think underlining this is the best way to emphasize it. You use structure to your advantage so much in this piece (like the way you staggered "your stuff" and "your old stuff" earlier) which is awesome, and I think it would work wonderfully here. Maybe you could do it like this:
"and if you think someone might come later with a better offer,
then
don't
sell it.
Raise the value of"
Ooor a different way if there's one that suits you better.
"Remember your goal is to get rid of everything."
Again, I don't think underlining, or the bold, is to your best advantage. I think it would be just fine if you left this line just the way it is, minus the embellishment; however, you could again use structure to provide that emphasis instead.
I just don't think bold and underlining get along with poetry very well. There's far too many poetic devices at our disposal to justify using them, don't you think? =) Flaunt your creativity!
Now, the whole tone of this poem is more... informal, I don't know if that's quite the right word, but I'm sure you understand what I mean. =) Just keep an eye out for any lines that might take that a little farther than you maybe should. It's kind of like the difference between writing a personal narrative for you English class, and writing the same story down in your journal. I thought I'd noticed some when I read it through the first time, but when I went through the second time I couldn't find them. So, maybe they do all fit right after all. But don't take my word for it. =) That's something you could check for; make sure it's all to your satisfaction.
"You can gives those to the kids" Don't you hate the kind of typos that are still words so spell check can't weed them out?
I mentioned before the way you staggered some lines
(your
old
stuff)
and it worked out pretty well. But a couple times I thought it was more distracting than effective.
Like here:
"The one who'll question your prices and will leave her bags beneath
your
umbrella"
It's like "your umbrella" is shouting "LOOK AT ME!" and I'm thinking... why? What's the significance of those two little words that they get they're getting extra attention?
In the other places, I thought it worked out well, especially because you had this pattern of staggering the words in all the places where you said "your stuff" or variations of that. I really liked how you did that. I just think this spoiled that affect a little bit and I'd hate to see that. =(
"Rule Numero Dos" I have to say, I really didn't like how you did this... it seemed kind of... tacky. I wondered when I saw it if you were going to change up the rest of the "rule number this"s in some way too, but I'm actually glad you didn't.
This piece really surprised me. I didn't think I was going to like it as much as I did. It reads like a story, and really pretty much is one, but it is still a poem, a different kind of poem, and you don't see ones like these often. =) It was entertaining, and creative, and just as long as it needed to be. And speaking of length, we all know that longer poems have a harder time holding the audience all the way to the end. This was so easy to read though, I didn't have that problem at all. I wasn't even thinking about the length as I was reading.
This is no profound, metaphorical, extravagant, grand work, but it is a lively, insightful, creative, ingenious piece that I thoroughly enjoyed. You definitely did the story justice with this.
This is excellent. First of all, I like that you sort of transcribed your universe into this poem, and very vivdly at that. The first five or so stanzas are like an introduction, providing all the dusty, nostalgic imagery you went on to employ throughout the rest of the poem.
From there on, its like a great little story. The whole "rule number" idea was very engaging, not to mention the fact that your rules were pretty great. I also like the fact that it is free-verse, which I usually find more interesting than trying to adhere to a rhyme structure.
My favorite part about your poem is that, well, okay I guess I have two favorite parts. Favorite part number one is that it isn't trying to be all heavy; its actually quite positive and lighthearted. I think a lot of young writers go too serious too often, and I find it very pretentious. Favorite part number two is that it was fully developed. It moved at a very leisurely pace, which matched the poem's subject very well. I give it 5/5.
xD Shina, this is amazing. I officially love you. Sure, the rhythm might have been off in some places, and yeah there were a few unintentional rhymes that threw me off, but who cares? I was so wrapped up by your amusing story and your use of language that I didn't really care enough to stop and correct you.
But I do have one nitpick:
Remember your goal is to get rid or everything.
I think you meant get rid of everything? Typos are pesky little buggers.
Absolutely amazing, Shina. Pure epic win.
*proceeds to hand out gold stars*
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Nice! I loved it - simply awesome! Your personal touch highlights your talent and it is obvious you're Pulitzer in the making! I loved the rhythm and the words. Keep it up!
xD
Whoops, I just realized that the spoiler didn't work on this. So I fixed it and I think it's ready to go!
-Shina
Thanks for the review Adna! I made an edited version
I still have one more thing to edit on my list, though.
O___O 3 reviews, 13 stars. xD This is hilarious. I thought my poem would blind people.
Hi Shina!
I have to admit, the length and style of the piece make it more difficult for me to review--I guess I'm just slightly out of my reviewing comfort zone on this--but I'll do my best to point out anything I noticed. =) Forgive me if I end up putting in more than a few just nitpicks.
"Old kitchen supplies from the time flower print was in,
and a few shards of glass hide in your cupboard."
These lines confused me when I read them, and had to go over them again to make sure I was getting it. I think it's the comma's fault. You meant the kitchen supplies etc and the shards of glass were in the cupboard, right? With the comma, I didn't really see what you were saying about the kitchen supplies, and why they were in the same sentence with the glass until I reread the sentence. =) (silly me)
"Don't want to be the one who sells a collectible bobble head for 50 cents, do you?" Please forgive my nitpicking, but every little bit helps, right?
I just think this line would sound better if you did put the 'you' at the beginning of the sentence.
"then don't sell it." I don't think underlining this is the best way to emphasize it. You use structure to your advantage so much in this piece (like the way you staggered "your stuff" and "your old stuff" earlier) which is awesome, and I think it would work wonderfully here. Maybe you could do it like this:
"and if you think someone might come later with a better offer,
then
don't
sell it.
Raise the value of"
Ooor a different way if there's one that suits you better.
"Remember your goal is to get rid of everything."
Again, I don't think underlining, or the bold, is to your best advantage. I think it would be just fine if you left this line just the way it is, minus the embellishment; however, you could again use structure to provide that emphasis instead.
I just don't think bold and underlining get along with poetry very well. There's far too many poetic devices at our disposal to justify using them, don't you think? =) Flaunt your creativity!
Now, the whole tone of this poem is more... informal, I don't know if that's quite the right word, but I'm sure you understand what I mean. =) Just keep an eye out for any lines that might take that a little farther than you maybe should. It's kind of like the difference between writing a personal narrative for you English class, and writing the same story down in your journal. I thought I'd noticed some when I read it through the first time, but when I went through the second time I couldn't find them. So, maybe they do all fit right after all. But don't take my word for it. =) That's something you could check for; make sure it's all to your satisfaction.
"You can gives those to the kids" Don't you hate the kind of typos that are still words so spell check can't weed them out?
I mentioned before the way you staggered some lines
(your
old
stuff)
and it worked out pretty well. But a couple times I thought it was more distracting than effective.
Like here:
"The one who'll question your prices and will leave her bags beneath
your
umbrella"
It's like "your umbrella" is shouting "LOOK AT ME!" and I'm thinking... why? What's the significance of those two little words that they get they're getting extra attention?
In the other places, I thought it worked out well, especially because you had this pattern of staggering the words in all the places where you said "your stuff" or variations of that. I really liked how you did that. I just think this spoiled that affect a little bit and I'd hate to see that. =(
"Rule Numero Dos" I have to say, I really didn't like how you did this... it seemed kind of... tacky. I wondered when I saw it if you were going to change up the rest of the "rule number this"s in some way too, but I'm actually glad you didn't.
This piece really surprised me. I didn't think I was going to like it as much as I did. It reads like a story, and really pretty much is one, but it is still a poem, a different kind of poem, and you don't see ones like these often. =) It was entertaining, and creative, and just as long as it needed to be. And speaking of length, we all know that longer poems have a harder time holding the audience all the way to the end. This was so easy to read though, I didn't have that problem at all. I wasn't even thinking about the length as I was reading.
This is no profound, metaphorical, extravagant, grand work, but it is a lively, insightful, creative, ingenious piece that I thoroughly enjoyed. You definitely did the story justice with this.
Oh, and one more thing. *gold star's*
xD Cool! Nine stars! And only two reviews
xD Thanks guys. At least a good idea came out of an odd yard sale.
-Shina
This is excellent. First of all, I like that you sort of transcribed your universe into this poem, and very vivdly at that. The first five or so stanzas are like an introduction, providing all the dusty, nostalgic imagery you went on to employ throughout the rest of the poem.
From there on, its like a great little story. The whole "rule number" idea was very engaging, not to mention the fact that your rules were pretty great. I also like the fact that it is free-verse, which I usually find more interesting than trying to adhere to a rhyme structure.
My favorite part about your poem is that, well, okay I guess I have two favorite parts. Favorite part number one is that it isn't trying to be all heavy; its actually quite positive and lighthearted. I think a lot of young writers go too serious too often, and I find it very pretentious. Favorite part number two is that it was fully developed. It moved at a very leisurely pace, which matched the poem's subject very well. I give it 5/5.
xD Shina, this is amazing. I officially love you. Sure, the rhythm might have been off in some places, and yeah there were a few unintentional rhymes that threw me off, but who cares? I was so wrapped up by your amusing story and your use of language that I didn't really care enough to stop and correct you.
But I do have one nitpick:
I think you meant get rid of everything? Typos are pesky little buggers.
Absolutely amazing, Shina. Pure epic win.
*proceeds to hand out gold stars*