7 things you should stop selling at your yard sale
Remember the thrill of good old-fashioned yard sales? Buying a BeeGees record for 15 cents! Or a macramé potholder for $2! Due to modern technology, our children will never know the thrill of pricing their cherished possessions with masking tape and spreading them on the lawn for public scrutiny. Nowadays, people create yard sale pages on Facebook. People are passing along clothes, toys, and chipped lead paint furniture—all locally! Brilliant. It’s easy on our wallets and our landfills. And coding the group “private” for your own town means you’re less likely to be murdered in a Taco Bell parking lot while purchasing someone’s porcelain unicorn pitcher.
Some people, however, are getting a little too excited about making a buck. Some things should not be sold on Facebook. Some things should be discarded. Or donated. Or buried. Or burned.
The following is a list of the most disturbing things I’ve seen people try to shill. For a happier, healthier virtual yard sale environment, please don’t list the following items.
1. Spandex exercise pants. I don’t care if they’re Lululemon and “only worn once.” Nobody wants an item made of non-breathable fabric that your nether-regions jogged/bicycled/zumba’d against.
2. Used potties. BabyBjorn potties. Musical potties. Potties that teach kids the periodic table. Potties that are whittled from synthetic elephant tusks. Doesn’t matter. There’s not enough bleach in the world to blot out the residue of some stranger’s bodily waste. I’ve potty-trained three children. I know what they do to those things.
3. Chipped Fiestaware. I don’t want to own anything called Fiestaware, much less the chipped kind. Asking for money for chipped plates? Are you serious? Chipped plates aren’t a merchantable good. They’re what the Boxcar Children eat off of at the dump.
4. The burden of ameliorating your poor financial choices:
Sometimes people spend waaaay too much money on total crap. Then they try to recoup some of that money by asking YOU to spend waaaay too much money on said crap. For example:
American Girl Doll hot air balloon. Paid $250. Asking $200.
You paid two hundred and fifty dollars on a felt, 20-inch hot air balloon? For a doll? And now that it’s used, you want me to pay two hundred dollars? How used is it? Did any crash landings compromise the structural integrity of the basket? Does the gas burner still work? What? It’s just pretend? For $200, I could ride in a real hot air balloon. Twice. And I could bring the doll.
5. Any item where an antenna is a selling point. Someone listed a circa-1990, rare, 10-inch TV for $180. No. Really. But the TV is totally worth it! Because it’s “clean” and “has the original antenna.” FYI: calling a 30-year-old TV with the original antenna “rare” is redundant.
6. Breast pumps. Health officials warn not to share breast pumps because no matter how much you clean them, they can still harbor bacteria. They’re not listed often. But once in a while someone writes, “I know women aren’t supposed to reuse breast pumps because of germs, but mine is a really good expensive one. Can I donate it to a shelter?” Just because someone is down on her luck and can’t afford to run to Target in her Escalade to buy a spanking new Medela doesn’t mean she’s some second-rate human who should be infected by your germy old breast milk spores.
7. Nursing bras. Ew. Enough said.
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