The Garage Sale Scandal of 2010

We started setting up on Friday night with a "price to sell" attitude and had everything up and ready to go by 7:45am on Saturday to be a part of Tecumseh's City-Wide Garage Sale Day. Things moved slowly and steadily and item by item our inventory decreased.

And then it happened.

A three-generation set of gals came and poked around: Grandma, Mom and Daughter. This is an entirely accurate account of what happened.

Grandma and Mom, for Daughter, to Anna: We pay 50 cents?
Anna: (Looks at tag for $1.50) Nope - I'll do $1.00.
Mom: 50 cents?
Anna: (Smiling) No. $1.00.
Mom: Why not 50 cents?
Gma Judy: We'll start doing half-off at 3:00 p.m.
Mom: So 50 cents?
Anna and Gma Judy: No.

Item gets put back.

Mom comes and pays for a 50 cent item with a dollar.
Grandma is talking to her in Spanish, carrying a Wii hat.

Mom: A quarter?
Anna: No, the tag says 50 cents. So, 50 cents.
(Mom talks to Grandma in Spanish.)
Mom: A quarter?
Anna: No.
Gma Judy: No.
Mom: We pay 25 cents?
Cindy: No. We'll do half-off later today.
(Grandma puts hat on her head.)
Mom: So no 25 cents?
Anna: No.
Some Random Guy: Is that a Wii hat? Cool!
(Random Guy leaves.)
Mom: Okay, I get change? 50 cents from you.
Anna: Okay, here you go!

Mom, Daughter and Grandma turn around and start walking.

Anna to Judy and Cindy: Seriously. She's stealing the hat.
Cindy: What??
Judy: Want me to get the 50 cents?
Anna: Sure!

Judy walks to the end of the driveway, stopping the ladies, and tells them they need to pay for the hat and the Grandma only says "Si" over and over. Judy finally gives up and returns to the garage.

Then, Random Guy walks over to their car and asks if he can buy the hat and is negotiating with them. We watch on, dumbfounded.

Random Guy walks away and Cindy starts down the driveway. The ladies turn their car around and start going after Random Guy to get him to buy the hat. As they're bargaining again, Cindy informs Random Guy that the ladies did not pay so he would be buying stolen property. Grandma says "Si" again and Mom yells from the window that they paid. Cindy informed them, again, that they didn't and that she doesn't care - just wanted Random Guy to know. Mom offers Cindy 50 cents but Cindy tells her NO and walks away.

We laugh. It's 50 cents. Its their conscience.

Suddenly, Mom appears with 50 cents and apologizes profusely for the misunderstanding because her mom thought she had paid blah-blah-blah-blah. At this point we're a half-step from bursting out in laughter about the entire situation. Anna accepts the 50 cents and Mom leaves.

Then, Random Guy appears and he's all pumped up, telling us how they'll sell it to him for $7.00 but wanted to make sure they had come back to pay; he was going to pay us if not. Then he asked for change for a $10.00 and left.

And bought the hat.

OH, and the hat in question?
This priceless, must-have hat?
Cindy got it for FREE for trying out Wii Fit up at Nebraska Furniture Mart.

Morons.