Don't ever come back here again!

 This post was just going to be an update of our latest garage sale, because let's face it, we now have garage sales weekly.  Usually they are pretty uneventful, minus the money made (always a good thing) and the cast of characters (see The Dollars and Sense of Garage Sales ) -- so I thought I was just going to be writing a post containing what we sold, for how much, and what our profits were.  Like my thought that the Eagles would beat the Falcons, I was dead WRONG.

What started out as a pretty uneventful garage sale...

... ended up becoming super dramatic.  But only AFTER Brian and I found (while digging through a previous unit) this... cat... on a noose.  Who DOES that?

Enough digressions. Back to the drama.   Everything is going well and we've done more than a couple hundred dollars -- we'll be closing in about an hour (wonder why the wack jobs always come after 11:30? ) --  and we're tending to customers and wandering about casually, when I overhear (I'm doing a dig on a unit)  Brian talking to this lady about prices.  She is looking at an army duffle bag (we had two of them),  a really nice army duffle bag-- and he quotes her $5.   She then comes to me and asks me the price.   I say $5 (are you guys surprised?) -- she gives me a disgusted face and I tell her if she buys both duffle bags she can have them for $4 each.  But only if she buys two.  She then of course goes to Brian and tells him I told her she could have that one for $4 and he realizes right away what happened. (We're no garage sale spring chickens!)  He also notices that she has put about 10 additional items in the bag.  It was totally obvious that she had done it, too.  So he tells her $15, and she says she doesn't have that much, and it's too much money, because she doesn't have that many items.      Here's a picture of the duffle bag in question:

Just to describe this woman's appearance, quickly-- she was Hispanic (which doesn't really matter to the story except for the fact that it helps explain and understand the Chula makeup style),  she was dressed in a bright pink top and a skirt that totally didn't match at all,  she had her crazy friend with her,  they arrived in an older Toyota Camry,  and she was emanating attitude everywhere.   From now on we're going to refer to her as Lips.  Because not only did she have crazy lips, but she couldn't keep them quiet. Back to the story:

She complains about the $15, she doesn't have that much, and proceeds to start throwing things back onto the table.    THROWING things back on the table.  I'm still kind of pretending I'm not hearing any of this because I'm still busy doing the dig, but also because it's kind of fun for me to watch Brian squirm every once in awhile.  It's only fair-- I get my share of garage sale rejects, too.    After Lips tossing out the items, he quotes her a new price of $10.  Lips completely blows him off and starts walking away (with the remaining items still in her hand), heading toward her car.   I hear Brian say "ma'am, you can't leave, we haven't settled up yet" -- she says, no, she growls "we DID settle, you SAID $10" -- and he responds "yes, but you didn't PAY the $10."   - he's getting increasingly aggravated and I'm debating whether or not I should step in (even though she's aggravating me, at this point, too).. but she makes my decision for me by taking out 2 of the items, slamming them on the stool in front of me, and saying (to me) "THERE.  There's 2 items I put back, you tell him that now I only owe $6."     Knowing our items are all $1, I say "I'm not telling him anything, and by the way, it's $8, not $6."  

Lips scowls at me, and starts heading to her car to get her money, and I again tell her not to bring the items to her car.  She completely ignores me and heads to the car-- I follow her, muttering very loudly something about how "you can't go to Dillard's or Macy's, pick out items, put them in your car, and then come back and pay for them-- why do you think you can do that here?"  --  Lips wasn't even paying attention anyway (she was walking in the other direction), but I'm still following her.     She gets to her car, grabs her money, and comes back to present it to me.    Now, keep in mind, that Lips has vehemently stated that she doesn't have $15.   She's told Brian it was too much, she's told me it was too much.  She tried to steal $10 worth of things from us and she's putting things in the car before she even pays for them, and she turns around and hands me a TWENTY DOLLAR BILL.   I'm not even kidding you.    Lips didn't really even hand it to me as much as she stuck it in my face.  So I snatched it from her long fluorescent finger nails and marched it over to Brian.  "She's paying with a TWENTY."   He looks at her, looks at me, says "SERIOUSLY"  and she's still giving him attitude.   He looks at her and says "no-- I don't want your money."     Lips' face lights up like a kid's at Christmas (or Brian's at a Saints game)  and before she can jump up and down at her luck or congratulate herself for her brilliant tactic of putting her goods in the car before she got to the point of purchase -- he says "No.   I'm not selling you the items.  Go get my bag out of your car and bring it back here.  And bring me back all of the other things in it, too!"   She starts trying to argue, and he says "NO.  GET THE THINGS OUT OF YOUR CAR AND BRING THEM BACK. "  And then proceeds to run-down the list of the things she's done wrong (but still very respectfully, actually)...  just so she understands.

He follows her to her car and she's throwing attitude the entire way.  I'm now paying full attention (as is everyone else at the sale and within a 2 block radius)---   her and her friend get into the vehicle and roll down the windows and she proceeds to throw the things OUT OF THE WINDOW onto the ground.

Here's a picture of the bag on the ground, right where she left it:

Here's a picture of Brian picking up the bag. He also yelled at her "DON'T EVER COME BACK HERE AGAIN!" while shaking his fist.

He shook his fist while she drove off and until the car was all the way down the street.

I was so sad that I didn't get to take a picture of the lady -- she really was a sight to see...  so, here, I present to you folks, a DRAMATIZATION of what occurred.  Brian will be playing the part of Brian and I will be playing the part of Lips.

                                                         "You obviously have items in that bag!"

                                   "Where are you going?  We haven't settled up yet!"

                                "You can't put it in your car -- you haven't paid for it yet!"

                                     "You're paying with a $20??    Bring me that stuff back!"

                                  Lips " Oh jah?  You can take your stooopid bag, mister!"

"Adios!"

After THAT, we still had to do another hour of garage sale!  Lips made matters worse by passing by not once, twice, but three times,  each time with the windows rolled down, laughing at us and flipping us off.  She kept passing us by every 10-15 minutes without fail.  I saw her 3 times, but that doesn't mean she didn't come by more.  That's always a little bit scary, but I just kept reminding myself not to take her too seriously, to continue to have fun, and that Love Will Keep Us Together!  Luckily, we were selling this record at the sale:

Who can be angry when there's the Captain?  And Tennille?  And two adorable dogs?

It will be interesting to see if Lips comes back to a future sale.  Or attempts it.  I sure hope she doesn't, but you never know.  Hopefully she doesn't try to get even but just moves on and finds some other people to annoy.   Garage Sales are really teaching us all lessons in patience, but when that's gone, at least we have this blog to vent on!