Big Daddy Gouda

After much internal debate my father Pete finally decided to have a Tag Sale.

My family home is, to put it simply, filled with junk. The house, originally built in 1934 by my great grandfather Angelo, has accumulated quite the lot of needless items. Well, needless to my family anyway.

For years my sister and I have been trying to convince dad to have a Tag Sale rather than his prefered method of getting rid of old junk, which consisted of renting a dumpster and piling it with old furniture every few months.

I agreed to assist dad with his sale. He spent the week leading up to “the event” pricing everything in the house. I spent the week removing price tags from some of my things that there was no way I was selling for $2, if at all.

“Dad, Why are you selling my copy of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows,” I asked.

“Well, I never see you reading it,” dad countered.

Yep, it was gonna be one of those weeks.

The night before the sale Dad brought out the tables and lined up hundreds of items by the front door. At 5 a.m. he left the house and wandered the neighborhood putting up signs. At 7 a.m. he began to bring the items outside. At 7:05 his heart stopped. At 7:12 it began beating again.

The first sign of trouble came around 8 a.m: One hour before the posted start time.

An old couple pulled up to the house. (“early birds”, as they are called in the Tag Sale world.)

“Are you selling any fishing equipment”, the old man asked, as my father struggled to find the perfect placement for his scratched up Beatles record with teeth marks on the cover.

“We’re not selling anything till 9 o’ clock sir,” dad said, without so much as a glance in the old couple’s direction.

I asked my father why he hadn’t simply told them we had NO fishing equipment  rather than reply with his seemingly rude, “nothing till 9″ comment.

“Cuz I’m too busy to deal with people right now,” he said.

Oh yeah, today was gonna be interesting.

Dad assigned me a ton of jobs and I couldn’t argue. I was in charge of the money, I was to answer questions about whether or not we had certain items, I was to handle negotiations and I was to keep an eye out for thieves. Yes, dad was really worried that someone was going to run off with his unopened bottle of Windshield Wiper fluid.

Dad’s job was to keep things neat. And he did.

After the vultures rifled through books and Cds and unfolded clothes, Dad had things back in order before the people got back in their cars.

I’d say for the first few hours things went smooth. People showed up. People bought stuff. Nothing was stolen. Then, the Spanish guy arrived.

He drove  a white van, already filled with junk. My aunt Barbara would later refer to this man as a “Tag Sale Locust” - traveling from sale to sale, filling his van with items from his various stops…as long as the price was right.

As soon as he picked up the first item, a Green Bay Packers mug, he said, “I give you one dollar”; a buck cheaper than the sticker price. I agreed to it.

Every item he touched, he asked for money off the marked price. And me, granted the power of negotiations from Dad, pretty much agreed to it. After all, he was buying a ton of stuff. Then, he set his sights on one of Dad’s prized possessions: His miniature model car collection.

Dad was asking $12 for the set of five cars. The guy offered $6. I countered with $10. The guy offered $7. Once again I said $10

“Seben Seben,” the man repeated, as he began putting the cars in his box.

I was about to let it go. The guy already spent about $25.  I figured he deserved the $5 discount. However, dad, who had been watching the situation unfold, disagreed.

Dad stepped in front of me, and, for the first time all day, was actually interacting directly with a customer.

“$7 is way too cheap,” dad said. “I can’t let this set go for anything less than $10.”

“Seben,”  the man said, as he put the last mini-car in his box.

Dad snapped.

“I said NO,” his voice rising, as he began pulling the cars, one by one, out of the man’s box.

“THESE – CARS- ARE- IN- MINT- CONDITION,” dad said, emphasizing each word as he took the cars from the man and put them back on their display shelf.

“Joo don’t wan my money,”  the man shot back.

“Not at that price I don’t,” dad said.

At that point the man rubbed his hands together, as if he was wiping away dirt and then showed his hands to my father, seemingly wiping himself clean of dad’s rudeness.

“Fine, den I buy nothing,” the man said.

“Good,” dad fired back, “then drag your ass.”

The  guy walked back to his van shaking his head, muttering under his breath in Spanish and, most importantly, taking his $25 with him.

“Dad, why didn’t you just give him the deal,” I asked. “He was spending a ton of money.”

“Because,” dad said, arranging his precious car collection, “there is a difference between making money and getting raped.”

Aside from that little bit of unpleasantness things went well for the rest of the day. Especially when all the old Italian guys from the neighborhood stopped by to shoot the shit and pop off about old times in the neighborhood.

I sat there counting the money as these old men told some crazy tales. I heard things like, “I tried to enlist in Vietnahm but they told me I was too violent,” and,  “Remember when the mob wanted me dead because I was dating the prettiest girl in town.”

The day wound down around 4. People, for the most part, had stopped coming. But it was okay. The majority of items had been sold. Dad had cleared about $300.

We sat down. I counted the money as Dad drank a beer and bragged about the efficient, orderly tag sale he’d pulled off.

“HEY,” Dad barked.

I jumped and immedietly looked up. There, sitting on our wall were two young boys. This was not the first time I had seen them today. They lived down the street and periodically through out the day they would park their bikes in front of the house, sit on the wall and watch people shop.

Everytime they arrived dad would snap his fingers at me to get my attention, then procede to tell me to keep an eye on them. As far as he was concerned, if anyone was going to steal anything, it was going to be them.

The boys sat frozen on the wall, obviosly startled by dad’s yell.

“What do you two want anyway,” dad asked, sternly. “You guys have been coming by all day and you just sit there staring at us.”

The younger boy, probably 7 years old, said nothing. The older brother, most likely about 10 years old, sheepishly pointed to a pile of my old football cards.

“You have any money,” dad asked, sarcastically.

Both boys shook their heads ‘No’

 With his thumb pointed down the street, followed by a jerk of the wrist and punctuated with a whistle, dad simply said, “Then beat it.”

The boys mounted their bikes and quickly rode away.

I’m sure they will tell all the neighborhood kids about the mean old man who lives at 152 Barton Street, and, in the process, turn my father into a popular target for a Halloween egging.

“Everybody wants something for nothing,” Dad said, taking a final swig of his beer. “Lets start bringing this shit back in the house.  I’m tired.”

Dad put his beer down, stood up and let out a mighty belch, letting the neighborhood know that Porkchop Pete’s Tag Sale had come to a close.

This entry was posted on August 17, 2009 at 2:03 am and is filed under Stories . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.