I’ve been going to yard sales since before I was old enough to remember.

In all that time, I’ve never been kicked out of a yard sale.
…until this afternoon.
And it’s all my husband’s fault.

(& I don’t want to hear about how he’s been 30 miles away working on our house all day – it’s still all his fault!)

My husband saw a post on Craigslist two nights ago about a yard sale that would be starting Thursday. They advertised a large amount of kids toys, clothes, baby gear, etc.

And “legos and lego sets.”

So, of course, Joe’s interest was intrigued. He needed to be down at the house, but I was going to be relatively available (after an appointment for our youngest first thing in the morning). I reluctantly agreed to check it out. After navigating around some roadwork and through the detour, I found the sale. It was, in fact, a huge sale with a boggling amount of children’s clothes, toys (mostly in very good, used condition), baby gear, and more. The prices were more Craigslist prices than yard sale prices, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

After a brief scan of the sale, I located the LEGO.

There was a decent amount of LEGO Duplo and LEGO. But the older of the two ladies running the yard sale (apparently the one in charge, as the other mentioned to another customer that she’d been asking to come over and help her friend with something today, not knowing she was going to end up on yard sale duty) had them ridiculously priced. I’m talking $50 on a beat up kit missing a ton of pieces, no book, etc. $20 for a quart-size Ziploc bag of LEGO pieces that looked similar enough to have been part of a set, but were so few that you couldn’t even identify what type of a set it was supposed to be. I could verify that the pieces were real LEGO, but not much beyond that. Several Ziploc bags, a few boxes with what was remaining of the set built to display to the best of their ability, but easily identifiable as missing several pieces, and virtually no mini-figures to be seen.

She later produced maybe 7 mini-figures that she claimed was all that came with all of the sets… I knew better. Heck, the few sets that had beat up boxes with them showed at least twice as many mini-figures as what she held in her hand, so it didn’t take a genius to see that didn’t add up at all.

After taking a good look, I approached the lady in charge and asked her how much for “all LEGO-brand items here.”

Her response? “Everything has a price tag on it.”

Translation: You’ll pay whatever I have it labeled.

Uh…? Not happening.

Again I asked, “but what you do want for all the LEGO-brand items here?”

“It’s LEGO. It’ll sell.”

Despite myself, I kinda chuckled. “Not at prices this close to retail they won’t. I’m potentially interested in taking all the LEGO-brand items off your hands right now. But I can clearly see that there are a TON of missing pieces, you don’t have all the boxes, much less the books… I understand what you’re expecting, but they’re just not worth what you’re asking. All you’ve got are miscellaneous bricks.”

The lady (I soon learned her name was Carol) gave a little huff and came over, making a show of sifting through all the bags and boxes and adding up the sticker prices she had placed on each of them.

But she never touched the Duplo. Interesting.

Her friend seemed to take notice of it, too. Neither of us said anything.

When Carol was done totaling up all her LEGO prices (minus the Duplo), she turned and said, “$251. That’s for all my LEGO stuff.”

“You want $251 for all the LEGO-brand items here?” I asked, making sure I was clear… again.

“That’s what they’re priced – I don’t ,” she confirmed. Joe asked me to text him some pictures. As I waited for him to get back to me, a man came up, one of the LEGO sets having caught his eye. But, when he turned it over and saw her price, his eyebrows shot up and he immediately shook his head and set it back. More of her customers seemed to notice me hanging out near the LEGO and came to, I guess, check out what was there. Not a single person was excited by the prices or condition of her LEGO. In fact, quite the opposite. Several people commented to her about the missing boxes, pieces, mini-figures, books – all stating she had them grossly overpriced before walking away. Many even left the sale completely. I said nothing.

She was fuming by the time Joe called me back. After hanging up, I gave her his offer. Apparently she had realized she was not going to get what she wanted for the LEGO, and spit back a counter offer. I split the difference. She refused, telling me $175 was absolutely the lowest she would go for all her LEGO, and I could take it or leave it. I texted Joe, and he agreed to the price. I told her I’d start getting the LEGO and LEGO Duplo together in one place before I stepped over to the car to grab my wallet.

She actually sputtered!

She immediately said, quite firmly, that she agreed to the price for her LEGO, and that Duplo blocks weren’t LEGO. I calmly and politely (I totally saw this coming, but was very clear about what I was negotiating for…”all LEGO-brand items.”) explained that Duplo are in fact LEGO-brand, and that our agreement was for all LEGO-brand items. That included Duplo. And I showed her the LEGO branding on her Duplo bricks.

The lady was seeing red.

Her friend laughed, and oh-so-nicely pointed out to her seething companion that I was, in fact, correct, and that she did agree to sell them at that price.

Carol, red in the face and making quite the scene all by herself, insisted that it didn’t matter if Duplo were LEGO-brand, because she doesn’t consider them LEGO and didn’t include them when she was counting up how much LEGO she had.

Her friend (whom I was beginning to realize was finding quite a bit of amusement with the entire situation), jumped in again and told her she agreed to the price for all LEGO-brand items and it was a done deal.

After watching Carol’s reaction, I had two choices:

1. Hold her to the deal and to hell with what she said about it. Her own friend was witness to the entire thing and
2. Be the “nice” one and offer to renegotiate

Honestly, had I not had Kim and John with me, I probably would have stuck to my guns and let Carol fume.

But the second choice won out – I guess I didn’t want to be *that person* in front of the kids. Though, to be brutally honest, I really really wanted to. I had been very clear about what I was offering to buy, and had even clarified more than once that the numbers we were talking about were for all of it. But, alas, I, once again, chose to be the bigger person. (No, the pun was not intended, thank you.)

I told Carol that she had agreed to $175 for all LEGO-brand items, but what was it she would want for the Duplos in addition to what she had already agreed to for all of it. Come on – I mean, really, she’d already agreed, with witnesses, to a verbal contract. I didn’t have to compromise or renegotiate – it definitely wasn’t in my best interest to do so, but did I really want to be the person to hold this lady to her end of the agreement?  (Yes, I did. I really did. But, oh well…. *sigh*)

With steam rolling out of her ears, she told me she’d allow me to take all the Lego and the Duplo (I had to interject and correct her with “the LEGO Duplo”… this lady now looked murderous, and began talking through her teeth) for $200… if I just took them and left.

$25 in yard sale money is quite a bit of money, but given the Duplo alone would at least fill a garbage bag, and I was frankly sick and tired of even being there [I didn’t (and still don’t) think any of the LEGO or Duplo were worth all the drama, no matter how good a deal we got on them], I smiled kindly and politely accepted her change of terms. I went to the car to grab my wallet.

And found I only had $160 in cash on me.

Yep. Go ahead. It’s ok to laugh.

So, I got to have the privilege of walking back up Carol’s driveway, into her garage, and to her little fold-out card table where she and her friend were putting all the LEGO and LEGO Duplo into boxes bins so that I could get them into my car, just to tell her that I had $160 in cash on me. I quickly added, as I watched her face begin to flush burgundy in front of my eyes, that I would be happy to (a) write her a check for the difference, (b) run down the street and get the rest, or (c) do a direct electronic payment to her right then and there via GooglePay.

“I’ll take a check. Just hurry up so you can go.”

As I turned to find an empty spot on a table that I could use to write out the check, I got a text from Joe. Was there anything else there I was interested in?

As if Carol was going to sell me anything else!

I finished writing out the amount and noticed 3 matching sets of brand new, unopened corn on the cob holders… that looked like tiny bins of movie popcorn!!!! OMG so adorable! Should I even dare…?

“So… these are adorable!… How much do you think to just tack these 3 on as well?”

Eyes narrowed to slits, her friend standing behind her slowly shaking her head as if to warn me it was time to stop poking the yard sale bear, Carol replied.

“Make the check out to Carol ####.” (Come on, did you really think I was that dumb? Give me a little credit…the lady does have my home address now, albeit that home is currently still in framework…)

I took the hint. Putting on my friendliest smile, I handed her the check, said thank you, and started carrying my purchase to the car. When I set down the first armload, I turned around to go back and get the rest, and come face to face with Carol, who’d brought everything else to the sidewalk.

“No need to come back in,” she told me, and turned and walked away.

I smiled my biggest, friendliest smile.. the one you give your best friend in the world when you’re having an absolute great time… and called after her with a wave, “Have a great weekend, Carol! Good luck on your sale!”

I’m not exactly sure what she turned and said back, as Kim had come up to tell me John had a wet diaper and needed changed, but I am pretty sure it’s not something I should probably transcribe into a blog post that my kids will likely be reading…

…and this woman now has my home address…

Oh, and by the way, you’re welcome, baby.

…kicked out of a freaking yard sale… I never…