Yard Sale Sunday: Eager Bird

In the deserts of Arizona, yard sale-ing meant getting up at ungodly hours - often starting at around 5am. Most sales began around that time, or - even if they had advertised starting later - eager yard sale aficionados would already be rifling through boxes yet to be splayed out whether invited or not. 

This dynamic made sense, of course, given that all sales were final by about 930am - meaning that the heat was simply too much to bear by that time and sellers packed up shop and buyers went back home. 

In Roanoke, however, yard sales can go all day - even in the peak of summer. But in both cases, the question arises of how important it is to get to a yard sale as soon as possible.

It sort of makes sense: you want to be among the first there so that you can have pickings of everything for sale. If you went later, maybe you'd miss out on lots of items you would have loved to buy. 

However, I'm going to argue for the path of patience here. While I have long been in situations where overzealous buyers have literally shot around my car, screeched to a halt, and jumped out in order to be just one person sooner at a sale, I've rarely seen such zeal pay off. 

Foremost, such behavior is reckless and likely to result in a traffic accident, and certainly won't make you any friends anytime soon (and fellow yard salers do reappear - have no doubt). But the whole point of the rush is - in my experience - just as moot.

With so many sales out there, the variety you'd see rushing around to as many as possible as fast as you can won't get you any more options or deals than the turtle's pace. 

Because we're all looking for different things and willing to pay different prices, there's really no logic in thinking that getting to a sale sooner will mean finding something that would have otherwise been bought already. 

So when you're out there scoping sales, just tell yourself that hurrying won't bring any more luck or quality of goods than taking your time. While there are certainly some wonderful items to be found at yard sales, and even some real money to be made, it should also be about the experience. Let's face it: you're not likely to find a lost Picasso at a yard sale, so have fun with them. Meet people and take your time. There will always be more sales. 

'Til next week: Keep your coffee in one hand and your singles in another. 

Lick, Stick and Try To Mail

It was 6:10pm on April the 15^th (Tax Day) when I suddenly detested our post offices. On the door of my closest office, going far earlier than planned just to be safe, I saw a sign letting me know that they were keeping regular hours, with an insult-to-injury jab at the bottom about the late penalty I'd suffer if I didn't send my return back in time. Time for the mad dash downtown. 

Okay, so I get that every media in the Valley was used to convey that post offices would have regular hours. I know that the Roanoke Times, the local radio stations, and the signs at the post offices communicated this fact to where few could miss it. However, aside from most certainly being one of the people who did miss it, the point I must make is that communicating regular hours doesn't make only holding regular hours okay. 

Everywhere else I've lived had post offices open until midnight, and while those were bigger cities, we aren't exactly a one-horse town here. Even the USPS website boasted of convenience, reliability and extended hours on tax day.

I know that the post office is in trouble with the ubiquitous usage of email, but suck it up: we actually need you for once! (Well, selling books online, I need them a lot, but I'm adopting a community voice here). 

And from the research I conducted after the fact, I see nothing in the way of dissatisfaction about what can only be called shoddy service. I sent a Carrier pigeon to a friend living on an island populated by 18 people, and he told me their post office stayed open late. 

Luckily, my homage to Uncle Sammy still made it out with about five minutes to spare, though this was after wading through the crowds of not-so-happy people who had no stamps and had to wait to use the vending machines. Some might call us procrastinators, but I call us expectant. Expectant of a post office that would make just a little extra effort one day out of the year instead of holding the same friggin' hours they hold every weekday. At least act like you care by being open an extra half hour.