Hidden Costs...

I've been trying to clear out a lot of the crap we've accumluated over six years of living in this apartment. The most dispensable items are books and baby things. Now - I am a big one for hauling my crap to the college library, Goodwill, the battered women's shelter, and other places that can use these things. However, whenever I do this, someone undoubtedly says, "why don't you have a garage sale?" Which is not a bad idea, except that, in order to have a garage sale, one needs to 1) get all of one's crap organized, clean, and ready to sell at once, and 2) sit in the garage or on the lawn for two days and hope that the couple of people who come by decide to buy something - and haggle with them, because no matter what you charge, "it's too much to ask for a garage sale." Plus, garage sales here aren't held on the weekends. They're held on Thursday and Friday and Saturday morning. Like I have time for this.

My feeling is basically that, if you'll take it off my hands, you are welcome to it. That's one less thing I have to worry about - or store - you know? But over the last couple of days, I've had dollar signs in my eyes, and so I've spent an inordinate amount of time carting bags and boxes and odds and ends all over town:

- three trips to the secondhand baby stuff store (so far - at least one more to come);
- one trip to my office to double-check that I had doubles and newer editions of various books;
- one trip to local head shop to try to sell records (hipster college dude was less than interested and passed up Icicle Works, Psychedelic Furs, and three Fawlty Towers records for one Beatles album - please);
- one trip each to two used book stores;
- and, three trips to Goodwill.

I made $70 (not counting what all these trips have cost me in gas), and I still had to lug most of the crap to Goodwill at the end of the day. It's just not worth it. From now on, everything goes straight from my house to Goodwill.

Also, I decided not to sell hipster college dude my records for the $3 he offered. Not if he doesn't know what Fawlty Towers is.