I’ve had a day or two to recover, so I thought I’d let you in on some wisdom about this mysterious enigma commonly referred to as the yard sale.

1. Predicting that you will get two sunny days in a row in the greater Seattle area is absurd. Don’t kid yourself!
2. Anticipating that you will sell all your belongings at even half their original cost is equally absurd as lesson #1.  Undercut your lowest prices by half.
3. Jay Buehner collectibles are more popular (i.e. valuable) on e-Bay than in your front yard.  Go figure.  You think maybe because 20,000 punctual fans have the same dorky figurine.
4. Money in hand is much more satisfying than crap in closets.
5. Sending the kids to grandma’s for the weekend while selling all their toys is a good and kind strategy.
6. Fuchsia signs are NOT easily overlooked.
7. Yard salers don’t read much.
8. Yard salers play video games or know others who do.
9. One really  rainy day makes all subsequent prices negotiable.
10. The yard sale theme song should be We Are the World.
11. Writing clever "The Staff Picks"-style book reviews won’t entertain yard salers as much as it will you.
12. The quantum mechanics of what will sell and what won’t at a yard sale is ruled by the chaos theory.
13. Tarps, tarps, tarps.
14. The occasional drive-by question provides hours of entertainment, i.e. "Hey!  You got any cookie jars!!??"
15. Things you sell that you got for free = 100% profit.  Duh!
16. Thrift stores are really just the dashed hopes of yard sales.

Just so you know, the four of us yard sellers participated in a little prediction contest.  We each picked an item that we thought would sell first, last, and not at all.  Although some sources claim the game was blatantly fixed, the Yeti won! 

My picks were:
First – a nice woven hammock from central / south America (can’t remember exactly where)
Last – a papa san couch type thing which I sold the day after the official sale for a third of the original price.
Not-at-all – a brown recliner we were asking $5 for.