A Study in Humanity

So this past weekend had me pulling a four day shift at our school's gi-normous garage/jumble sale. (Seriously - we collect every Tuesday all year, it takes two days to set up and we fill three gyms with stuff, some of it designer with the tags still on.) If you've ever moved house, you'll appreciate that two days of unpacking boxes and displaying stuff on trestle tables is physically exhausting, and we didn't finish on Friday till 10.30pm.

The sale raises money for our scholarship fund, which helps families with tuition fees, and is open to the public. Some of the highlights this year involved:-

• punters walking in wearing skanky shoes, "trying on" the shoes on sale, then waltzing out with them still on.
• a lady checking out, having her paper shopping bag stapled shut with a "paid" tag on, then looping back into the room to help herself to more. We don't print out itemized receipts so who's to know? (We caught her and firmly explained the procedures - ie. pay for everything.)
• one lady trying to get me to halve the price on a $100 leather jacket (which retails for over $1,000) because it was a gift for her sister. Hmmm, it's my mother's birthday in a few weeks. I might try that tactic downtown.
• countless people with a finite amount of cash, having us ring up and bag all the stuff only to discover they'd gone over their limit. (Everything was individually priced, but clearly they can't be arsed to keep tabs).  We were then expected to a) unpack everything, b) wait while they had a group discussion over what should be purchased, and c) keep their running total for them. All while a large queue formed behind them.
• a woman who insisted I sell her a stroller that someone had accidentally left behind, even when I explained to her why I couldn't. The compromise was that I take her name and phone number and call her if the owner hadn't claimed it by the end of the day. I didn't.
• and at then end of the day, when we reduced everything to 75% off - the people who were still bartering. Given that we were raising money for a good cause, and not swanning off to Disney with the proceeds, I take a dim view of this behaviour. I mean we had Seven jeans for $4, an Escada suit for $20, and people were still haggling over the price. One guy (paying $3 for a sweater that retails for over $100 and was originally marked at $12), kept throwing $2 at me - out of a bunch of dollar bills. I was having none of it, so he stomped off, leaving his $2 on the table. I ran after him to give it back to him, and he started loudly proclaiming to all and sundry what an honest woman I was! I give up!

Ah yes, it's a study in humanity alright. Talking of which, I'm writing this the day after the sale - doing jury duty, which seems to involve sitting around for 7 hours, receiving a check for $17 (I almost told them to keep it), and mixing with more of my fellow humans than is really necessary after my weekend!