Car Boot Sales

We had a load of assorted junk we wanted rid of, but listing it all on eBay takes far too long. Standing in a field for 6 hours topping up my sunburn was a much more viable alternative.

“Sellers should arrive at 7am,” declared the advice on the website, so we did that. It only took about three minutes to assemble a wallpapering table and lay a tarpaulin on the grass before scattering a collection of semi-worthless items over both. That left only an hour and 57 minutes until any customers would arrive.

What to do? The snack van was a possibility, but £1 for a thimble of tar-like tea and £2.50 for a bun full of lard didn’t really tempt. Smoking an insane amount of tobacco was clearly the way forward.

It became apparent as some sellers arrived late that being among the first to arrive had actually secured us the worst possible location, furthest away from the car park. Still, the “rent” was only £6 and we would soon make that back.

Finally customers arrived. This is how a typical sale went:

 “How much for this piece of shit you don’t care about, mate?”

“£2.”

Look of disgust. “I’ll give you £1 for it and you should think yourself bloody lucky.”

Oh sorry, I forgot that anything I don’t want shouldn’t cost you much. After all, you’ve given up your Sunday morning to come and look at things I no longer need. Perhaps I should give you it for free, you selfish prick. And then ultimately “yeah, I’ll take a pound.”

“Have you got a bag?”

A bag? A fucking bag? You’ve bought a book. Surely you can manage to carry it home in your delicate hands? “Yeah, I’ve got a carrier.” A used supermarket one that may or may not have had something awful spilt in it at some point. Perhaps I should’ve had special “Tim’s Car Boot Emporium” bags made at considerable cost to myself? Would you be happy then?

“Thanks, mate.” The customer then wanders off to fleece someone else, probably offering 50p for a Ming vase or a rare hand-carved marble chess set.

This went on until one o’clock, when we had actually managed to make a profit of £47. I say profit, but we’d got £47 for things that originally had probably cost hundreds of pounds. Still better than Music Magpie though. If they even buy old plates, bags and mugs.