Garage sales

As I was driving DeAnza this morning I saw the tables set up, and knew that the flea market was taking place today.

There's something else happening this weekend--the city's annual city-wide garage sale. From the City of Cupertino Event Calendar:

Saturday, October 02, 2004 - Sunday, October 03, 2004

City-wide Garage Sale

Time:
09:00 am - 04:00 pm

Description:
Annual City-Wide Garage Sale

Cupertino residents and community groups will hold individual garage sales at their homes or on private property, on the same weekend. The city estimates that between 500 and 600 households will register to be included on the city's list of sales.

There is no registration fee and participants keep all profits from their sales.

Contact: Cupertino Public Works Dept, 408-777-3354

The city even printed up maps of homes and other locations where garage sales are being held. Where else but in suburbia can you find such craziness disguised as concern for the environment or whatever else? How many shoppers will be walking today? Perhaps a few? But will car-drivers be the majority?

Perhaps this is not the case and most people are walking.

People are obviously selling things they no longer need. (I doubt people are selling valuables only because of financial necessity--paying off a mortage or what have you.) How much better off would they have been if they had not purchased those items in the first place? How much of their "stuff" did they really need? Or are the items just consumables--to be used until one gets tired of them or something better comes along, or in the case of clothing, because they are no longer fashionable? How much of the clothing that we possess would we be willing to keep and wear for the rest of our lives? There's something to be said for stability in fashion, not only cultural benefits but economic and environmental benefits as well. (Although economic liberals might think that it is better to have such a huge clothing industry.) Sure, it may be better to find new owners for their things than tossing them out into the garbage and having them end up at the local landfill--but is that what is going to happen if they don't find someone willing to purchase the items? Or will they just put everything back into storage in the garage?

Thriftiness is better applied before making the original purchase, not after, in trying to sell something off to someone else.

Are garage sales just symbols of the amount of waste and consumption that goes on in suburbia?