(Mis-)Applied Economics

There have been more abysmal blunders in human history: the Bay of Pigs invasion, Hitler's invasion of Russia, my own personal forays into cooking Thai cuisine... but still, my sister's garage sale enterprise, into which I was unfortunately drafted, ranks high on the list. I initially didn't want to be dragged into it, but she pressured me into it. I tried to get out of it on numerous occasions, but whenever I attempted, my sister inevitably just told me more things to do and became mad when I was uncooperative. So, I was uncooperative, and she was mad, but somehow I still ended up wasting a profound amount of time on this project.

From the outset, the decision to have a garage sale was exceedingly irrational. Consider the following: I will conservatively estimate that the overall preparation for this event involved a total of 20 man-hours. Bear in mind that the true total amount of time may have been substantially higher because of my sister's insistence that I be present in many situations that simply don't require two people. For example, manning the sale while it was in progress only required one person, but she insisted that I be present. Next, note that the overall amount of revenue to be gained was highly uncertain. We really had no idea what to expect; any guess was pure conjecture. I reckoned that this entire endeavor would net about $50 if we were lucky, and I consequently thought the entire thing was absurd. So the kicker is: aren't 20 man-hours better spent doing something(s) that is/are enjoyable and/or has/have a nontrivial and known payoff? Also consider that anything that we didn't sell, is going to be given to Goodwill. This means that by selling the goods in a garage sale we were not only incurring a risk, but we were charging people money for what would otherwise be free. So, our inefficient allocation of time was tantamount to taking money from other people by forcing them to pay for otherwise free goods! (Within reason, of course. If there wasn't anything better to do with our time, then we actually were being efficient, but that was a big "if" at the time, and we failed.)

In the face of these grave questions and all odds, my dearest sister boldly marched into the garage armed, with stickers and sharpies and junk, to rid us of spring cleaning's baggage. Or at least that was the idea. It hasn't really happened yet. Yours truly, being the lowly, pandering imbecile that he is, gave in after a conversation that went something like this:

E: "Hey, do you want to help me do a garage sale next weekend?"

A: "No, absolutely not."

E: "What? Oh come on, it will be fun."

A: "No, I won't do it. Don't ask me again."

E: "Please? Why not?"

A: "Argh. Fine, but only if you give me... 35%" [This figure involved careful calculation]

E: "What? No. Okay, fine. 10%"

A: "30%?"

E: "20%?"

A: "25%?"

E: "Oh, okay, fine."

I was in for a somewhat rude surprise when I discovered that I was basically relegated to be my sister's minion, so I have been quite disagreeable during the past few days. I tried to get out of the whole thing by forfeiting my share of the money, but she just continued telling me to do things and getting mad at me for doing them incorrectly or being in the profoundly disgruntled state that I was. Erin likes to do this incredibly obnoxious thing where she makes me keep her company for long periods of time, forcing me to essentially sit around and do nothing. Occasionally she talks to me, but often that doesn't even happen. This happened for about five hours today during the sale...

And what a sale it was. The punchline of this whole tract, which you have undoubtedly been wondering, and which I have danced around to no end is: how much did we make?! Ahem. The true economic profit is surely negative, so we don't need to discuss that. The "revenue" amount to a whopping $20, although I am suspicious that Erin rounded that figure up. Our big sale of the day was when Caleb, our neighbor who is just entering kindergarten this fall, purchased a Care Bear mug (it was the "Cheer Bear" actually) for $2. He was really excited to use it at lunch today. I felt really bad selling it to him actually. $2 seemed a bit steep for a little, old glass mug. But I suppose this garage sale was inflation adjusted. We're just teaching him a lesson in free market economics! He has to learn how to swim in the deep end with the sharks of the economic waters some day!

As for me, while sitting around at this incessant sale I started practicing card-counting strategies in Blackjack. There's a casino nearby in Washington where people who are 18 and older can gamble. My birthday present to myself this year is going to be going there and winning some money. It's going to require some serious training this summer, including role-playing simulation, and perhaps recruiting some co-conspirators, but I see it as a fun hobby. Actually, it's kind of like the stock market in many ways, only a bit more daring and maybe a little more consistent. It has all the same statistical and random aspects as financial markets, with a sort of covert flare. When I tried to have a conversation with my sister about card counting, it wasn't long before she declared two things: that despite the fact that you break no rules when you do it, it's against the rules and illegal because gambling is meant to only be done "by chance"; and [sternly]that she didn't want to hear another word about card counting. I closed my eyes and cringed, and then went back to flipping down cards on my lap, in the shade of the eaves over our driveway, surrounded by summer's warm, dry breeze.