Beancounters admits she no longer holds garage sales because the stealing gets on her nerves:
Stealing from sales has gotten more rampant. I get unreasonably mad at people who steal from my sale. Or bundle stuff tightly under their arms and come up to me and try to offer me a quarter for everything. Or hide stuff under their clothes. Or pass unpurchased stuff to a confederate who has already made her purchases. Or make their kids distract me while the adults throw shit into their car trunks or into the milk crates on the back of their decrepit bicycles, and then take off and meet the kids around the block.
When I see this behavior, I get. really. mad. It’s stupid, but I do. I am the first to tell you that the Rules of Garage Sale Engagement are sometimes nebulous, but the line is drawn at actual stealing! If you don’t know that, you are not fit to be out in polite society.
So, I hear myself yelling impossibly surreal things like “Yes, I see that Travel Scrabble game under your t-shirt, and it’s still fifty cents!”
The Sac Rag 