When I was growing up, my aunt loved to go Garage Sale Shopping. In fact, she still loves to go to garage sales. Her Christmas shopping is already done for the year! I always liked to “window shop” at these sales more than purchase anything. I will say though that I never have trouble finding something that I want at an antique shop, and garage sales can satisfy an antique lover’s lust for the old at a very reasonable price. That’s part of the fun of garage sales, that you never know what treasures you might find.
Out here, it’s almost a necessity to be willing to purchase someone else’s used goods because you can’t go to the local dive shop, Wal-Mart, maternity store, etc...to find everyday or specialty needs. The difference between here and the states is that we call our second-hand residential shopping, “Patio Sales,” and the best deals can be found when someone is PCSing (Permanent Change of Station) or in other words, leaving the island for good. Because we reside on a military base with all government built facilities, we are provided furnished living quarters free of charge (BQ’s for singles and some married couples and 1, 2, and 3 bedroom houses for families with children).
Many times, residents who move here bring the very minimum in regards to personal goods and over time they decide to buy a couch from a friend who is leaving or they purchase the latest electronics for watching movies with the extra spending money we all tend to have on an island where we don’t have any bills, and when a resident PCS’s, they sell it all, so they don’t have to pay extra to ship anything back, and so they can buy the latest things that fit their new homes when they return to the states. The deals can be tremendous too, especially for those who advertise in the paper “FINAL PCS SALE-EVERYTHING MUST GO!” In other words, “we have to get rid of this even if we have to give it away because we fly out on the plane tomorrow.”
Today, I am going to get some much needed replacement dive gear for stuff that is plain worn out since I bought it 12+ years ago. I am so glad to not have to go online and wait for 10 minutes while each page on our antiquated dial-up internet system (this is not the kind of antique I love by the way) loads up, and I look for the items I need, then hope and pray that it will be the right size, type, and exactly what I was looking for. Some things are just better seen, tried on, and bought in person. Clothes and shoes for one, particularly swimsuits and undergarments, are better when you try them on first, but even things like bike parts, curtains, snorkels and masks have proved problematic for my friends and me in the past to order online, so that’s where Patio Sales come in.
We don’t have garages out here, except for the Commander’s house, but his is really more of a carport. The families have patios instead of carports or garages, so it’s become one of our many “Kwajisms” to refer to a garage sale as a patio sale. It took me a long time to not call it a garage sale, and it’s still hard to explain to a child who has grown up out here and never been to the states what a garage is when it comes up on his phonics paper at school. It also took me a long time to learn all the military acronyms (like PCS) used on a base, even as a civilian. In fact, just today I learned a new one; imagine that, a new acronym after 13 years on the same base. It’s not new really, just new to me. Well, I guess the saying is true that you learn something new every day. It may not be the most exciting thing you’ve ever learned, but at least you are learning, right? Well, I’m off to the patio sale, maybe I’ll find something I never knew I needed and just have to have. :)
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