car boot sales

The car boot sale season is almost upon us here in Great Britain. I'm not sure if this is a national or international past time. I can't imagine there are many car boot sales in the Maldives. For anyone who doesn't know, a car boot sale is a kind of second hand market where people turn up in their cars and sell their unwanted items to the general public out of their car boot.
Spring comes around but once a year closely followed by the spring clean which mostly involves getting rid of all the crap in your home. We drag hundreds of bags of outgrown clothes, board games with bits missing, books we'll never read and toys we hate (the noisy ones) to charity shops but then signs for imminent car boot sales appear and we think-hang on...surely charity starts at home? I can sell this crap! So we start stockpiling our unloved and unwanted shite preparing for a foray into becoming a weekend market trader.
The really organised among us will have a table to display our wares, possibly a clothing rail, a tin or tub to put our takings in and a man sized picnic and flask. The less organised may have a blanket at best, some loose change in the glove compartment and a half eaten pie under the passenger seat.
I am of the organised boot saler variety. I haven't done that many as a seller because they always seem like a good idea but after around two hours of strangers haggling and poking around in my stuff, albeit stuff i don't want, i've had enough. Why do buyers always say 'how much do you want for this?' to which you reply 'two pounds'. Then they will come back with 'I'll give you 50 pence'. I'm probably not the best sales woman at this point because my likely retort would be 'fuck off! We're not in Marrakech dickhead! If i'd wanted 50 pence i'd have said 50 pence not Two quid! Now do me a favour, have a word with yourself and piss off! Now go back to your mummy and tell her it's Two pounds or nothing for that stretchkin unicorn.' Fucking kids! Honestly!
I once went with my dad when i was around 13 years old to sell a load of stuff we had accumulated over the years. We were a bit late turning up and as we rolled up in my dad's Mazda 929 estate (very uncool) the buyers spotted us. They began to swarm the car like wasps at a picnic. It was terrifying, reminiscent of a zombie apocalypse. People desperate to see what we had for sale pressing their faces up against the car windows like that time i accidentally parked in a dogging spot to breast feed my daughter. My dad parked up and opened the car boot. People started reaching in grabbing anything they could reach saying things like 'how much do you want for this mixing bowl?' 'how much is the roll of lino?' How much do you want for the teenager?' Ok, i made the last one up but you get the picture. We finally managed to get our table up and set up shop. After around an hour my dad decided to go for a wander to see if anyone else was selling crap to replace the crap my mum was trying to get rid of. I was left in charge of our mini empire. While he was gone i made two sales. Pleased with myself i couldn't wait to share my entrepreneurial genius with my dad. He returned and keen to impress i showed him the five pounds i had procured. He was suitably impressed right up to the point when i told him what i had sold. Some smelly football boots and a metal thing with a handle on it. It transpired that i had in fact sold his very expensive rugby boots and his car jack. I've heard my dad swear before but never with actual tears in his eyes.
On another occasion many, many years later i had just left the army and moved back to the U.K. I found a job and a flat to rent. The flat was a strange design. It was sort of out on a limb from the other flats with nobody above or below and it had a large attic. I'd decided to do a car boot sale at the local race course as i had once again accumulated a lot of stuff i didn't need anymore. I sorted through what i wanted to get rid of and what i wanted to keep. The stuff i wanted to keep was then divide into what i wanted to keep and use and stuff i wanted to keep but store in the attic. I opened the attic hatch and to my surprise it contained suitcases full of clothes and a few boxes of tat. I rang my landlady to inform her of my find and to ask what i should do with it all. She told me it must have belonged to a previous tenant although the flat had been empty for a year prior to me moving in, so i should throw it out or take it to a charity shop. I told her i was doing a car boot sale with my old stuff and i'd take the attic stuff with me. She agreed this was a good idea.
Car boot sale day came and being the organised boot saler i am i got there early to get a decent pitch. I set up my table and even had a clothes rail and hangars for the clothes i'd found in the attic. I arranged everything beautifully and awaited the punters.It was a lovely sunny day and they came in their droves. I sold a lot of stuff and was feeling particularly smug when a shrill voice shouted out from the crowd surrounding the clothes rail. 'These are my clothes!' Well i haven't seen a crowd disperse that quickly since Shaun Roper at middle school did a fart so rancid our teacher was sick in a bin. Turns out the shrill voiced woman lived in my flat a year previous to me and just happened to be visiting friends in the area on that exact day and then had decided to go to the local car boot sale where i was selling her clothes. How mad is that?  It's like the butterfly effect but without the death and destruction, just flares and boob tubes.
I prefer going to a car boot sale as a buyer to have a nosey at what folk are selling. I like the ordinary folk who have raided their attics or garages or sheds, found stuff they'd forgotten about then decided to sell it for next to nothing just for the craic. People that sell at car boot sales as a tax dodge job wind me up. If i wanted to buy wholesale sweets crammed into plastic boxes for a quid or car parts or my own body weight in out of date body creams i'd go to the market.
I want to see the remnants of people's lives laid out on a trestle table. I want to see 1970's lampshades, kerplunk, a rowing machine, betamax video tapes, unicorn stretchkins, a pogo stick, a prosthetic limb and a million mills & boon books. I want to go to a car boot sale and discover things i never knew i needed. A lexicon of life's melange, the flim flam of miscellany, a hodge podge of oddments and perhaps a new grate for my fire. I'm a firm believer in one man's rubbish is another man's treasure which is why i'm clearing my garage out tomorrow and preparing to do battle with the car boot sale fraternity this spring. Has anyone seen my trestle table?