If there's one thing I have learned about garage sales over the years, it's that anything goes. You never know why someone is buying something, and you never know what they'll use it for. Although sometimes you might have an idea.

I've seen people sell toilet paper at garage sales - can you believe that? OK, I'll admit it, I was the buyer of "bathroom tissue," but that's another column!

Let's face it, people who go to garage sales are very resourceful. Take, for example, the lady who bought all of my old jeans. She transforms them into vintage purses on her sewing machine. Cool! And at a recent sale I saw a woman buy 20 mismatched pieces of bone china for $1. She told me she breaks them and creates mosaic tile projects. Then there's the guy who bought part of a Halloween costume from me - one gory rubber foot. The matching foot had melted in our garage! I'm still wondering about that sale.
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Then there was the time I bought something at a garage sale and the seller was so curious as to why I would want it. She was, well, let's just say a bit perplexed. To help you understand why I wanted it, I have to take you back to my travels. When I lived in upstate New York, I would often take the train to New York City for shopping trips. One day I was perusing the boutiques in Soho and bought my first souvenir, a 4-foot-tall iron candleholder that came in two pieces: the stand and the iron bowl on top to hold the candle. OK, so fast-forward to Arizona. When we relocated here, the moving company lost the top part of the candleholder. I was pretty sad. One of my favorite possessions was unusable!

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