No personal garage sale experiences from hell, but my neighbor had one a few weeks ago. Although her ad and signs said "starts promptly at 8:00" - she got up that morning at about 6:30 and there were several cars parked out front "lurking" for when she opened. She looked out the window and saw four cars jockeying for position in front of our cul-de-sac. One even blocked our driveway. I went out and asked them to move their car. Her son went outside to look at the musical cars going on and two women asked in broken English if the sale started. He said "sure" and opened the garage with the door opener. So my friend has 5 strangers in her garage looking at things at 7:00 a.m. She was still in her robe when she realized what 10 year old junior had done. She tried telling these women to come back and they got mad and said "your son says it's OK." She chased them off and then lowered the garage, much to the dismay of the retirees wanting to buy her stuff. Turns out that her son had several things for sale there and he wanted the revenue from his toys as soon as possible. I saw her yelling at junior and getting very frustrated over the whole situation. Finally hubby chased the two women off who were refusing to leave. They reopened at 8:00 and the same mass of crazies came back to try and buy. She put up a sign that said "all prices firm" and still people were wanting to lower her prices. She was so frustrated she closed the sale at noon and donated everything to the local Christian charity. But most of her stuff is like what Julie Andrews says to Christopher Plummer in the Sound of Music after he remarks about her ugly dress "The poor didn't want this one!"
