Welcome to garage sales Unhinged.
Where the characters are as quirky as the vines.
I'm Julie. And I'm Jake.
Join us as we dive into the wild world of garage sales, yard
sales, estate sales, and anywhere second hand sales are
happening from. Bizarre bargains to hilarious
haggles. You won't believe the stories
we've got lined up. Let's get unhinged.
Can you hear me? Yep, I got you.
OK, I'm good. Cool, yeah.
Are you good? That was a big.
Yawn. That was a big yawn.
That was a big yawn for a big boy.
Yeah, I went down to the office. Normally I work remote, but once
in a while you got to go into the office and it's a 2 hour
drive when the traffic is friendly and it was not
friendly. So it made for a long day, which
is great. You know, I'm, I am grateful
that I got the flexibility that I've got.
But when you do got to go, you're like, oh, that's four
hours of work. I'm not going to do how it is.
So yeah, I've been, I've been kind of dragging today.
Well, I also work remote. No, actually, I work in the
office. I mean, when it's just you and
you work for yourself and my I have a office in my home.
Oh my gosh. Is this like a like
Schrodinger's cat? Like is she remote or is she in
the office? I'm sorry, whose cat did you
say? I don't know if I said it right,
don't point it out. No, I, I just want to make sure
I, I have a bum ear and I wanted to make sure I want to give you
credit if you got it right. I said Harry's cat.
I didn't say that. Harry, you.
Didn't say Harry. What'd you say?
Schrodinger's. Yes, yeah, you got it.
Oh. OK, good.
I thought you were going to correct me and I was like, my
ego can't handle it today. What's great about having a Home
Office is I feel like you should be able to expense any DoorDash.
So you can, OK, first of all, I'm going to say this and I'm
not a tax advisor. So if someone says Julie said
I'm, I'm not a tax advisor. So that's my legal claim to it.
But like if you do DoorDash and you're having a client meeting
in your Home Office, you can expense it as a company meal.
What if you're having you have DoorDash and your client meeting
is over Zoom? No.
You and you're enjoying your freshly delivered taquitos while
on the Zoom call. OK.
That's probably not going to be an expense that I would ask my
accounting team to like a that's going to be a business expense.
I'm sure other people do it and it's probably fine.
I don't, Jake, I don't know. And also I really don't care.
I just what I care about is I don't want to have to pay more
taxes than what I already pay. So if there is a loophole, I'll
take it there. Is you just need to make a lot
more money and then you won't have to pay any at all.
That's the goal. That's what I'm trying to get.
But also, I just want people to pay me because I'm adorable and
funny and right now they're having to use skills that I like
cultivated over decades of work, and that's a lot.
That's a lot. Should be a cutie pie deduction.
You know? It's like, you know, like, don't
like if. If you are just totes adorbs,
skip the line for. You know I like that, but then
like, how do you quantify totes adorbs?
I think there's probably a table for that.
Oh OK, I did ask one of my financial friends that if I if I
paid myself and just tips would I not have to pay any taxes
because now tips are no longer being taxed.
Interesting. But so I was asking the CFO that
and he just kind of looked at me and I was like, do I need to ask
a tax advisor? He just looked at me and nodded
his head. He didn't say a word.
He's like, I'm not, I'm not touching that with a 10 foot
pole. Like I'm not giving you
anything. So also, I'm pretty sure if I
asked my tax advisor, I'm like, hey, so I'm, I'm going to make
minimum wage. Anything over that I'm going to
pay myself as a tip. Can I like, can we just have
that be my salary? And so that'll be a fun
conversation I have with some savvy folks.
I've thought about doing that if like, you know, negotiating with
contractors to do like housework and like here's the quote of
what it'll take and go, let's cut that in half and I'll I'll
pay you that amount, but half of it's going to be in tips and you
won't get taxed on that half. How about that?
Or like reduce it, reduce it by 25% and I'll pay the majority of
that in non taxable tips. Yeah, also I thought about just
putting the the tip like app on my phone and so whenever like
someone's out and like if I'm having yeah, like there's a
bunch of apps you can put on your phone and you can ask for
tips, whatever. And like, as I'm out with
friends having lunch or, you know, just hanging out with
them, and if I say something witty, if I could just turn
around and give them my phone, if, like, would you like to tip
me on that joke? Yeah.
Come on. I didn't realize that was a
thing. That's oh man, that's that seems
really easy to abuse. Well, so like I use QuickBooks
for my accounting, so I could there's in QuickBooks, there's a
tipping situation. Yeah, but having it on a phone
that way you can just kind of like fire it up and turn it
around to the person. Yeah.
Which honestly, like in the context of what we sometimes,
sometimes talk about, you could have that going at your garage
sale. I mean I I mean if everyone else
is asking for a tip. Why not?
Yeah. And then but again, garage
sales, and I think we've talked about it before, they don't
really get taxed. So like, I don't really know if
I I feel like if you started accepting tips at your garage
sale, it's probably a red flag to the IRS to take a harder look
at your finances. Was though like on on the topic
of taxes and being responsible or irresponsible with.
Is this Is this going to be a sexy episode?
Hop on. We are revolutionizing
transportation. It's a Segway.
Oh no. That's right.
So on the topic of, you know, maybe mismanaging other people's
money, do you have, if you were to like do a mental audit of the
stuff in your possession right now, whether that's at your home
or in a storage unit or something like that, Are any of
those items not yours? And I'm not saying, oh, they're
your husband's and you intend to throw them away when he's not
looking, but they don't belong to you.
There's someone else's, but you've got them.
Yes. And you're saying that was like,
I can hear, like there's a huge smile behind that you seem.
Are you pleased about that or are you like you don't want to
share it? No, because I'm afraid of all
the stories I could tell behind it.
But also, Jake, do you have things that belong to other
people? Yes, I do.
Where is this conversation going?
Well, I, I, I do have. There's one thing in particular
I'd like to talk about. OK.
And I, I can share that. And for me, it's like, oh, we'll
try to keep it in the realm of second hand vintage stuff.
OK. Something you've got that isn't
yours and it is unique. It's vintage, it's antique.
It's it's something that, yeah, you could find it.
Oh, wow. That's on eBay and it's listed
for that. I'm guessing that's what it
would go for, you know, kind of thing.
Yeah, OK. So I have something like that
and I've had it on a shelf here for a while.
OK. And it's like just there's an
interesting thing to look at. It's yours, actually.
See, this is where I was getting.
I'm like, he's going to say he has something of mine and I need
to go get it because it's 14. Thousands of dollars.
Yeah, we're a little too invested in this.
I'm talking about this. And you're getting closer and
closer to the camera. I'm like, you're never this
interested. I'm not.
I was waiting for you to be like, yeah, so own this thing of
our brother Richie. And I'm like, oh God.
I don't care, I. Just second, you said it was
mine and I was like, what could he have that I could possibly
want to force me to drive up there to go get it?
I'm breaking to your house, Jake.
I know your dogs. Yeah.
I know you would. This is something of yours from
way back. It actually has your name on it.
It's oh, I know what it is. Yeah.
Yeah, you do. Can you?
Well, OK, if you're so smart, would you care to share with our
listener what this thing is? The solo listener.
That's right. It is my lunch box from
elementary school. You are correct.
Can you go further? What?
What exactly is this thing? No, because I don't remember
what's on it. You and I had this discussion a
few months ago. Wait, it's on the display in
your hallway, right? Right.
Yeah. You have my lunch box on
display. That's what offends you.
How dare you? Well, part of me is like, what?
It is cool 2 it's mine. Three, you put it on display
like it should be in a museum, and I'm kind of affected.
So yeah, in this scenario, I'm, I'm be rugged and handsome
Indiana Jones, and you're the conniving, you know, French guy
that's working with the Nazis. Oh, I wanted to be What's the
little kids name and Doctor Jones?
Yeah, short round. Short round that is not the name
I was. Going to say no, no and no.
You are not short round in this scenario.
It really doesn't map over in that way.
But he was adorable. Yes, and he would have a
deduction on his taxes. So Lynn?
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camera and if you subscribe to our Patreon, you'll.
See, we don't. We don't have a Patreon folk.
We have a Patreon. There's a lot of nudity.
You should check it out. So this is a Disney metal lunch
box original thing. So at some point lunch boxes
were metal like tin or something like that, and then they became
plastic. So this is from back when all
these things came with a thermos.
We don't have the thermos no more.
Who knows what happened with that.
I wonder where the thermoses ever metal or were they always
plastic? No, they were metal.
Yeah, wow. Whenever you think of like the
original Stanley Thermos, it was a insulated metal type thing.
Now I think for that lunch box, which is clearly mine, it did
have. Now I know the outside of it was
like the the I want to say press 10 but it was a metal but I
don't know like what the insulation if it was a plastic
or if it was metal. There was no insulation on these
things. No insulation though it, this is
kind of a pressed metal, like all the designs on.
It's got all, all sorts of characters on it.
It's all all the classic Disney stuff.
It's all multi colored and everything like that.
And yeah, you run your fingers over it and everything is kind
of raised. Well, I'm also like I'm, I'm I
am very much resorting to like very younger Julie of I want it
back. It's mine.
Yeah, if I hold it up this way, you can actually see your name
in marker on the on the rim. Still it's I look.
So the questions I have around this is like, hey, do you have
something that belongs to someone else?
And if they don't know you have it, is it ethical to go ahead
and sell it? You cannot sell that.
I know you have it. Again, if they don't know that
you have it, if they thought it's like it's, it's lost to
time, it's out of sight, out of mind, like many things that we
hold on to for a long time and become oh wow, I forgot that
thing. I haven't seen this thing in
years. Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle, look
at it for a second and back it goes until you die and someone
else comes across it. You have this thing that person
like, they will never think about it unless they see it.
You know, I mean, part of me is did they forget about it or did
they not want it? So I mean, you do bring up a
good ethical dilemma because I, I also think about it of like,
is it up to a certain dollar value?
But again, it's like, well, if it was $10 today, OK, so let's
take my lunch box again, clarifying word, my lunch box
And you say, Hey, I looked up the resale value of it and
they're going for $100 on eBay. I'm like, oh, that's cool, I
want it. Or you're like, hey, I looked up
the resale value of it and they're going for $4000 at
Christie's. Cool.
I still want it. Like it's, it's mine.
Like my name's on it. It's mine.
But if you're like, yeah, there's no value to it.
Like you can buy it off at eBay for $10.
Like, oh, well, I'm so glad you have my lunch box as home decor
in your house. And then at that point I'm like,
well, again, I'm so I don't know why I'm being so attached to
this lunch box. Well, yeah, I know you've made
it very clear on this on this podcast that you are bloodless
and you don't. You don't care about anything
other than making that coin. You are Little Miss Andrew Tate.
Look at you and. Do not call me that, I will
punch you. Through this.
This computer. So, so, yeah.
What? What?
What is that? So we're like you.
It's the little sister in me that you have something of mine
and now I want it back even. Though.
I wouldn't put it anywhere in my house, OK, let's not use the
lunch box because I can't get off of that.
So part of me is going like, does somebody?
Does somebody want it because they recognize like the values
gone up and they want that money for themselves.
Now here's the other conundrum. In our situation, I did not buy
that lunch box, No. You went through a little bit.
Right. Our parents bought it.
So even though my name is on it, do I own it or does it belong to
our parents? So like, then there's the whole
like who, who actually bought it, like that type of stuff.
Like I hear, I feel like what you're saying is OK part of it.
Like you, it sounds like the ethical thing to do would be to
check with the person, especially if it is a high
dollar value. And I think we have a general
idea, all of us, as to what high dollar value means, right?
So you if, if it's getting past 10 bucks, reach out to the
person. Hey, remember that thing?
Do you want it? Maybe you mentioned what it
might go for, but also, OK, well, there's the monetary value
and then there's the emotional value.
You certainly want to check on that.
Now, you hadn't thought about this thing until I just brought
it up. Now are you responding to the
perceived dollar value or is this like an emotional value
thing for you? I am responding to my older
brother has something of mine and I want it back.
OK, OK, well that that's valid too.
Again, I don't know where I would put it, but yeah, I want
it. But that thing is, is like, hey,
if, if I don't have anywhere to put it, I am glad that you have
it in your house and you enjoy it as home decor.
But don't ever sell it like that.
That heirloom, that really thin metal lunch box, lives in our
family. I finally found something that
you're actually invested in, but I think The funny thing is like
once I give this thing back to you, you're not going to care
about it as much. No, I'm not.
I'm like, cool, you know what I'm going to do is I'm, I still
have my old Polly Pocket. I'm going to put my Polly Pocket
in there. OK.
Yeah, it's, it's just going to be a memento of my childhood.
It's going to live in one little lunch box.
A little nesting doll of plastic toxic memories.
Yes, yes. So this thing depending on the
eBay listing you look at can go for anywhere from 100 like 50 to
120 bucks. Oh, OK.
Yeah, I don't think I would sell it for that because like, I like
it is a pretty cool piece of just art and they're just not
crafted the same anymore. So whenever you originally asked
me like, do I have something that belongs to someone else
kind of in the vintage space, but not maybe not really, I'm
going to say this. My husband and his buddies used
to throw like cookouts, invite the whole neighborhood over,
that type of thing. So in our attic, we currently
have two items that my husband did not buy, but it's considered
communal property among him and his buddies.
But all of his buddies have moved out of the area that we
live in. And so now it's kind of ours,
but we also don't own like quote UN quote own it. 1 is a Nacho
cheese machine. Oh wow.
And the other one is like a movie theater popcorn machine.
Oh man, how much? How much action do those things
see? None now, but back in the day,
whenever they'd have these big blowout parties, like they're
rocking and rolling and, you know, had all this stuff going
on and and I know that those are up in our attic.
I don't see them. I don't go up in the attic, but
I know that they're there and I feel like they're the hunch on
my hunchback of Notre Dame life. And I'm like, it's just weighing
me down knowing that they're up there but.
Whenever I mentioned to him like, hey, do you think we
should get rid of those, the answer is always no.
And is it because it's communal property, like we don't have the
right to get rid of it? I think he's thinking that
someday we will use it again. And I'm like, you know, they
make microwave popcorn. Or we could just like, buy the
big bags of pop. Like, I don't know.
I don't know what he's thinking. He wants another moment in the
sun. Like I can still throw a rager
if razor means, you know, prepared nachos.
Well also like I don't know how well that Nacho cheese machine
was cleaned out after the last party.
I would assume that they it was cleaned up pretty well, but I
don't know for sure. Also The thing is a fire hazard.
It gets really hot because I think one side of it is for
chili and the other side is for cheese, and you have to get a
specific type of both of those things to put in there.
It's not like just any chili or any cheese works in it.
Yeah, it needs to be the right kind of like polyurethane
derivative cheese to get the right consistency that we all
love to know. Yeah, well, and part of me is
going to like, when would I ever use this thing again?
I'm going maybe if I bought an old timey movie theater and
wanted to, like, just sink a bunch of money into a bad
business decision. At least I got a popcorn machine
and a Nacho cheese machine. You're halfway there, really.
That's that's all you really need and the rest just kind of
presents itself. Yeah, yeah.
And I mean, and I think if you wanted to buy them, they're, I
mean, brand new, they're kind of expensive.
But boy do I have a low low price of ticket.
So would you say that like if those things were somehow not in
the attic, would your husband know that they were gone?
I mean say. He would.
He would find out. OK.
And then it would matter to him. Yeah, 'cause it, I mean, like to
access our attic, you have to be within our house.
And so like, I couldn't be like, oh, maybe somebody stole it.
Like no it. Didn't find and like.
Breakthrough the wall to get into the attic to take our
popcorn machine. It was a targeted strike.
That damn Louvre thief strikes again.
Sacra Blue. Yeah, no, nothing like that.
So anyway, and it's also like it's not really taking up space
in the house, but it's also not really ours.
I don't. I don't know who owns it, but we
are stewards of it right now. It's where you got to like maybe
maybe the the trick here, Julie, is to reach out to Doug's pals
and go, how do you guys feel about this thing still being
around though? And they'll go.
What are you even talking about? I don't think that would go over
well because what happens is whenever I message one of his
buddies a question like that, they don't respond to me.
They respond back to him. It's like, hey man, why is your
wife blowing up my. Phone your woman.
So yeah, that's a conversation for my husband and I, but I just
know I'm going to lose that conversation every time.
Well, at least it's in the attic.
It's not like it he has those things parked in the living room
and they're just conversation pieces or something.
For a while we did have them parked in the garage and so at
least they're up in the attic now.
I also they're quite heavy so I don't really know how he got
them up in that. You know, it's just this thing's
been hanging out here and it's been weighing on me.
So I, I wanted to bring it up and along with that question
because I'm sure a lot of other people might have something that
isn't there heirloom or isn't there potentially valuable
thing. And yeah, it seems like the the
cool thing to do would be to bring it up.
Yeah. With somebody, especially if
they've got like the potential for some emotional attachment to
it. Well, and so on a similar topic,
whenever I moved in with my husband right before we got
married, he had an extra Christmas tree in like an
upstairs closet. And so whenever we were selling
that house, moving to our current house and I was packing
up everything and I started counting and we had four
Christmas trees in the house. One of them was mine and the
other three were friends of his that he had just like they
didn't have any storage space. And so they asked him, Hey,
would you hold on to these Christmas trees?
And I was like, well, can we give them back to them?
He's like, how they probably don't want it.
It's been years. I think that's the other thing
too, is that people say, Hey, will you hold on to this?
And then forget years later that they even owned the thing.
Luckily for me, the local elementary school was looking
for some some fake Christmas trees for whatever kind of
decoration or play that they were doing.
So instead of those trees going to the landfilled, I just drove
them down the street to our elementary school.
And I was like, you can use four of them.
And they were like, yeah, I was like, I don't think if any of
them light up, but here you go. They're like, this is perfect.
Yeah, the kids can still string their stuff on there.
That's great. Yeah.
Well, I hope you, like you'd like to bring this back full
circle to the topic of, like, taxes and the IRSI.
Hope you guys at least sent those friends that stored their
trees there a prorated bill. My my husband is not ruthless
like I am. I would wait.
Am I about to get a bill for that lunch kit?
That's where I'm going, yes. Oh my God, this is how you let
me know. You know, it's, I don't know it
like as people kind of canvas their stuff and if you are
planning for a second hand sale of some sort, you come across
something that's not yours and you're not on the outs with
somebody and it's not dangerous to get in contact with them.
And it really seems like they might have some kind of
attachment to the thing. Yeah, do them a solid.
Let them know before you, you know, get rid of the thing.
But that's my tip. So, Julie, I I hope that when
when you do get your hands back on this, you take this to your
next client lunch. I'm going to pack this thing
with some freshly made nachos and popcorn.
No, and I'm going to take it with a tuna fish sandwich.
And what else stinks? Some fresh broccoli.
What's been inside this thing? What did you used to have for
lunch as a kid? Cream of mushroom soup.
Oh, what? Yeah, I would put it in the
thermos and I would have that. Don't judge me.
I loved cream of mushroom soup and I still love it.
I love mushroom soup and probably some goldfish and I'm
sure Mom threw some carrots in there and I probably threw the
carrots away because I hated carrots.
So you know. Yeah, you're really more into
the the slurpable food groups you.
Know I really didn't want to have to chew anything like even
a goldfish. You can put the goldfish cracker
in your mouth and let it. Dissolve.
Yeah, like an orange paste. Yes, yeah, the carrot.
No. You mean anything that a dog
chews to clean their teeth? Now, man, I don't want it unless
it's covered in ranch and then we're talking.
Now you're talking the only the only like school lunch stuff I
can remember was like the cafeteria business we used to
get. I loved steak Finger Day.
Oh yeah, Well, that you just brought that back to me.
Thank. You.
You're welcome. Because it was the steak
fingers, the mashed potatoes, the delicious yeast rolls.
Man, good times. The would, I think it was brown
yogurt, wasn't it? It was more of like a brown
juice. It wasn't like they didn't have
the viscosity to be gravy, it was a brown juice that kind of
got thrown at the potatoes. Let's let's just call it an azu
sauce. So not and not brown juice
because doesn't sound appetizing.
But yeah, it was a very thinned out gravy that they could feed
all the children's with. But the mashed potatoes were on
point. Those rolls were great.
Yeah. Yeah, good times.
Were you a fan of the rectangular pizzas?
Of course, I mean, whenever you got your own pizza, it was
heaven. I loved it.
And I think it became really popular because Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles were they came out whenever you and I were in
elementary school. And so whenever we had Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtle Day at school, we had the pizza for
lunch. It came with the green fortune
cookie, right? And probably like a fruit cup or
something like that. I was going to bring this up
because normally, like your, your standard issue, you know,
general infantry middle school pizza was rectangular.
It perfectly fit the largest rectangle on the lunch tray.
Kind of like consistency and feel and taste of plump wet
cardboard. And it had like the, I guess
little sausage bits were on there and, you know, it, it was
what it was. I was not a fan of it, but
that's what we had. And it would, can consistently
come with an effort at a salad, which would be kind of like a
few, you know, pluck things from an iceberg and a, a, a scrape of
mushroom or something or of a tomato.
Yeah. And corn, you know, it's got to
get the cord on there. Yeah.
So Ninja Turtle Day came out. And I, I mean, it totally worked
on me. I was like, totally in the
crosshairs for this thing. Ninja Turtles.
Yes. The movies.
There's a movie now, and we're having a special lunch at school
in honor of the movie. And I was never, you know,
looking back on it, I was never clear on how that came about.
Was that just our school or was that a marketing gimmick that
happened regionally? How widespread was this?
Because the pizza that day was different.
The pizza was round and they had pepperoni and it was more of a
deep dish kind of thing to it. Yeah.
And we also had corn. I mean, I wouldn't put it past
the evil marketing people that they infiltrated elementary
schools across the nation. I think that's the case of like,
and there was like a like when you said it was a green fortune
cookie. This this sucker was like
vibrant green. Yeah.
Like there was like, like a a Burning Man amount of chemicals
in the dye on that thing. And you opened it up.
And every one of the fortunes is go watch the Ninja Turtles
movies. I was going to do that anyway.
You could give me a different fortune.
No. I remember that.
Golly what a ride man to grow up in the 80s and the 90s with all
those chemicals and processed foods and just propaganda shoved
down our throats. Not what now, you know, like you
guys are growing up in a different time.
Yeah, we didn't have to walk uphill both ways in the snow.
We had to sit through marketing campaigns, propaganda left and
right. It was.
It was great. Like, you guys have it handed to
you easy on TikTok. We used to have to get it in the
cafeteria. Yeah.
So no, I'll get this back to you at some point.
I'll get it. I'll see what I can get for it.
And depending on that, you'll have it back.
I will cut you if that doesn't come back to me eventually.
I believe you. Alright, that's what I got,
Julie. I love it.
Thanks, Jake. Alright, see you.
Bye.