REI Garage Sale
We don't get why REI doesn't mention it on their website (or...considering the numbers involved, maybe we do), but now is the time to get to REI and get your ticket to the upcoming Garage Sale.
If you're a member, go downstairs to the Rentals department, pay a dollar, and you get to pull an orange slip of paper from a sealed Rubbermaid tub. On it there's a number between 1 and 7,000. You can bring in up to five people on a ticket, but you have to tell them when you buy the ticket how many people you're bringing. Shoppers will be let in the store by number, with no guarantee that everyone will get in. We kid you not, that's the process.
We must have seemed befuddled, because the gentleman ahead of us in line took pity when he heard what a craptastic number we drew and he gave us a much better number from his stack. If you're a Vegas freak, it would make sense to keep shelling out the dollars and pull 'til you get a good number, we suppose. (Our number, five thousand something, was so craptastic that the kind REI employees simply averted their eyes and said "Oh" when we drew it.) What we did to have such good karma that a stranger gave us a ticket, we have no idea.
The ticketed-members-only REI Garage Sale starts at 8 am, Saturday, March 5. Tickets are $1 and are on sale now. Store employees suggest calling ahead to find out when your number is up. The sale opens to the public on Sunday the 6th.
