Yard Sale Chickens

I had the pleasure of going to yard sales this weekend with a friend.  I'm not sure what sort of vibes I was giving off that day, but as my friend gets offered free stuff ("Oh, I see you looking at that lovely [fill in anything here] so you may just have it for free!!!") I am haggling left and right for cheap junk. 
At one sale, we are told that everything on the picnic bench can be ours for $15 OR we can pay $1 a piece.  I pick up three items and say, "How about $2 for all these?"  The elderly gentleman running the sale barks back, "FOUR DOLLARS for that!"
What kind of crazy math is that?
At the next sale, my friend picks up a brand new Pottery Barn vase (price tag still on, $20 value!) and the grandmother running this sale chimes, "You can have that! It's free."  I pick up the blue chicken seen in the photo and offer fifty cents (generous, IMO) and the lady grimaces and shakes her head.  She explains that a few dollars is more like what she had in mind.

--Back up and read that sentence about Pottery Barn again.-- 

I pick up the orange tchotchky in the picture (I don't even know what it is, but it looks chickeny enough for me) and offer a dollar for both of them.  She begrudgingly takes the money and then makes it pretty clear I better leave. 
At the next yard sale, my friend gets free curtains and a matching switch plate thrown in as a bonus.
*sigh*