yard sales, oct. 17.

Sometimes I think that I should start taking my camera to yard sales so that I can snap pictures of interesting things I see, but do not buy.  Given the amount of stuff that I've been putting on display the past few weeks, you might be surprised to find that there are things I actually leave for other people.  But it's true.  You can find lots of things at yard sales that are not lamps, Star Trek movies, or wicker soldier helmets.  But then I think about how I would have to carry around my camera all the time, and I sorta kinda on purpose forget my camera every Saturday morning.

I wish I had not remembered to forget my camera this morning, because there was something awesome, and I did not buy it.  Why didn't I buy it?  Because I can't even play the freaking accordian, that's why, and $125 is too much for an instrument that I don't play.  Now, $50 would have been mighty tempting.  If it had been $50, I would have looked longingly at it for a long time, carefully examining the felt-lined case, caressing the cherry red finish, and then offered $30.  Sometimes it is a blessing that things cost too much money, because otherwise I would buy them.  And then I would have to store it in the closet next to my unicycle. 

The people who had the accordian had lots of other cool things, most of which I did not buy.  I only bought a book and a purse.  I didn't even buy the giraffe-shaped teapot.  You guys should be so proud of me for resisting the teapot, especially considering that my resolve was so weakened after not buying the accordian.  Only at a yard sale will you ever think the thought "Well, I didn't buy the accordian, so I can treat myself and buy this giraffe teapot."  I think the people must have shopped at vintage consignment stores.  Their prices were too high for them to be yard salers.  

We hit one sale that had 15 large boxes of DVDs for a dollar apiece.  I don't consider myself to be particularly movie-savvy.  I'm about average, really.  But I had not heard of 95% of those movies.  They were mostly modern American movies.  I can only assume that they were really terrible, the kind of thing the studio makes in two weeks on a really small budget because they're bound to make enough back just by selling 10,000 copies from the Wal-Mart discount bin.  A long time ago, people used to make terrible horror movies in, like, days.  They didn't have to be good, because they were cheap, and people just wanted something to see.  You could be depressed that there is a whole industry based on making something that only has to be good enough, but the silver lining here is that we will never run out of bad movies to make fun of.

As it was, we picked up some old baddies.
Invasion Inner Earth
How Awful About Allen
Hercules Against the Moon Men
The Witch's Curse
Missile to the Moon
Dementia 13
Carnival of Souls

I bought a huge box of dishes for my sister, who has been looking for some lightweight, hard to break Corelle dishes so that her children can finally start earning their keep and setting the table.  I (or rather she) got 16 dinner plates, 16 cereal bowls, and 8 bread plates for $35.  I described that event all in one little sentence, but in actuality it took half an hour to call her up, ask if she wanted them, try to describe them, take a picture of the plates with my phone and send it to her, then discuss how much she was willing to pay, and finally make the deal with the seller, who was probably amused by the whole spectacle.  And she won't even get them for another month, because she lives in Tennessee.  I told my mom about this score, to which she replied, “You’re a good person to know.”  When she makes these sort of odd and sweet statements, she reminds me of my grandmother, who pretty much only says odd and sweet statements.  Will I be like that when I’m old?

And here are some random purchases.  I've taken an interest lately in kitchen linens.  I like their homey scenes and the fact that they feel soft, as opposed to hand towels, which is what I had been using in the kitchen.  I’m going to paint the paper towel holder, as right now it looks like someone was using it for a drop cloth.  I also got a silver tray, which I have absolutely no use for.  I mean, in all honesty, no one in the world has ever needed a silver tray.  But these things happen at yard sales.  Sometimes things call to me.  It is actual silver, made by Oneida, and was $.50.  It may end up in the Goodwill box in six months, or I may find a use for it yet.  Maybe someone I know desperately wants a silver tray just like this, and then they, too, will think that I’m a good person to know.

 

You probably don't know what this is, but this is Sputnik.  It's actually a little paper holder than you can put on your desk or wherever, but it's meant to look like Sputnik.  How do I know this?  Because I already have one that I bought from the Kansas Cosmosphere.  I paid twelve whole dollars for it, but Josh got this one for a quarter.  How many people had already passed this thing by without even knowing that it was the thing that launched the Soviet Space Program?  Sometimes the things you find at a yard sale feel very serendipitous.  We were uniquely prepared to appreciate this little desk thing, and it sat there waiting just for us to come along and buy it.

Aside from the accordian, I had another yard sale first this morning:  a shoes-off sale.  It was an estate sale, and the people had white carpeting.  They asked that we remove our shoes when we came in, which made me feel like I was at a very authentic Japanese restaurant.  If only someone had tossed knives around, but maybe some other time.  The lady had some fiesta ware.  I know a lot of people collect this stuff, but it's never really interested me until today.  Maybe it was the seventies orange, maybe it was the funky rounded-square shape, maybe it was seeing a whole set together as opposed to random individual pieces, but I really liked it.  She also had a seltzer bottle like what a clown would use as a spray gag, which was very tempting to Josh.

The lady liked cats.  Usually, when I say that someone had an estate sale and they liked cats, that means that the house had an overpowering stench.  But this was not the case here, so maybe the cats had to take off their shoes when they came in.  She did have several pieces of cat artwork and lots of feline books.  It reminded me of being age nine or so, when I was in the full throes of a little girl cat obsession.  Some of the art was neat - vintage ads for cat food and the like.  But some of it was just pictures of cats.  The little girl in me would have loved all of that, because to me, the quality of the product didn't matter, but if felines were involved, then I was all over it.  I like to think that my tastes have matured over the years.

It also reminded me that my niece, who I hear is very interested in kitties, has a birthday coming up.  I couldn't bear to buy her any of the art, though.  She probably would not appreciate the vintage ads, and I couldn't bear to buy what looked like a framed calendar picture.  And trust me, I know what framed calendar pictures of cats look like.

We did see one other thing worth mentioning:  the most amazing lamp ever.  It looked like a giant flowering plant, and after studying it for five minutes (while I was taking pictures of dishes with my phone), even Josh thought it was awesome.  He originally dismissed it as being hideously seventies.  I wish I could describe its incredible beauty to you, but I cannot do it justice.  Luckily for me, it had already been sold, no doubt for upwards of $100.  If I had to choose between that lamp and the accordian…that’s a choice that no yard saler should ever have to make.

I have got to start taking my camera along.  So that you may see amazing lamps, even when I can’t buy them.