I really don't remember it so dark saling this time last year. I felt so pathetic out there this morn solo-saling at my first stop making purchases solely by the rays of one landscaping lamp. (Yes, my almost ex-friend, Jane's daughter STILL has soccer games that conflict with our Team YSM! What the f*@%?) It was truly pitch black out there! In fact it was so dark...How dark was it?......It was so dark I bought a painting with not one but two frigging huge gashes in it! Yeah! That dark! How will I ever recover that bill again?! Bullshit!! Well, in all honesty, I did buy it for the really pretty old frame it was in but still! When did we move to Iceland?
So, after my first stop, I was still in a good mood because I had no idea at that point that I had purchased a painting by Edward Scissor Hands so I pulled up to #2 all giddy. At this sale I got a great drop leaf side table that's unusual because it has three sides. (Painted and shabbitized it should be stupendous!) I also got a black hinged thingy that you put frames on if you don't want to hang them. I'd been wanting one of these too and then voila! Thank you, Yard Sale Gods! It's bitter sweet, though, because I got it home and on my mantel where I have a painting from a few weeks ago and I put the two together thinking it would be like when peanut butter first met jelly but now I don't like the way it sits off the ground exposing the base so just as I'm truly trying to minimalize, I definitely think I need to put some wonderful new score in front of it. I just don't believe there's a cure for what I've got. I'm a terminal collector. Please don't send flowers but money to my foundation (preferably small bills).
Back to saling....so, the sales that followed were crap. Literally each sale had one table with maybe ten things on them. Did they need $10 THAT badly? (And by $10 I'm pushing it!) It was still so darn dark, though, that my stops couldn't be drive-bys. I was forced to get out of my warm van only to be let down by their display of bad Walmart purchases. I was just too cold to force my usual polite browse, however. The up side to the darkness is that no one can identify the strange lady who bolts in and out of their driveways.
Unfortunately I had half an hour to kill before my 8 o'clockers. I went to a church anyway hoping they might let us in early. Not a chance. So there I was on line with the freaks. One old man had on THE brightest polyester red pants (and white patten leather shoes) I have ever seen! (His equipment had to be cold as hell!) Another old lady kept motioning her arms like she was landing a plane. Maybe she had arthritis and now I'm going deeper into hell but I just wanted to tackle her and make her stop. Then some crazy looking lady with weird hair and an even weirder accent started to talk to me. She was saying the normal stuff you say when you engage in small talk but the volume with which she was engaging really set her off on my crazy meter. Even Iced Nuts and the lady doing the Y-M-C-A dance were looking at us. I tried to speak softly to compensate but I just wasn't convinced I wasn't setting off their crazy meter as well. All I kept thinking about was the time I got a tad tipsy at a bachelor auction fundraiser and I decided to talk to the mayor about my very strong opinions about our local politics and I thought I made some fantastic, poignant points about the future of our beloved city but as it turns out, Jane was there and was concerned that I was getting a cold because CLEARLY my ears were clogged because I was screaming at the poor man. Why was I doing that? And the better question is, why didn't Jane intervene? Isn't that what friends are for? And ironically, you'll never guess who was feeding me all that damn champagne.....a local attorney! Not only did he generously dole out bubbly but little tins with mints and his number on them! Isn't that entrapment?! I NEED TO TALK TO THE MAYOR!!!!!!!
I can't stop laughing.....where the hell was I? Ummm....Oh! The church! So finally they let us in and it was amazing!!!! So much stuff!! I got a great old step stool that's a chair (you know the ones) in my favorite color red, I got a magazine rack for my daughter, another magazine rack that's wall mounted (should be great when it's shabbitzed [in the future, please insert jazz hands whenever I say the word 'shabbitized', ok?]), and lastly I got yet another vintage red felt elf. I just frigging LOVE them! Not much else these days can put a smile on your face for 5 cents! What can I say? I'm a cheap date!
So that about wraps it up. Not a day for the history books but sometimes, folks, the journey is the destination. I spent $9.05 and was thoroughly entertained! And hell, I got some great parting gifts to boot! Oh the life of a saler! Now I must attend to my mantel. There has to be SOMETHING in this house I can use! If not there's always next week..........
