Yard Sale Bloodbath

Jenny and I had received an invitation for Libby (who you might remember from the Buffalo Girl sale) to participate an outdoor yard sale with a few other women. Since we have both accumulated a bunch of crap we need to get rid of, we were up for it.

I have to be honest here –- I had a shitty week and was getting a little stressed about finding the time to price the carload of stuff that I was able to get together. Add that the forecast was calling for rain and sun. How does a person plan for what could be a really nice day or pouring down rain?!?

On Friday I had gotten through some of it, but I was pretty much saying that I wouldn’t price any more. I didn’t want to waste the time to price everything if we were gonna get rained out and I would just have to store it in my basement for another winter. Ehg. Jenny was pretty optimistic that it was all going to work out and it would stay dry, so we each loaded up our cars on Friday night.

Come Saturday morning it was gray and raining. We called Libby who said that we should give it an hour and see how things go. We got some breakfast and had to admit to ourselves that it really wasn’t going to happen. I know when to admit defeat.

To add insult to injury, we hadn’t looked up any sales happening in the area, with the exception of one that Jenny happened to remember seeing on Craig’s as she was posting our ad. A local art program, BRAT, was having a fundraising/moving sale, so we headed over there. I had never been into the space before, I remember it had been a blind and window treatment place for a long time. I have probably walked by it many times since I have lived in Ballard.

There was some decent stuff there, but since we had both been in purge mode, we weren’t really feeling like bringing more stuff home. We started chatting away with the guy who was running the sale and after I mentioned that our sale had been rained out he said we were the second people to tell him that today. He then offered to let us bring our stuff down and join his sale. Really, this happened! After Jenny and I looked at each other for a second in disbelief we decided to go for it.

I called Libby telling her to come on over and that we needed to kick him down 10% of our proceeds for his art school. She seemed confused but interested and said she would grab one of the other rained-out sellers and come over.

We ran back to the house, updated our Craigslist ad with the new address, and drove both our crap-filled cars back to the sale. By the time we started to unload it was getting close to 10:00 –- pretty late for a rainy day sale, but WTF did we have to lose, right? We commandeered some empty space and quickly started putting out our stuff.

The guy doing the sale ended up being really cool and he seemed happy to have someone else to B.S. with during the sale.

Libby and Michelle showed up after a while — to shop, not to sell. They said they were going to try and plan an indoor group sale in a couple of weeks instead. A girl we had seen at the crazy vintage sale came by and we talked for a while about how amazing that sale was. Karl eventually showed up as well and couldn’t believe I was using Babee Tenda for a display table.

We only had a few people come to the sale and really neither of us made a bankroll, but we had a good time and laughed about being invited to another person’s sale. As Jenny said, “This would only happen to us.”

I took a few boxes to the Goodwill and we both packed up some of our better items for the possible future sale and called it a day around 1:00.

Last weekend’s sales were phenomenal. The crazy vintage sale, plus a pretty good haul for the rest of the day. We even got the weekend started early with Part 2 of the vintage sale — the seller posted another ad mid-week saying she’d uncovered another few boxes of items plus a bunch of vintage patterns and magazines, so Meghan and I showed up at the crack of 7:30 on Friday and each hauled away another boxful!

This Saturday though … it was bad. So bad, I really debated whether to even give you our usual runthrough and pathetic assortment of photos. I mean, how many times do you want to hear us ragging on someone’s bad free box? (Or in this case, free crusty shopping cart that has probably been stowed away in their garage since the ’80s?)

Well, maybe you do want to hear about it. (You’re here, aren’t you?) At least this particular sale had a few interesting items. Meghan bought a handful of things here, although we left this gem behind (figuring the box had to the best part … and it was too large to be purchased purely on those grounds.)

This sale was the first one we hit, and even though it wasn’t that great it was way better than most of the others. I mean, you think that free box up above was bad? Try this.

This was outside an estate sale that we hit purely because we needed to kill ten minutes before another estate sale. We could have just waited in the short line, but Annoying Jewelry Guy was there. We both felt that we would rather get there later and possibly miss out on the best stuff than have to spend ten minutes listening to that doofus. Unfortunately, the sale we ended up at was a total dud. The house was cool, but that was about it.

We headed back to the first estate sale, which was now open. They had some interesting clothes … for crazy prices. Crazy! Shoes were $10, dresses were $15, “vintage tank tops” (whatever the hell those are) were $8. No thank you.

The basement had some odd items, like this creepy-ass calendar. The inside featured way-too-graphic drawings of craggly cartoon characters getting it on. Gross!

While in the basement I heard a guy talking about how some item had been in his family for at least 25 years. (Not that calendar, although I suppose it actually must have been, too.) We had been wondering which estate sale company put it on and why their prices were so crazy. The fact that it was run by the family explained a lot. Meghan ended up pulling two vintage corsets out of a box that said everything was $2, and when she went to check out the woman said “$10 each.” Huh? When Meghan explained that the box said $2, the woman harrumphed. “Unless priced.” I guess they had tiny $10 price tags on them somewhere. Meghan somehow restrained herself from throwing them at the woman in disgust, but she didn’t hold back from announcing loudly that the sellers were on crack as we tromped out the door, extra-glad we hadn’t bothered to stake it out early.

That was probably the most annoying of the sales we hit, but it’s not like any of them were all that great. We went to one sale where they had chickens wandering around, which was a nice diversion. Meghan picked up a bunch of books from one woman who seemed to have every book ever written about understanding your dog, listening to your dog, talking to your dog, thinking like your dog, and so on. And we each got a few other things that I can’t even remember (because the day’s haul wasn’t even worth a trunk photo). However, as bad as it got, at least neither of us was even remotely tempted to pick up this crazy purse that looks like a Fender Stratocaster.

One of the more interesting sales we stopped at was at a senior center. Rather than being a big rummage sale, there were about six or seven tables set up, run by individual people, like a mini-fleamarket. I got the feeling maybe they did this on a regular basis and brought their stuff out over and over. Not that I had been there before, but it just had that vibe. They also had a barrage of very elaborate hand-lettered signs outside.

While we were perusing the goods one seller said something about Obama, and one of the other senior sellers said, “Don’t talk to me about Obama. I’m for McCain.” Oh boy, here we go, I thought. Then he added, “Yeah, I’m for more war!” and everyone laughed, relieved he wasn’t actually going to go into a pro-McCain tirade. He then started joking about how if McCain was in office it would be the Bore Wars. (Or it’s possible he was making some arcane reference to the Boer Wars, but if so, it went way over my head.) I was sad that there were no old-lady baked goods to be had, but Meghan and I picked up a book each: she got something by Timothy Leary and I bought The Vinyl Closet: Gays In The Music Industry. All in all, definitely not your run-of-the-mill senior center sale experience.

In between complaining about the lack of scores, we talked a lot about some of the folks we see out at sales. There are some regulars that we love, but lots of them just seem to be really unhappy folks. The super-competitive ones are the worst. There are a lot of people who seem to be way too hung up on who’s going to get to the good stuff first, stressing out over what they might be missing out on or what someone else got instead of them. I think anyone who goes to sales on a regular basis can get caught up in that mentality from time to time (I’m no exception!), but you have to get over it. There is plenty of good stuff out there, and there is no way you can be everywhere at once, so you just have to take your chances. “Let go and let god,” Meghan remarked … with uncharacteristical serenity, but she had a good point. “Or let go and let goddess,” she continued. “Or hey! Let go and let Garage Sale Goddess!”

We had been talking earlier about the Garage Sale Goddess. This is not actually a mystical deity that we pray to for good scores, but an actual woman we’ve seen a few times who goes to sales wearing a Garage Sale Goddess t-shirt. The last time I saw her she was asking a seller how much his toaster was. “$30,” he joked, and she shot back, “The Garage Sale Goddess says that’s too much!” He said she could have it for $2, and she bought it. As she was walking away the seller commented, “Enjoy the toaster. It makes special sparks when you use it.” She looked concerned for just a second, then strode off, happily chatting about herself in the third person to her friend all the way back to her car. She was definitely a goofball, but at least she seemed to be having fun, rather than treating yard sales like some kind of talent/endurance contest to see who can find the rarest, most underpriced item.

So, that was pretty much our day. I don’t know if it’s a sign that the true sale season is starting to wind down, or if we were just due for a strike-out day after the run of great weekends we’ve had lately. Maybe a little of both!

Meghan blogged about the amazing vintage clothing sale — MAN was it great! The four of us (Karl, Leslie, Meghan, and I) were all flying high after dropping off our spoils and hitting the bank to restock our cash supplies. After a quick coffee stop we headed up to the Olympic Manor neighborhood sale, not long after the 9:00 starting time. One of the first things we saw was this festive display.

Olympic Manor sales can be really great, but a lot of them are just new boring crap. Or in some cases, new and kind-of-fascinating-yet-not-at-all-desirable crap.

We made the rounds for a while, finding mostly things we didn’t want. I was thinking of “Got any jewelry?” guy when I saw this array of fake Chanel jewelry, artfully arrayed (for some inexplicable reason) on the rung of a stepladder.

I think Meghan might have been the first one to actually make a purchase … when she found these crazy star-spangled ski pants.

I was so stunned by those that I almost missed this gigantic Lego wall in the same garage. (I wonder if they had to put that sign up after getting too many inquiries?)

One sale I was excited to hit was the final occurrence of an estate sale we went to a couple months ago — they had held several sales, emptying out the house section by section, and were now unloading the very last of it.

There was still a lot of stuff left … like this box full of furry critters!

There was also a free pile.

It wasn’t that great (though Leslie did grab that freaky book), but it was exponentially better than the free pile at the house next door.

I think we all ended up buying stuff at the estate sale, although hell if I can remember what I got. Meghan bought two quilts for $10 apiece, and Leslie picked up a somewhat disturbing doll. She excitedly told us that it’s a Vogue Brikette — famously used as “Talky Tina” in that creepy episode of the Twilight Zone.

Most of the streets of Olympic Manor are only wide enough for one car to drive down at a time, and it was getting so jammed up that driving around making us crazy, so we moved on to other sales. This one didn’t look very promising.

Meghan said we should skip it, but Karl and Leslie were already out of the car heading inside. I paused to take one more picture of the desolate-looking exterior.

When I walked in, the sellers were giving someone a price for something … then one of them looked at me and said, “And that’ll be twenty-five cents for that picture you took of our sign!” I was a little flustered, but explained that we have a collection of yard sale sign photos. This is actually true, and I figured they didn’t need any more details than that. Their sale was completely fruitless (Meghan’s instincts are almost always right on these matters) and as our crew quickly started filing back out towards the door, I fished out a quarter and put it on their table. They were amazed and tried to make me take it back.

As we got back into the car, a girl pulled up in front of us and got out of her car, heading to the sale. Meghan leaned her head out the window and quietly said, “Don’t do it.” The girl looked at her questioningly and Meghan said, “Don’t go in. Really. It’s bad.” We have tried to warn people away from horrible sales before, but they never seem to believe us. This was the first time the person realized we were really doing them a favor and just drove away.

After a few more unremarkable sales we hit a church rummage sale, which looked like it would be a bust, but turned out to be all right. They had a pretty fun book selection.

We hit some more sales, then went to one that had advertised as having funky vintage clothing. It looked great and Meghan got excited thinking it was a sale she had been to before where she scored.

Sadly, their prices were perversely high. I saw a tag for $75 on one item and was thinking it couldn’t be the real yard-sale price, but it was! Most things were a bit less … like $20. That just wasn’t going to cut it, especially when we’d gotten all those great clothes for $3 each just a few hours earlier.

A couple more stops brought us to another sale with higher-than-normal prices, but it seemed somewhat justified since she had super high-end stuff. I’m sure a lot of things had already been purchased, but there were some cool items left. Meghan purchased a pair of purple suede Manolo Blahnik pumps for $40, which seems like a pretty killer deal … especially if they actually fit her. They are about a size too big and she was talking about trying to make them work with an insole. I think she may be in denial about the realities of shoe sizing, but I hope I’m wrong and that she can make them work. I mean, that’s gotta be way less than 10% of their original price, so who can blame her for dreaming?

We kept going for another hour or so, and found a few more things to buy … and a lot more that we didn’t. Here is a selection of some of the crazy and unwanted items that we found.

And here is the trunk at the end of the day … man, what a glorious mess!

Jenny sent out a group email to me, Leslie, and Karl about a sale where a woman that we knew was selling loads of vintage clothing, all for $3 apiece. At first I thought she was talking about the woman that has irritated me twice at her sales (along with her husband managing to irritate me too). Not excited. Jenny tried to soothe my nerves by explaining who it was. Then I thought it was the woman from the first sale last week that had tons of vintage. I didn’t find much last week, why would I care if the leftovers were all $3? Still not excited.

We met at my house at 8:15 on Saturday and headed to the sale. As soon as Jenny told me the address I knew who the woman was. I never seem to remember her name, but she has come to our sales and we have gone to her sales over the years. When we see her at sales she is always cool.

Her ad said it would be over 1000 pieces ranging from the ’20s on up, and sure enough … OMG doesn’t even cover it.

The sale was about 10 blocks from my house — a good thing, since we could barely get the trunk closed when we were done. We all bought so much stuff! Everything was $3 — all logic went out the window. We did get there before any wacko-pickers and I am not sure if it even would have mattered, since there was so much stuff. Some of it was really amazing and I’m sure there was more stuff we didn’t even unearth.

Why did she have this much stuff? Well, we have seen her at sales for years and I guess she was getting out of the vintage clothing biz. Her man seemed very excited about the extra room in their house being free of clothing.

The box that I purchased was so big that it had to be forceably pushed into the trunk. The photo below only shows me and Jenny’s hauls … Karl and Leslie had another box each that they just had to set on their laps for the ride home.

It was the first time we have filled the whole car on the very first sale and needed to go home to unload. (We did hit a bunch more sales, Jenny will fill you in on those later.)

My best score is a crazy bathing suit that fits me perfect. Sadly, I found a black velvet formal that was too tight and I wanted to cry a little.

This was a complete sale high!

Both Jenny and I are on the one week count-down to Oly Manor and that is always a nice to thing to look forward to when it’s a holiday weekend … Labor Day weekend is usually pretty bad for sales.

We hit a sale that maybe you remember from the rainy carport last year.

This time was good, but not as amazing. Tons of vintage and oddball items.

Last time I picked up so many cool items that I was thinking I would really score something. We both picked up a few things — Jenny got a pretty cool 1979 book about David Bowie — but nothing super amazing.

One of the next sales unearthed the most amazing/gross/interesting/heinous jean jacket I have ever seen.

I don’t think I need to mention this, but cow arms? Don’t most women want to appear thinner? Cow print doesn’t give the illusion of thin, no?

AND (I know that really is enough, right?) the guy was putting up his sale signs with an electric screwdriver. Wouldn’t that harm your trees that you probably put a ton of time into growing?!?

The fact that most of the sales we hit were crappy was really okay, since we didn’t expect very much. But we did hit one really big winner.

Some woman who had been an art school teacher had died a few years ago and the family had just pulled all of her stuff outside in yard sale fashion. She had some really crazy taste, and had loved hands. There were tons and tons of hand items.

I picked up so many great things. Three pairs of ’70s Frye boots, tons of vintage clothing. To be honest, I have no idea what Jenny purchased. I just was so in the yard sale zone. I ended up with three tall kitchen bags filled for $30.

We ended up hitting a different area, taking time to sit down and have a snack (something that we rarely do) and hitting a bunch of overall bad sales. Like the sale with the life size Lord Of The Rings stand up.

And one of the more oddball items we have seen at a sale: the portable blacklite for all those on the go! A travel black light? It even looks like it’s for your auto. And they had two of them. WTF?

One of the last sales we hit was a supposed 10-family sale that turned out to be four houses, including an old woman with kitty ears on (I shit you not). The next house had a guy that serenaded us with his clarinet. It was sort of cool and freaky at the same time.

If we hadn’t found that one great sale early on it would have been a pretty fruitless day, but we managed to fill up the trunk.

By the way, I stopped at one sale on Monday. While I was there, one of my sale nemesises came and said what he always says: “Got any jewelry?” The seller said she had some carved Bakelite bracelets earlier, but they were already gone. My heart sank a little at missing out on those, but it was awesome to see the pained expression on his face!