Yard Sale Bloodbath

Jenny was out of town this week, so it was just me and Karl. Friday was a massive bust. Both of us ended being disgusted with the whole idea of going to sales before 9:45 AM. It was so bad that it’s not even worth the time to talk about how bad it was.

I was wondering if we should even stay on the North End for sales on Saturday, but in the end there seemed to be tons of sales. Folks have started to take the whole “wacky Craigslist ad thing” to a new level. Things have changed from years ago when Jenny and I tried to put the word “craptastic” into a classified yard sale ad in the paper, and the word was refused by the woman working the classifieds.

One sale listed “Odd, interesting and blatantly normal items for sale!” (Isn’t that just about every single sale we go too?!) And free pen with every purchase! We did hit this sale and the woman was very aggressive about trying to get both of us to take a pen. I had seen their sign on Friday night and liked how they said the sale was better than their block letters.

Karl said he would arrive at 8:30, and at 7:50 I drove to hit some 8 a.m. sales, but boogied back to make sure I was at my house at 8:30. Karl on the other hand was running late, because he forgot the list. Later on he confessed that he also hit a few early morning sales that I think contributed to him being 20 minutes late. Why am I not surprised?

One of the first sales we hit was about three blocks from my house and I couldn’t resist sneaking a photo of the eagle blanket (a la 9/11, or is it more politically correct to say Sept. 11th?)

I thought the sale was pretty lame. I did see they had the sale again on Sunday. By Monday afternoon they wised up and created a huge free pile.

Then across the street we hit a very long driveway sale. Jenny and I had hit a sale here five years ago that was really good, but both Karl and I hightailed it out of there quick this time.

The yard sale and BBQ for Tilted Thunder Roller Derby was a must.

They had tons of stuff, most of which they hadn’t put out yet, but I wanted to give them some cash to help them pay for practice time.

We hit a few more okay sales, hardly blogworthy, but okay. Then an “ally” sale.

Karl made some comment about how that “would really bug English Major Jenny.” Then in true Jenny style I took the sign home with me. I was pretty stoked to find a small Le Creuset dutch oven for $10.

Karl kept wanting to hit a sale that started on Friday, and I was thinking if it’s so good why didn’t we hit it on Friday. Right? Well, she posted her ad after we already left for sales, and she told us at the sale that she had forgot to put the address in the ad.

The sale had black velvet paintings, Elvis, vintage clothing and tons of other fun oddball stuff.

Sadly, she was selling stuff to pay for her dog to get surgery.

One of the last sales we hit was a couple moving to Hawaii. Karl pointed and said “Look, Jay Reatard” while laughing. For the low low price of $35 was a crappy Flying V. Hmmm, should I buy it? Within about three minutes I called Jay and purchased the guitar. Karl thought this was a funny course of events.

Our last sale was the above mentioned “Free Pen Sale.” Okay, since I was called a bitch on the blog this week I almost feel bad saying this, but that is sort of the point of this blog, right? Anyway, at every sale there is a point when you should pack it up and go get lunch. Instead people become kooky with yard sale vibes by projecting their boredom onto the customers. In this case getting upset when someone won’t take a free pen.

An interesting day, not the most fruitful, but interesting.

Saturday we had two guest stars: Karl (who almost doesn’t count at this point) and my little sister Lily who was visiting from Berkeley. There didn’t seem to be anything starting at 8:00, so we met up at 8:30 and headed out. The first few sales we hit were pretty unremarkable, except that we could not seem to get off the same sale route as this woman who we’ve seen around before. Every sale we hit, she was there. I feel like I need to also add that she was wearing an amazing amount of blush. Anyway, other than that the only notable incident was one of the sellers saying sincerely as we left, “Thank you for shopping at my home.”

We hit one sale that seemed to have a lot of stuff. I was amused by some of the stuff, like a t-shirt that said “I have a black belt in keeping it real,” but didn’t find anything I actually wanted to own. Karl bought some CDs and as we drove away, he told us the seller was a well-known local radio DJ (who none of the rest of us had recognized). No big deal, except the guy was selling promo CDs — technically a big no-no! We were all pretty surprised by that.

Nearby was a sale that wasn’t supposed to start until 10. They didn’t quite have all their stuff out yet, but were pretty much open for business.

I had been fascinated by the ad for this sale, which read in part: “We are young, cool and hip and are selling all of our young, cool, hip material possessions. We are gypsies and pirates, pin-up girls and fairies. All of our clothes suggest as much. You will want them when you see them.”

There were no pin-up girls or pirates in sight, but the guy could maybe pass for gypsy-ish. And as for fairies?

She was cool about letting us take a picture of her wings (which she had made — pretty sure they weren’t being sold). I attempted to get my sister to buy a t-shirt with a big pot leaf on it and said in Spanish, “Don’t drink and drive, smoke and fly!” but she somehow managed to resist.

After a few more boring sales we made our usual coffee and pastry stop. Across the street from the cafe was this sign.

Meghan and Karl went in and reported back that no cool stuff was actually encountered.

It was shortly after this that we headed to an estate sale. Its ad had seemed heavy on the tools and “guy stuff,” which isn’t usually our thing, but we thought we’d check it out. Now, many of the streets in our neighborhood are really only wide enough for one car. Most people manage to figure out what to do if there are two cars driving at once: one of them moves over and lets the other one pass. Well, we turned down the street and there was a guy just sitting in the middle of the street. We pulled over so he could drive past us, but he just sat there. Meghan was waving at him to move forward, yelling “Come ON!!!” even though there’s no way he could have heard. We couldn’t tell what his problem was. Eventually he just pulled his car over and parked it near where he had been idling. She was ready to kill. And after all that, there was a line to get in the sale.

There was a yard sale across the street so we checked that out for a minute. This was about the best thing there.

We headed back up the street to our car, and who starts coming along in his car? The bad driving guy! Meghan did something I am still laughing about: she walked into the street and strolled ahead of the guy, just taking her time. I joined her once I realized what was going on. The guy yelled something about how we should use the sidewalk and we both screamed “LEARN TO DRIVE!!!” I’m not sure he even knew why we were messing with him, but we felt slightly vindicated.

Time to move to a different neighborhood. At one sale, we found a bunch of still sealed wedding music CDs — like for DJs to have sappy songs at the ready. They had titles based on what the songs were recommended for: Bride and Groom’s First Dance, Father and Bride, and so on. I looked at the Mother and Groom one and was shocked to find Guns ‘N Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” This seemed truly demented. We all tried to envision what a groom dancing with his mom to that song would look like. I would be so happy if I saw that at a wedding.

Next we hit a sale where a huge inflatable snowman was flopping around in the yard.

The sellers seemed pretty friendly, and they had some, um … interesting items.

I bet someone snagged that, but I’m guessing these videotapes were still there at the end of the day.

I found a packet of really cheesy religious stickers and joked to my sister that I should buy them and stick them on Karl. “You should!” she said. They were a quarter, so I figured it was worth it just for the laugh. I managed to stick a “Hooked on Jesus!” sticker on Karl’s arm without him noticing, but I was cracking up so bad I almost couldn’t stand it. I probably didn’t make it two minutes before I had to point it out to him. Meghan gave me a hard time about how I should have just waited it out. In theory I agreed, but I just couldn’t do it.

Next we went to a sale being held at a vintage costume store. They had racks of clothes spread out in the yard.

There was some great stuff there! But sadly, almost all of it had major condition issues. I guess that’s why they were parting with some of these items.

There were also some boxes of miscellaneous fun crapola.

Meghan picked up a cool vintage planter, some lucite pumps, and a couple of trashed dresses that were cheap and possibly salvageable.

I had noticed that the horrible deck sale (home of the bucket of undergarments) from a couple weeks back was happening again and made sure not to put that one on our list. Unfortunately though I didn’t recognize another repeat address and we ended up back at the freak sale from a few weeks before that — the place we encountered the boxes of porn mags and the woman with the lotion smeared on her face and shirt pulled up over her hair. She looked downright normal this time, but the sale was just as bad. Scads of horrible CDs, and some things we remembered seeing before, like this freaky-eyed doll.

And they still had plenty of questionable magazines.

Much as I would have loved to read “Unbelievable Tattoos — On A Woman” we left without buying anything.

It was getting to be time to call it a day so we headed back towards home, but hit a few more sales on the way. At one of them we encountered one of the oddest items I’ve seen at a sale … at least in recent memory.

Don’t strain your eyes trying to read that — here’s a close-up.

Shockingly, someone was choosing to part with this item. They were also parting with this bacon container, which cracked me up — especially the label claiming it “prevents food interaction.” Because I’m always concerned about what my groceries might be getting up to in the fridge when I’m not looking.

We thought this was a sale, then realized it was just a pile of free stuff. Although I suspect these people are soon going to have to face the fact that there’s a trip to the dump in their future.

The last sale we went to was a big one. As I was looking around, Meghan came up and said, “There’s a sign over behind that tree that is really, seriously messed up.” I figured I’d check it out when I was done browsing around. I took my time, and eventually sauntered over to where she had pointed … only to find possibly the greatest sign we have ever seen at a sale.

This made me laugh so hard that I was literally crying and couldn’t talk for a minute or so. I have no idea how that sign ended up saying “Yard Sard,” but I am sure glad it did.

All in all, it was a downright hilarious day. Lily picked up a few items; Meghan and Karl did most of the trunk filling. I hardly bought anything all day, but I laughed more than I had in a long time!

Oh, Saturday. Oh, Mt. Baker community sale. Home of Sweet and Savory and one of the few reasons that we could be writing a food blog.

Drive over to meet Karl after having a pretty good Friday. Grab a treat and then start hitting some sales. We ran into Spencer from The Anne Bonny. I knew that he was hitting sales in the South end, but since we usually hit Ballard, I never run into him. Chatted for a moment, but we had sales to hit.

At one sale they had tons of clothing in bags and strewn all over the lawn. It wasn’t bad stuff, but only if you are a size 2.

I did pick up a Diane Von Furstenberg silk dress in one of their messes. There was a guy at this sale and I kept thinking I knew him, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Hmm, if I squint and imagine I have on beer goggles will I remember him? Aha, I went on a horrible date with that guy 20 years ago! Ehg. Get me out of here!

We hit a block sale with about 5 sales.

One had records, so Karl was happy, and the owner let Karl know that he was the first person to purchase any records. I have learned that if I want to buy any decent records with Karl, I have to get to the stack before him. Some douche at the sale had purchased 100 DVDs from them. Both Karl and I made comments about how it was going to take a really long time to watch all of them. Maybe only funny to us, since it was so obvious that he purchased them for resale.

I think that Karl was a little sensitive that the south end might be a bust for me after last time. The Alley sale didn’t really help, since Karl bristled the second we saw his yard sale nemesis. She just seemed like an annoying mom to me, but Karl had a few stories to tell about her bumbling ways. Here is a question — if you have more than one nemesis, what is that called?

The Alley sale was a massive bust. I am really getting tired of people thinking that crap from Old Navy or Wal-Mart holds any value. Just take it to the Goodwill or better yet stop buying so much junk.

After hitting more sales, Karl get a call from a friend saying that he’d just gone to this great sale at the very end of Beacon Hill and that we should really go check it out. We drive and drive for what seems like 20 minutes to hit one of the worst sales I have ever been to. Tons and tons of horrible clothing and everything was a little too dingy and sort of like it had all been outside the night before. All told, the entire drive there and back took almost an hour of prime sale time. Honestly, with friends like that guy, who needs enemies.

Since we both needed a massive unicorn chaser to clear out the bad juju’s from the Beacon Hill sale, Karl made us hit the Yesler’s Mews sale. A nice little blend of drag queen, neighbors, and someone moving, mixed into one sale.

What did I see when I started to walk up the stairs? This amazing sign.

Great way to get folks to come to your sale and insult your neighbors at the same time.

When I was getting ready to drop Karl back off at his car we hit a sale in an old gas station. I think the “urge to purge” is a permanent sign.

We did manage to fill the trunk once again …

My mom has been wanting to come down and hit some sales for a while now, but as readers might remember, my mom can’t read any street signs or navigate. Fun, eh? Since my Friday sales have been so good, I thought she might want to drive down to Seattle and I would get a sale list together for Friday. I created the list with each address in HUGE font + bold and underline. How could anyone not read that? Then I put a number next to each sale based on what sounded good.

Our first two sales didn’t seem to be open yet, ten minutes before they were due to start. We drove back and forth between the two sales until 9:00.

The first sale was mostly baby stuff, but I did see a sort of nice woman’s 40s or maybe 50s jacket. When I asked the price I started to get a long story about the jacket. I started to walk away from her story about how rare the fabric was and how it wasn’t allowed in the country in the 50s… She said “O.K., how about $5?” SOLD. Later on I did look up the fabric and it’s Vicuna and it is rare. For once I should listened to the story!

We head back to the other sale and they aren’t unpacked at all, boxes of musty paper and old books. JUNK.

After that we needed to work out what sale to hit next. One estate sale was started at 10, but it’s 9:30 and we would be about 20 min. early. I know that the major pickers think nothing of going many hours early, but that just isn’t our style. We thought we would just drive by and see how it was going.

The sale was in full swing and was huge.

There was crap all over the lawn, in the house and in the back yard.

A woman that I see at sales (that always hits them early, and who I have seen score stuff right before me over and over again) had a huge pile started of vintage lamp shades and kitchenware. Ehg. The second I see her I just groan internally. But the sale was good, I hit the large 25 cent area and picked up some old sun glasses and a couple of purses.

I did stay away from this HUGE bunch of cleaning products right next to the 25 cent area.

I was just taking my time, since picker lady was rushing around like a crazy person adding stuff to her “pile” and being very “Those are mine! I already bought that! That is my pile!” (You can see why I can’t stand her, right?)

With all that said, I still had amazing luck at this sale. I hit the fabric room and picked up two large barkcloth drapes, more fabric and a few other vintage sewing items. Then I hit one of his closets and picked up two 50s gabardine jackets (for a dollar each) and a few other jackets.

Now I have a pile, and my mom is adding stuff to it. We ended up at the sale for well over an hour just going back into the house, then the back yard, then into the 25 cent area again. Each pass was more stuff. GREAT SALE!!!!

After that we drove way out to the Shoreline area and hit a large church sale.

My mom hit the main room while I hit the clothing area. What a mess! Nothing was hung or even sorted with the exception of the household stuff (drapes, towels) and the kids’ clothes. As I looked around I noticed a very long table of baby items … and then the baby.

I snuck out my camera and went to take a couple of quicky photos. Not everyone wants a stranger taking a photo of their baby. An older woman working the sale came up to me and wanted to know what I was taking a photo of, and she started to laugh too. This made the mother of the baby come over and want to know why we had been pointing at her baby. She said she hadn’t noticed the sign, but that it seemed like a good place for him while she looked at the baby clothing.

The sale was a bust for me, but my mom purchased so much stuff that we filled the remainder of the car.

It’s not that often that we get a full trunk and back seat too.

I’d like to start today’s post by informing you of the results of my unscientific survey of the books currently most likely to be seen at Seattle yard sales: The Devil In The White City, Running With Scissors, and Good In Bed. I saw each of these books at least five times on Saturday. Probably more. You also still see an alarming number of copies of Wild Animus, but since zillions of copies of that book were distributed for free a few years back as some kind of weirdo marketing campaign, I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that they’re still making the rounds.

OK, now that we have that out of the way, on to the recap. Our first stop on Saturday was a sale whose ad was possibly trying a little too hard to be wacky. Some of their stuff was sort of the same. I mean, just because you draw a black star and the word “Devil” on your ramen package does not mean anyone is actually going to pay a dollar for it.

And come on … how “vintage” is this Juicyfruit?

This was a multi-seller sale and there was only person minding the shop, who I don’t think was the person responsible for these items, so I couldn’t tell if they were seriously trying to cash in on this stuff or (more likely) were just having fun and trying to entertain themselves.

We moved on to a few uneventful sales, then stumbled upon this. I’m guessing that when you own a very large spider, you take advantage of every possible opportunity to use it.

This was the first sale I’d ever seen which greeted shoppers with a list of the items on hand. Kind of like a menu, or a table of contents.

I’m not sure if everything in this drawer was meant to be in the sale. I didn’t see those on that list of items!

This is the second week in a row (and the second time ever) that we’ve encountered condoms at a yard sale. I sincerely hope that this isn’t the beginning of a trend.

We headed over to a “crafter’s sale.” This can be good or bad, but something about the listing made it sound promising. It turned out to be a small but very cute sale.

Meghan tried on a pair of Camper shoes that were sort of abstract (as Campers tend to be), but kinda cool. They fit so well that she just kept them on for the rest of the day. (Yes, she did pay the seller first!) She also got a ton of magazines, a nice wicker storage box, a dress, and a book from the ’60s whose title made our jaws drop: Crafts For Retarded. I grabbed a bunch of odds and ends from the free box and purchased a stack of about 30 patches that said “HOOT” on them – $1 for all. I figured I’d use a few here and there, then you know the rest are headed for the yard sale catch and release program.

Next up was a fundraising sale for a local high school cheerleading squad. The team they cheer for? The Ballard Beavers.

We predicted that there would probably be a lot of cheapo size-zero clothes there, and this was pretty much correct. I don’t think either of us bought anything, but the folks running the sale were nice.

We meandered over towards Green Lake to hit a few sales. One was a fundraiser for an organization helping seniors and nothing was priced – you chose your donation/price. Meghan coughed up $10 for a pair of shoes and a pair of jeans, and I put in $5 for two items: a vintage warming tray (that will probably do little more than sit in its box on a shelf at my house, but it has such a great design I couldn’t pass it up) and a ’70s t-shirt with a very amateur-ish wizard drawing on it … captioned “Gandalf.”

After that we saw some signs for a nearby sale. When we pulled up I had sale ja vu, recalling a sale here maybe six or seven years ago. I remembered that it had strange and entertaining stuff, but was slightly overpriced. This time was about the same.

We moved on to a sale where we were greeted by this awful-looking display.

Yeah, there better be more than that! Unfortunately, it was about as bad as what was out front. The first thing we saw was a big pile of … Well, imagine that you took a stack of phone books, mail, and old papers, tied it together, and left it outside in the rain for a couple of years. That didn’t bode well, and sure enough, the other stuff …

And worst of all … what you never want to see at a sale!

The sale redeemed itself slightly when Meghan found and purchased a set of Lawn Darts. Although now I’m a little scared of going to her next barbecue.

Next was something billed as the “feel-good garage sale of the year.” I’m not sure about that, but it was full of weird stuff to dig through. Most of it wasn’t priced, but the sellers made it clear that everything was cheap.

Most of the stuff seemed to be from the ’80s, like this table full of fabric.

They also had boxes of fake food (age not known).

I started digging through a box of purses and kept coming across random debris left inside: gum wrappers, ticket stubs, wadded up tissues … gross, but then I kept thinking maybe there would be some forgotten cash inside one of them! But that wasn’t the case, so I moved on to another part of the sale, where I found this lying in the grass.

Meanwhile, Meghan was stunned by this fascinating sweater with a pattern that looked like fried eggs.

I’m not sure the picture conveys how very cropped and wide it is. She picked it up and put it down about five times, until it was clear she needed to just add it to her pile (which already had a bunch of vintage sheets, towels and other stuff). While she was getting her total, a woman started trying on various scarves she’d picked up and asking me what I thought of them. I’d give her the thumbs up or down, and was surprised to see that she completely followed my opinion in deciding whether to get them or not. It was like she’d somehow decided that I would be her personal style guru. When Meghan finished paying, the woman seemed disappointed that I had to stop advising her and pay for my items (two ’80s scarves and a set of black and white Vera pillowcases).

We started to head back home, figuring we’d stop at a few more sales en route. Meghan was starting to get a little punchy and proceeded to dish out potentially caustic remarks to three sellers in a row. It was all in good fun, but still cracked me up. First, a female seller gave her a friendly pat on her arm while they were talking, and she responded by sternly saying “Don’t touch me.” (I told her she was channeling Karl.) At the next sale sale she just announced she was going to be irritating when we walked in. The seller seemed concerned, but that was the end of it. Then we went to a sale where we could tell as soon as we walked up that it was a bust. The seller started joking with us: “Hey, you girls look like you need some golf clubs!” Meghan’s reply: “You’re about as funny as my dad. He golfs too.”

Yeah … it was time to call it a day.

And that does it — another Saturday, another trunk full o’ crap!