Yard Sale Bloodbath

Jenny and I had spoken about trying to hit some sales on Saturday morning and I had sent her a listing for a sale at the large Goodwill called The Glitter Sale. That just screams the blog, right? Okay, it’s not a yard sale, but we do veer into Rummage Sales and Thrift Stores once in a while. When I say “large” Goodwill, this place is HUGE –- I am just guessing, but this place is probably 40,000 sq. feet. This was the 26th annual glitter sale. I’m not sure how we had missed this up until now?!? I’ve hit some special sales there before — The Shoe Sale and The Record Sale — but they have a whole web site and blog dedicated to this one sale. Seems a little crazy, right?

In the morning, Jenny was feeling like crap and had to bail. Honestly I was feeling pretty good about staying in PJ’s for a while. We might have dodged a bullet on this one as far as not going in the morning. People camp out hours before to go to the sale. I like shiny stuff too, but not that much.

I was hemming and hawing about even going, but curiosity got the better of me and I went with a girl friend at 2:30. The parking lot was still a total zoo and it took us 20 minutes to find a space about a block away. Then the line just to get into another larger room was about 60 people deep. I can’t even imagine what this was like at 10 am. Nightmare!

The ten jewelry cases had flocks of people all trying to get a look, racks of leather jackets, bedazzled jeans, blazers and many other craft projects gone awry.

Tons of prom dress from the ’80s, and tons of wedding dresses.

And shoes. Tons and tons of bronze, silver, gold and sparkled shoes. Plus, tons of those little girl glitter shoes from the Wizard of Oz.

Honestly, for the crowd it wasn’t that great, but I did pick up two items.

In line I met possibly one of the most annoying women I’ve ever encountered. She spent the entire time name-dropping different lines that she had items from. She had found a pair of Ferragamo loafers for $79 at the sale and went on and one about her “Prada this” and her “Ferragamo that” — it was pretty irritating and the line was long. I was pretty happy when I finally got the hell out of there.

Okay, who else has been watching that Hoarders show on A&E and getting a little freaked out? Granted, I’m nowhere near the folks on this show, as far as having that much stuff … but once in a while it hits kinda close to home. I mean, who among us hasn’t bought random unnecessary items and then held onto them way longer than space or need required?

Let’s face it, a lot of us yard-sale fans probably have a wee touch o’ the hoarding. I’d even venture to say it’s one of those “spectrum disorders” — some people might have a few symptoms yet still live completely functional lives, while others (like most of the folks on the show) are severely affected by what seems to be a true psychological problem. I mean in those cases, it is severe, and it’s not a matter of “they should just stop” — it seems like a lot of them can’t stop.

But for the rest of us, when is it that things get taken too far? What if you collect bottles. You might have a lot of them. Is that hoarding?

Probably not. But what if there’s more?

And more? Along with other glass items. Lamps and beads, anyone?

Maybe there’s too many to have out on display. You might need to just start filling up boxes. Hey, is that a crap-ton of polished rocks over on the right?

Maybe you need some boxes to store all of your decorative Avon bottles, too.

As you may have guessed, these photos are all from one estate sale, which we hit last weekend (after a several-week-long sale break). What you also need to know is that there were more bottles, more rocks, more Avon, more beaded necklaces … lots and lots more. Enough that it was definitely starting to feel a little hoardy in there.

But this person didn’t hoard everything. There were some vintage clothes that she’d kept around, but only about a closetful. Books, records, sheet music, kitchen stuff … positively reasonable in number. And the house was huge. If you have the space, and keep things organized, is it really hoarding if your collections have just gotten a little (okay, maybe a lot) out of hand?

Hmmm. Probably not. But what if you also have multiple containers of decades-old instant coffee in your basement?

And some equally ancient cans of food?

What about stuff you canned yourself … about nineteen years ago?

And what if all that was in an entire room full of about a hundred times more of it (plus a heaping helping of more glass bottles and other random crap to boot)?

I don’t know. Like I said, the house was big. It was probably all very organized (things were laid out on tables and such for the sale, but it seemed pretty tidy). Although the stuff did fill up almost every possible inch of the house — even a little nook on the back side of the furnace.

And it often didn’t seem like deliberate hoarding, so much as just buying stuff and storing it away and then never thinking about it again … for like thirty years.

Now, people in houses full of weird thrifted crap probably shouldn’t throw any stones. But going to this kind of estate sale does feel a bit like watching the Hoarders show (except that you’re left to your own imagination as far as the people involved). Both of those leave me with the urge to really pare stuff down. I mean, it’s fine to stock up on useful items, or have collections, or do crafty things like make jewelry or can food. But when you never use the stuff you stockpile, or you end up with way more than you could possibly ever appreciate or even remember you have? What’s the point?

I’ll leave you with perhaps the best and worst of this sale. This assortment of products and packages was presumably collected, not stored since their original purchase (though really, who can be sure). As with every single picture in this post, what you are seeing is just a small subset of similar items at the sale.

And finally, you know how sometimes people have a junk drawer? This house had an entire junk room. Here’s one little bit of it.

Phew. Time for us to start going through our own stockpiles and start planning our next yard sale! In between hitting some more of the always-questionable off-season offerings around town, of course …