Yard Sale Bloodbath

A couple of weeks back we started using a new term to sum up awful yard sales. I’m not sure who said it first, but as we were leaving a horrible sale someone casually remarked, “poopy diaper.” This was then repeated about 100 times over the course of the day, eventually getting abbreviated to “P.D.” and then “T.P.D.” (for “total poopy diaper,” naturally). I forgot to write about it when it actually happened … but that’s just as well, since I can now use it to sum up a day that pretty much fell into that category.

On Friday when I first started perusing the sale listings, it didn’t seem like there was much out there. Meghan suggested hitting a different area, but even that didn’t seem promising – there was a sale here, a sale there, nothing that looked all that special. Karl was up for whatever, so we just planned to meet up as usual and figure something out.

Our first stop was in a ritzy neighborhood not too far away. We’ve hit some great sales in this area, but a lot of times they are mostly newer boring items. Unfortunately this one fell into that category. The stuff was not nearly as cool as the house itself.

Karl did purchase a large Casio keyboard with a stand, but otherwise it was a bust.

Next was a sale whose suitcase sign was the best thing about it.

We hit another sale where the sign had been drawn by kids — bad when you can’t actually read it, but this one worked just fine.

Score-wise, it seemed like a whole lot of nothing. We made a quick snack stop, followed by a moving sale that Meghan summed up as “dumptastic.” Then we were off to a rummage sale at the Norse Home senior center. We got there a few minutes early and the sale was already on. On the way there we found this stunning troll, all dressed up for Easter with his bunny ears!

The sale was in a pretty small room (for a whole rummage sale). At first glance it looked pretty bad, but we each pulled out a few good items. I grabbed a few books for a dime each — decent stuff, I was bummed they didn’t have more. Meghan dug into a pile of seemingly crappy clothes and emerged with an astounding homemade vintage dress made from bright stripey fabric. She also found a crazy pair of jean boots (how often do you get to put those words together?) and an awe-inspiring unicorn clock, which is going to be a housewarming gift for a fortunate friend.

We hit a few moving sales that weren’t any big deal. At one of them they were trying to sell some ancient “sushi” made from chocolate and rice krispies.

We saw a sign for an apartment sale and thought we’d check it out. The building had an odd institutional feel to it and a really sketchy guy walked up to the outside door to let us in. I was a little nervous about going up to his apartment, but then he said the sale was in a meeting room in the lobby, with stuff from several people. Cool! Then he said they have the sale every week. Not so cool! Meghan called it when she whispered “this is all the junk people leave behind when they move away.”

Two minutes of looking around was all Meghan and I could take, so we went outside. Karl was still digging through boxes. Finally Meghan sent him a text that just said “KARL” (since that’s what we’d be yelling at him if we were within earshot). This didn’t work, but at least it made us laugh. Then I texted “FLEE.” He emerged a few minutes later (oblivious to the texts) with two leather jackets that he’d snagged for $5 apiece.

At this point we weren’t sure where to go next. We had been sort of fascinated by an ad for a “vintage hoarder sale” that also offered to trade for adult chaps or duster coats. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to go, and it was sort of on the other side of town. Karl pointed out it started at noon so we could get there right when it opened. There was another sale on the way there that had sounded good, so we hit that first.

When we pulled up Meghan recognized the house immediately. We’d been to a sale there a couple years back and I had bought Fashion Plates and a huge tub of mostly bad CDs. This time the sale was split into two parts.

Of course we headed downstairs first. There were a couple of tiny basement rooms jam-packed with stuff.

It felt more like a super-kitschy antique mall stall than your average garage sale.

I loved these “RETRO” letters, but I ended up walking away empty-handed.

After a quick check of the upstairs part (just generic moving sale type items) we made a second baked good stop at a favorite cafe nearby. We had to wait in line for awhile and Karl and Meghan struck up a conversation with the gals in back of us, who had a cute dog. One of them had a bag that said “Iowa is for Gay Lovers” and Meghan informed her that back in Nebraska, Iowa stands for “Idiots Out Wandering Around.” It turns out she has a cool small t-shirt company and that was one of her own designs.

Off we went to the vintage hoarder sale. We got there right before noon and a couple of guys were already waiting around. One of them was clutching an empty box. This might be a practical move but it always seems sort of desperate and squirrelly to me, especially when it’s just at someone’s house and there aren’t many people there. Finally the garage door opened up and we went inside, only to find a pretty ho-hum assortment of stuff. Meghan checked out the clothes and gave it a thumbs down. Karl had the same verdict on the records. I picked up a pair of vintage earrings and a somewhat beat-up Coach purse, but all in all it definitely wasn’t worth crossing town for.

We happened across another sale that was completely boring, except for this.

And then back home, stopping on the way to check out round three of the estate sale from last week. At this point they really seemed ready to be done with it. The stuff in the basement was “fill a box for $5.” Oh, and free food.

Last week I saw scary homemade pickles and such in jars that were at least twenty years old, but this week they were gone. I really hope someone isn’t eating them. Anyway, none of us ended up buying anything this time, although Meghan did spot this plaque — painstakingly handcrafted using dried letter noodles (and dated 1950 on the back).

All in all: P.D. Though maybe not actually T.P.D., since we did each manage to find a few items …

Last Sunday I saw an estate sale about ten blocks from my house, so I thought I would pop in and just take a look around. We hadn’t hit any sales on Saturday and I was feeling pretty good about that. But I was driving by, no line, and parking in front of the house. Why not?

The house was packed and I was a little surprised, I found some vintage patterns and ended up purchasing around 50 patterns at 50 cents each. When I was ringing up, I asked about any clothing she might have made and they said they could pull a few items out for me. I bought two dresses from the 1930s for $6. They told me to come back next week, since they would have more items. I thought maybe they were bringing stuff in from other sales, but they explained that they’d had to take a lot of the original stuff out of the house just to make room!

Friday they posted an ad with some photos. In a big jumble on a table I spied a Little Miss No Name – the 1965 doll with a tear drop and burlap dress. About ten years ago I had one, but I ended up selling it on eBay, since it really is super creepy. Anyway, I wanted to be first in line and buy her.

The plan? Meet at my house at (ouch) 7:45 AM and go get numbers. We had to wait around for a while and Karl entertained us by recounting the time that a guy who was standing a few feet ahead us threatened to punch him at a thrift store. (Karl retaliated by calling the guy a dildo.) We end up being #13, 14 and 15.

We now had about an hour to kill until the sale opened up. We stopped for cash and baked goods, then hit a couple of sales that had started already. These were unremarkable except for Karl buying an enormous pair of mounted horns that barely fit into the car. Then back to the estate sale where folks were lining up (by number) in anticipation.

The doll? She was priced at $60 and was snatched up by one of the first few ladies at the sale. Well, easy come, easy go. I figure it couldn’t hurt to just go up to her and very nicely say “hey, if you don’t end up buying the doll could you let me know, since I would love to purchase her.” Seems reasonable enough, no?

I went upstairs and it didn’t really seem like all that much was new, but I did score another large stack of patterns. Then I made the rounds downstairs, but didn’t find anything there.

As I was heading over to check on Karl and Jenny, the friend of the woman who had the doll came over to me and very quietly said in my ear: “Do you want the doll? Ten dollars.” What? Are you fucking kidding me? You want me to pay you a finder’s fee of $10, so I can pay $60 for the doll? Fuck off!

Karl didn’t seem that shocked when I told him what happened, but I have never had this happen to me. You either want the item or you don’t. In the end I did get the doll after they put her back down. Of course now that I have her, she is super creepy.

Next, we hit another estate sale. This one was a little oddball. Tons of planters upstairs, but I am not paying $20 for a small Bauer pot. There were a lot of kitschy vintage items, like some large Keane prints (which sold soon after we got there) and this inflatable Inky Dinky.

Upstairs in one of the bedrooms I ran into the same two ladies who tried to shake me down at the last sale. Great! I pulled down a framed poem about the woman and her dog from the wall, and then in the next room I found the photo of the dog.

On another wall I spotted a framed calligraphy copy of the lyrics to The Rose. You are kidding me, right?

Jenny told me to go look in the basement where she had a ton of old booze bottles. We found her Substance Abuse Professional paperwork from 1987 inside a box of them.

She had also filled up some old booze bottles with colored water.

Then I found the camping, or maybe survival supplies. Like a whole box of pre-packaged water which expired in 2004?

After that we hit what Jenny thought might be the craft sale from last year, where I purchased the Crafts for Retarded book. We thought it might be upstairs in their apartment building and felt foolish when it turned out to be outside, but around the corner.

Jenny bought a few t-shirts but sadly, not this one (way too small for any of us).

We made a couple more stops sales after this: a couple of them were drive-bys (one was a repeat from two weeks ago, one just looked bad) and one was a fundraising sale for “a friend who needed to make rent” that we later found written up in a neighborhood blog. Karl had to knock off at 11 and I sort of wanted to keep going, but Jenny was ready to bail too so we decided to call it a day.

For the first time so far this year, there were a good number of sales listed for Saturday! Karl wanted to come along so we all met up bright and early at 8:00. Two sales near us started that early, both in the same direction, so we started heading that way. The truck ahead of us was driving super slow and Karl recognized the drivers as sale regulars, so when they turned right toward the estate sale, we went left to hit the garage sale.

Meghan recognized the house as the same place where she’d made her mindblowing Aveda score back in this blog’s early days. This time around, there were a few beauty supply type items (hairstyling books, bottles of haircolor, etc.) but only one lone Aveda item, which Meghan grabbed, maybe just for old time’s sake. I bought a vintage hairstyling head for $2. I already have three of these hanging out in my spare bathroom and lord knows I don’t need to add another member to the flock, but c’mon — two dollars! How could I not?

Meanwhile, it didn’t seem like we missed much at the estate sale. We did spot these elaborately hand-crafted chairs, but nothing much we wanted to buy.

After a quick coffee stop we headed to what we considered the day’s main event: a sale whose ad filled us with both anticipation and horror:

“Big time collector/horder must purge……..too much to list. We have not priced much because there are floor to ceiling boxes FILLED with things… Please enter at your own risk. There is not much light and there is stuff everywhere. CASH ONLY. LOTS OF MISC.”

We got there right about 9 and people were already crammed inside the garage. Stuff was everywhere, with shelves and tables leaving only tiny walkways to get through. Moving around was a bit challenging.

Sorry the photos came out so blurry, but at least you can get a little sense of the chaos.

The stuff was actually overall pretty cool. My guess is that the stuff had been purchased by someone trying their hand at reselling, who bought way too much stuff and then for one reason or another just gave up. Everything was vintage (or at least vintage-looking), and there were multiples of some items … like a big stack of velvety sombreros, or four vintage toasters sitting on the floor. Some items had antique mall price tags and others still had thrift store tags. There were also tons of clothes in just about all sizes (including a bag of crusty vintage baby items) and cool pieces of fabric. I snagged a big geometric print barkcloth curtain out of this bin.

The thing that was annoying was that along with all the sale-worthy items was stuff that was just plain junk. Boxes filled only with crumpled newspaper, or full of bottles (and not cool vintage ones). I could totally understand not wanting to go through and sort/price everything, but if they had gotten the obvious garbage/recycling out of there, it would have given everyone a little more breathing room. As it was, it was a little nuts. The sellers also refused to let anyone leave a pile up front (no room!), so people had to carry their stuff around (or buy an armful, dump in car, and repeat). A few times we saw people set things down, then freak out once they realized someone else had picked one of “their” items up and walked away with it. It was definitely every shopper for themselves.

We all paid for our stuff — nothing was marked, but they were pretty cool on prices. The sellers said they would be having “part two” for the inside of the house soon, which I’m sure we will try to hit. Meanwhile, the trunk was already starting to fill up! We then backtracked a little to hit the rest of our list. At one of these sales, Meghan made me take a picture of this pony whose hair had turned into dreadlocks.

At the next sale, Karl emerged from a box of records with a stunned look on his face. Turned out he had uncovered one of his holy grail records: an original copy of an album by pro wrestler turned musician Beauregarde! He was flying high on that score for the rest of the day.

We hit a few more unremarkable sales, then decided to end with what had been advertised as a huge fundraising sale. It was pretty big, but mostly had kid clothes and really boring housewares. Then I realized we weren’t all that far from another estate sale, so we decided to drive a little further and hit that one. On the way there we saw an unexpected sign and made a detour — to a different estate sale that I hadn’t even seen advertised. And it was full of stuff! I did overhear the sellers mention they’d brought some things in that weren’t part of the house, which explained all the “collector-y” stuff up front. The rest of the house was more typical estate randomness. Meghan mentioned there were some ancient toiletries in the bathroom so I went over to investigate.

Then I looked down at the bathtub, which for some reason was the location chosen to place these ancient unopened sample packs of feminine hygiene products.

My mind was blown by seeing a box of Rely — the tampon that was notoriously recalled in 1980 due to its association with Toxic Shock Syndrome. I had to buy that one. Left behind (and not photographed) was a box marked “Colon Tube.” Ick.

In one of the upstairs bedroom we found this handcrafted dog plaque that we all sort of loved, but no one ended up purchasing.

Meghan got sucked into a room full of clothes for a while and I ventured down into the basement. It was full of guy stuff – tools, crusty books, and a few wacky old signs.

There was also this shelf full of various adhesives and cleaning products that didn’t seem to have been touched for some time.

After what had to be about forty-five minutes we finally dragged ourselves out of there. Then we continued on to the original sale we’d planned to hit, which was a total bust! It was lucky we stumbled across the other one to cap off the day.

Now, would you look at this trunk full of junk?! For early March, this is pretty dang good.