Yard Sale Bloodbath

Meghan forwarded me an email for an estate sale that listed a pretty typical mix of stuff: tools, antiques, furniture, jewelry … and “267 rabbit pelts in good condition.” That’s right, 267. Someone counted. So naturally, we decided to check it out.

We got there around 10:30 — it had opened at 10 and we were relieved that there was no line outside since it was extremely cold out. On our way to the door we passed two women walking away with piles of stuff. “Where are your rabbit pelts?” Meghan cracked, then took a closer look. “Oh, you really did buy some!” Sure enough, she had a couple of fluffy bits sticking out from the bottom of her pile. She told us she was going to make a skirt.

The house was sort of cramped and it was hard to move around, but we made our way upstairs, where there were two small bedrooms and a bathroom. One of them mostly had clothes and blankets, but also had a few oddball things. I’m pretty sure we’ve never encountered electric socks before. Apparently, they can be used to “obtain maximum satisfaction.”

Meghan found a couple of items, including this crucifix — we made the obvious jokes about someone using it for a stash box.

Out the window, we could see people digging through piles of stuff and going into the detached garage. We figured we’d hit that after we’d gone through the house.

Moving on to the next room, what did we find but … PELTS!

Lots of pelts!

But not 267. This box only had 31.

I would guess I saw less than a hundred pelts altogether. Honestly, I felt a little ripped off. Though it was true that they were in good condition.

There wasn’t much else in that room. Meghan grabbed a couple of cool vintage patterns. I unearthed a stash of old internet CD-ROMs. I made a joke to Meghan about how she might want to get them, in case she needed 1000 free hours on AOL some day. These weren’t priced and I really wonder what they would have charged anyone crazy enough to want them.

Later, I noticed the address label listed a pet grooming company, with the same address of the sale. Does this explain anything about the pelts? Did 267 bunnies come in for grooming and never make it out alive? I doubt it, but it was a strange juxtaposition. Especially since I didn’t really see any evidence of pet grooming items at the rest of the sale. There were tons of books on crafting and jewelry-making, and some supplies, including a table full of attempts at “agate rock jewelry” … and this bag of googly-eyed polished rocks.

They also had these pirate bookends. Arrrrrrr!

The kitchen was a mess, with shelves of cookbooks. We were laughing about one that had a title I can’t remember now, but something kind of like “How To Stuff A Wild Tortilla” — it was trying really hard to make the idea of putting things in a tortilla seem exciting. There were boxes of Baggies that must have dated from the ’80s, and this plastic bottle of something called “Flame-Out.”

We also spotted two boxes of Hires flavoring for making DIY root beer.

I hadn’t found anything so while Meghan got in line to pay, I took another look upstairs. Uh, look what just happened!

We had toyed with hitting a couple of other sales (even though they did not have any pelts) but decided we’d probably better just head home after a quick look at the garage. It had a nameplate on the door.

It took about 30 seconds to determine that there was nothing in there we wanted to buy — nor outside, where ancient lawnmowers and mystery items had been gathering dust and dirt for some time.

As we left I couldn’t resist taking a picture of their poor little sign all covered with snow.

And thus ended our first day of hitting sales — well, a sale — in the new year!