Yard Sale Bloodbath

We only hit a few sales last weekend and for a while I didn’t even think there would be enough for a blog post. The first two were too boring to even mention. The next was something listed as a “High Profile Estate Sale” — when we got there we couldn’t even find the place. I rechecked the listing and realized it wasn’t starting for fifteen minutes, but it seemed weird they didn’t even have a sign out. Finally we noticed a line of about twenty people standing by an apartment building tucked off the street … we decided that getting breakfast sounded like a better idea.

Rather than double back to find out what the hell “High Profile Estate Sale” even meant, we decided to hit another one which seemed to have potential. As we parked the car we noticed a guy walking down the street carrying a very large stuffed dog.

The odd thing was, he was walking toward the sale — not coming from it. I don’t know where he got the dog. Maybe he carries it with him everywhere he goes.

Inside, this was about the first thing I saw.

Followed by a box of buttons … most of which had something to do with chili.

I guess the guy was heavily into chili cook-offs — his kitchen had chili recipes and posters from events he’d participated in. There were tons of books and a couple of boxes of records, sort of a mix of stuff — nothing I needed to own but some of the covers were entertaining.

I ended up digging a handful of buttons out of the box and we each picked up a couple of other things.

Next was a sale which just sounded odd. It had started on Friday, but on Saturday they posted a new ad, saying that new stuff had been added (including vintage clothes). And this:

****PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO OWN AMAZING GOTH ART AT RIDICULOUSLY GOOD PRICES****

They did not lie. Well, maybe they lied about the “amazing” part and the “ridiculously good prices” part, but definitely not the “goth” part.

Can we get a close-up?

There were sculptures, too.

The sale was in the basement of the house. The vintage clothes were mostly unremarkable — the few things that were interesting were overpriced. There were two separate rooms filled up with books, tending heavily towards the sci-fi and fantasy. There were also some other things in there, like magazines, and calendars …

And this.

Against all odds, we purchased a few things here, but nothing worthy of a trunk shot. Overall, the day was pretty much “meh”, but it’s January — and it wasn’t snowing — so I can’t really complain!

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!

It’s been cold and drizzly. Not as cold as the East Coast, but enough to make you re-think going to yard sales. Unless you are a diehard or just really dumb, you are probably staying warm in your bed on a Saturday or maybe you are hitting some thrift stores. Not us –- we hit a whopping four rainy-day sales.

Karl and Jenny both came over and we pretty much just talked about what the sales might be like, trying to figure out which ones happened on Friday and whether Karl had hit them the day before. In the end we decided to hit our usual cafe for a baked good first. This led to a 10-minute conversation about them “phoning it in” these days, as far as the pastries go. Long story short -– we had very little faith in the sales even being half good.

Well, the first sale was intense. I don’t really know another way to put it. It was an estate sale in the garage and basement, filled with really old, really weird stuff.

By the time I went back to take photos people had really started to clean it out, but you can still sort of get the idea.

There was also a huge free pile out front.

I don’t feel like I really can do the sale justice, but I picked up five 1920s vintage dresses, 3 1930s purses (2 arts and crafts style and one crocodile) and a ton of odds and ends. Karl picked up a large Le Creuset paella pan for $10, some other dishes, some vintage t-shirts, and a large stuffed crow (fake, but looks real). Jenny grabbed this crazy anatomy fold-out booklet poster thing from like the 1940s. I wasn’t paying that much attention because honestly, I really just needed to deal with what I had grabbed, Jenny even had to help me carry it all out. One woman told me she had filled her entire car with stuff. In the end I had spent $130. Ouch! I never spend that much at one sale.

The next sale we hit was what was advertised as a “mini estate sale” – whatever the hell that is.

They had all right stuff, but it felt like grandma had been sent to a home, so why not just dump everything on the floor and don’t price anything. That just made it feel really messy and like a yard sale tornado had hit it.

The kitchen was a little less chaotic, since they had just left most things on the shelves.

For some reason they had about five of this item — a dog dish? It was very strange.

I kept thinking I would find something, but it just seemed like a huge dud. Then I spotted a nice black medium Le Creuset cast iron pot with a lid, a frying pan, and then another smaller non-marked frying pan. I picked them all up and went to pay for them. The high school aged daughter said $7 for all. WTF, REALLY? I had a $10 bill in her hand before she could change her mind. Karl was standing behind me trying to purchase a walkman from the ’80s and this is when things started to get strange. All of a sudden I have a woman pretty aggressively telling me that those are her pans. Um, what?

Her: Those are my pans.
Me: I just purchased them.
Her: But those are mine.
Me: But I just paid for them. I saw them on the floor, I picked them up and now I have purchased them.
Her: I told your husband that those are MY PANS.
Me: Um, that is not my husband.
Her: Those are my pans!!!

I never raised my voice even when the woman was getting really loud about “her pans” — I explained what happened and even said “this isn’t worth getting so upset over and there is no need to yell at me.” Then the mother of the girl who sold me the pans comes up and wants to know what is going on. The woman was still getting upset, “I guess you have to hold onto whatever you want at this sale and I guess you can’t just leave stuff on the floor that you plan to buy” – well, yeah. That is every single sale I have ever been to, if you want something hold onto it or it probably won’t be there. The mother then asked her daughter how much she had charged me for the pans and started yelling at her that she should have charged me at least $5 each. Still a steal as far as I’m concerned, so I gave her the rest of the $15 and high-tailed it out of there. Jenny was outside and missed the whole thing, but Karl explained that he had tried to grab them a few moments earlier, and was told that she was buying them. I never heard any of that, but I guess it explains why she felt that she “told my husband.” It was one of the most aggressive conversations I have had at a sale and I can’t remember the last time someone yelled at me at a sale. But as far as I’m concerned, $5 Le Creuset is worth getting into a squabble over.

Our next stop was a country club sale. I have been to a few sales here, but it’s a mixed bag and this woman didn’t know what the heck she was doing and she wanted to have a long conversation every time we asked her about a price. She had nice stuff, but nothing amazing.

Then we hit one last sale on the way home that I honestly don’t remember.

Nearly everything in the trunk was from that first estate sale …

Meghan was out of town last weekend and as a result, she wasn’t there for what turned out to be a very bizarre day of sales for me and Karl. Our first stop was listed as “Kind of a digger sale so not for the faint of heart…” Scary yet intriguing, right? They also mentioned “100′s of records” so naturally Karl was all over it. This sale was in a small neighborhood I never knew was there, tucked away behind near a huge park. It seemed that we were getting further and further away from civilization as we headed toward the address.

We weren’t actually sure if we were on the right road, but then we saw a tiny sign leading us to this.

Diggers were already digging, so we headed in. Oh. My. God.

Sorry that picture’s blurry, though perhaps that’s actually a good thing to ease you into how nuts this sale was? Karl started flipping through the records. I looked at a few boxes — they were reeeeeeally crusty.

I started poking around through some of the other piles, feeling thankful there was hand sanitizer waiting in the car.

Maybe there was something good somewhere, but I sure couldn’t find it. Most of the boxes I opened were filled with Playboys (even a box that had originally held Girl Scout Cookies — that just seems wrong), and the clothes spilling out didn’t look promising enough to risk sticking a hand deeper into the piles.

I found a plastic file box with an assortment of old photos, mostly from the ’80s or early ’90s — it seemed like there was potential for something amazing to be there, but after a while I just couldn’t deal. Karl bought a stack of records and we retreated back out of the woods and on to potentially better pickin’s.

While heading to our next stop we spotted an unlisted sale with this eye-catching sign display out front.

Unfortunately this was the best thing about their sale.

Next was something listed as a multi-family sale, but with lots of vintage/antiques — it seemed like they knew they had good stuff, but I didn’t get the dealer vibe. It turned out to be some “estate items” from a relative, plus some newer stuff. What was great about this sale is that it was in an enclosed garage, so they had gotten everything set up in advance and it was all laid out neatly. It was pleasant just looking around! The people were really friendly but also followed us around from room to room talking about their items, so it was hard to take pictures. I did have to take a shot of this crazy ’70s dress, which looked brighter and more sparkly in real life.

I paid fifty cents for a huge bag of old plastic swizzle sticks (mostly from defunct Seattle locations, with a smattering of Reno and Hawaii mixed in). They have now been added to my existing huge collection of vintage swizzle sticks. Let me state that there is really no reason for anyone to own this many swizzle sticks. I also bought a gold-tone necklace with chunky red, white and blue rock-like beads — very “old lady” style but for some reason I liked it, so I put it on and wore it around the sale. By the time we left I had already lost interest, but I felt like I was committed since I was wearing it. Karl bought a few things here, including some great dresses for a pal — they weren’t super cheap but the people ended up giving him a deal on all his items. As they were chatting they asked his name and he said “Karl, with a K” — the man said, “So it’s C-A-R-K?” He seemed to think that was a real knee-slapper.

That sale was definitely a little odd, but in a pleasant, non-freaky way, so we pressed ahead to the next stop. The address seemed to be almost in the middle of some railroad tracks, but it had been listed as “Huge estate sale with many rare hard-to-find treasures and beautiful antiques” — sounds normal, right? Right?

Yes, that is what we found. We were tempted to jam it in reverse and get out of there, but we figured we had to check it out. In we went …

Adding to how strange this was? NO ONE WAS THERE. We poked around and I kept thinking someone would pop out and say hi, but no. Most of the stuff was a little … distressed-looking, shall we say? But some things had their own kind of peculiar charm.

I started thinking maybe this sale wasn’t so weird … then Karl pointed out the HUGE PILE OF KNIVES.

And then? A banjo.

Are you thinking what I was thinking?

Karl still wanted to look around, but I decided to go wait in the car. After a minute or two a guy walked out from god knows where, stood in front of the car and waved at me. I waved back, then he went and talked to Karl. He ended up being super nice and charged Karl five bucks for a pretty big pile of stuff. So I guess it all worked out.

After that we drove over to another semi-estate sale — their ad said “Years of going to estate sales and garage sailing have come to this. We are letting go of some of the treasures we’ve found along the way, along with several items from grandparents’ estate.”

They had a nice spread of stuff and the prices weren’t too bad.

It seemed like they were moving out of the house — one room was empty except for these dolls.

We bought a few things, but it didn’t turn out to be any big whoop. But it was a good sale to end on — clean, bright, and no reason to fear for one’s life. And sometimes? That’s really good enough.

My parents were in town last weekend and my mom came to sales with me and Meghan as our special guest star. I’ve been to yard sales with my mom many a time, but I think this is the first time she’s tagged along for the full Yard Sale Bloodbath experience. It’s October, so I wasn’t sure what we’d find, but I put together a small list of sales with potential.

Our first sale was in a fancy neighborhood and I wasn’t sure what to expect. We were pleasantly surprised by their spread of books — it’s always nice to buy stuff from someone with taste. Each of us got a book or two here and I also got some dress-up costumes for my daughter and a kids guitar. They were still putting boxes out and we got to be the first to dig into a couple. I opened up one jewelry case and it was a vintage amber bracelet and earring set — Meghan muttered, “one of us has to get that!” I knew I would never wear it so I handed it to her. As she left she told me that Annoying Jewelry Guy had walked up right behind us at that moment. Ha! (My mom said, “That was Jewelry Guy? Where?” It was like a celebrity-spotting! Sadly he’d already moved on at that point so she didn’t get the face-to-face experience … maybe that’s actually a good thing.)

Everyone buying things at the first stop is always a nice way to start, and after chasing down some nonexistent sale we went to a moving sale which sounded promising, or at least interesting. The guy had mentioned art by local artists and other things that gave his ad the vibe of possibly being good. We walked in and saw a bunch of old rock buttons on a black bandana, ranging from early ’80s punk to more recent random crap. I asked how much and he rambled on about how he had bought them all at various places back in the day, then said $12 for all of them — that sounded good to me. Meghan started looking through his books and amassed a small pile, while I grabbed a pair of $3 Ray-Ban sunglasses (or so I thought, until later at home I discovered that they appear to actually be a pair of generic sunglasses in a Ray-Ban case. They’re still kinda cool though.)

Then I heard Meghan say “WOW. What IS that?” I turned around and saw this monstrosity!

I apologize in advance for the nightmares some of you are going to have. It’s creepy, right? Some woman was excitedly paying $5 for it, presumably for halloween party decor. The guy said it had been used in some kind of low-budget horror movie. As for the art, a few things were hanging on the wall and Meghan asked about the rest but he seemed like he didn’t want to show it to people unless they were really serious about buying stuff.

There were two sales on the same block not too far away — a rarity this time of year, but they both turned out to be awful. And then there was an odd-sounding estate sale. There wasn’t a ton of stuff there, but their stuff was unusual … how often do you see a saddle at an estate sale?

Upstairs they had some very fancy furniture.

This bedroom set had a sign on it saying it had come from the Washington Governor’s Mansion? Or something along those lines …

The other bedroom had this amazing wallpaper.

Meghan bought a few things including a vintage pair of Frye cowboy boots (!). I bought something truly odd, a large ceramic mug depicting the WPPSS power plant, for $1. Then we drooled over this desk on the way out. (If I had that desk, I would totally use it to display a Bob Seger LP, too.)

We went to a few bad sales — one of them had these cans that might have tempted me for no good reason, if they hadn’t been priced at $5 each.

Then we pulled up at this sale, which seemed to be all about the Halloween decorations.

Seriously, it went on and on. And on. And on. This is just a small sampling.

I did buy some glow-in-the-dark sidewalk chalk here, and as I left the seller said “Tell all your friends to come shop here!” I was at a loss how to respond. As we drove away, Meghan made a comment about this guy’s “anal bead hairdo” – it was a long ponytail with multiple rubber bands, creating a look that did bring up some unfortunate imagery. At first she’d thought it was part of a costume until she realized it was just his look. Then she laughed and said she couldn’t believe she just said “anal bead hairdo” in front of my mother. (Let me state for the record that it takes a lot more than that to offend my mom.)

I did a quick check on my phone to see if there was anything else nearby, and I found there was an estate sale listed right near where we’d started — how did I miss that? We circled back around to check it out. It was a gorgeous house right on the water, and the view was amazing.

It actually took a few minutes before I stopped gaping out the window and really started to look at their stuff. They had a good selection, but I wasn’t finding anything I really needed to own.

My mom and Meghan each grabbed a few things and then Meghan found a penguin ice bucket in nice shape for $3! It was another “one of us has to buy this” moment — I decided to go for it. My mom reminisced about the one she used to have, which I remember from growing up — we mostly used it as a biscuit-warmer.

I was pleasantly surprised at how decent the day turned out to be! We all bought stuff and had fun — can’t really beat that.

It’s starting to get a little more rainy, overall more spotty weatherwise –- in just a couple of weeks it’s started feeling like Autumn. Jenny said she wanted to take her daughter to the fair this weekend on whichever day seemed least likely to rain. When that turned out to be Saturday, she sort of bent that rule so that she could do two and a half hours of sales first, then hit the fair. I have been sort of spaced out and have had so much to do lately that two hours give or take sounded fine.

Karl came across town to join us. The first sale looked like it could be really good and he had pretty cool stuff, but wacko prices.

KCMU flyers from the mid/late ’80s – you are never going to see that. Yes, they had been free and all he did was yank them down, but not everyone is going to keep them for 25 years.

The price? $30 each. Ouch! Books? $5 each for stuff that I don’t know if I would call special. Plus, the whole time I was looking around this woman is in my ear:

“Is this a guy sale?”
“Yes.”
“Is this a guy sale?”
“Yes. It’s very much a guy sale.”
“Well, do you think he has any woman’s jewelry?”

I had to go sit in the car. Karl hung around and managed to talk him down a bit on a few items.

The next sale, Jenny mentions that the ad said they are selling vintage stuff from her former resale business -– what vintage? It’s kids toys and other odds and ends.

If this is what we are dealing with, I need a baked good.

The next sale had listed records -– they did have those, but mostly picked over and squirreled out. One guy was tossing 45s and inside jacket sleeves all over the place. Just being an ass. I really hate this behavior at sales.

They also had this — for $7. What?

We hit a church rummage sale and once again something was just “off” about it.

After paying for my one item I was told I would have to leave from a different exit. I get why they do this, but it was busy and I couldn’t find Jenny. I yelled to Karl about how I would meet them. Then I was like fuck it — I don’t want to deal. I told the woman that my friends had already gone out the other door and I would be following them. I pretty much told her to go ahead and stop me. Maybe I was just easily agitated that day. This stuff doesn’t usually bother me or I just make fun about it.

As we drove around we kept seeing signs for the Hugh sale.

OK, do you mean HUGE sale? Or what? I get if you misspelled it once, but over and over … Jenny remembered we had seen a similar sign about six months back, not far from here (but not the same house). Anyway, we didn’t go to this one. Friday sales on a Saturday that are Hugh are not for me.

We hit a little sidewalk sale where I guess the woman’s best friend was a rep for gourmet spices, sugars, and other items — she was selling sealed packages for $1 or less and we all scored some good stuff.

At this point it was pretty much time for Jenny to head off to the fair. We all ended up with a few things, and I guess it wasn’t bad for such a short run, but definitely not one for the record books.

On Friday afternoon I hit an estate sale near my house. While I love our frenzied Saturday routine of getting in as many sales as we can, there is also something to be said for having just one stop to make and taking your time looking around. This sale was probably better earlier in the day, but there were still some interesting items to be found. One of the first things I found: lawn darts!

Dangerous! Illegal! And pricy, too. As were many things in the house, like this “rain lamp” (where oil drips down the strings like rain).

That flowery wallpaper lined the whole room — this was in the basement, which had holiday crap galore plus an awful lot of booze-related items. Mostly not that exciting, but I couldn’t resist a little plastic bag of goofy drinking kitsch items for $1. (Nice and cheap! It was all over the map — a lot of stuff was cheap, but then it was like they were hoping to get lucky on a few items and priced them way too high.)

There was more upstairs, including this intriguing little box.

“For the girl who gets a charge out of being in style” — what could that mean? I opened it up …

Um. Wow.

That wasn’t the only wacky fun gift item they had.

In case you are feeling as baffled as I was about what those are, they are gold-painted, fur-trimmed clothespins.

It was definitely one of the more entertaining sales I’ve been to in a while — not least when I overheard one of the sellers tell another, “I don’t get people’s names tattooed on me anymore.” And when I got home and dug into my bag of goodies, here’s what I found …

Baggie of monkeys and elephants for the rim of your drink! A wind-up hopping shot glass! Gag ice cubes (that’d work better if they hadn’t yellowed with age)! Cow-shaped indicators for how your steak is cooked — okay, those aren’t exactly drinking-related, and neither is the “round tuit” or the mysterious wind-up black creature that looks like a two-armed spider. (Its arms flop around and make it roll when it’s wound up — my cat was very amused.)

A couple of items deserve a closer look. First up, the “Martini Tester.”

The other side of the instructions read “Not a Gadget — It Works!” I haven’t tried it out yet.

And next, let’s find out what’s in that “Waggish Drunkard” box …

Oh. A little man wearing a barrel. Wait a minute, what happens when you put his arms down?

Whoever had lived in this house clearly appreciated a good gag … or at least a really bad one.

Meghan and I attempted to make an early start on Saturday, but there wasn’t much to hit early. Perhaps that was because it looked like it could rain at any time. We made a couple of stops and hit the bank, then drove up to this sale, where the sellers had just finished hanging this enormous banner.

Meghan remembered shopping here years ago and told the sellers that they had helped her get a record cabinet home — which she loved for years until her basement flooded and it got ruined. I think she actually got a little re-traumatized while telling the story. They offered to help again if we made any large purchases. We each bought a small item or two — nothing we needed assistance with. We also laughed at these intriguingly wacky nail clippers.

There was a church rummage sale around the corner but it wasn’t supposed to open until 10. “Too bad, or we could just walk,” Meghan said. Then when we drove past it, it seemed to be open already!

We parked the car again and went to check it out. It was nice getting in there a half-hour before it was advertised to start, with only a few other shoppers.

There was a lot of stuff. Some of it required closer inspection — I’m not sure you can tell how large these are, but they were kind of amazing.

Meghan carried around two vintage men’s shirts in fantastic patterns — like stripes made out of a belt motif, each in different color schemes — but ultimately deemed them too musty and stinky to deal with.

I was eager to check out the book section, as I remembered it being really strange and interesting at past sales here. This time around it was similarly entertaining.

Outside there was a free pile sort of spread around the trunk of a tree — an interesting choice, but I guess practical, since it was about to start drizzling at any moment.

Meghan grabbed some magazines and an envelope of promotional photos from some Arnold Schwarzenegger movie … ? The details are vague in my memory. We passed on this item.

One of our next stops had this fantastic sign out front.

The sale was actually pretty good, but very strange — lots of original screenprinted art, a megaphone (new and sadly too expensive to buy just for kicks), a few books and CDs, and a bag of old photos — I looked through and almost all of them were boring. Meghan did purchase a few that had groups of ’40s girls in bathing suits.

Next was an estate sale that Meghan had spotted a sign for earlier. It hadn’t been advertised and hardly anyone was there. We walked in through the garage, equally intrigued and repelled by this amazing painting that we could see through the doorway to the basement.

That was not the only portrait they had.

As we walked in, Meghan muttered, “smells like tinkle!” It was a bit much, but it didn’t stop us from checking out their stuff.

Meghan considered buying a set of vintage suitcases — there were something like five of them and they were in good shape but felt a bit … sticky. We did each grab some jewelry and I got a great vintage kid’s dress. Meghan found a cool lampshade and few other items, then spotted an old Singer sewing machine. She asked the seller how much it was and got the whole story of how it had belonged to her mother … “Do you want to keep it?” Meghan asked, but the seller said no, and charged Meghan $30 for all of her items, sewing machine included. Meanwhile, I was browsing through the records — mostly unremarkable schlock, but I had to go ahead and purchase this gem.

Next was another estate sale. We walked in and I started to browse, then I heard Meghan ask the seller, “”What in god’s green earth is that?” There was a pause, and then she added, “Is it a rat?” The seller said, “No, I think it’s a mummified mouse.” I was aghast — how is that ever going to be something you want to hear? Not only that, it was a mummmified mouse painted gold and stuck onto a piece of glass.

This should have been our cue to run away screaming, but apparently neither urine odor nor petrified rodents are enough to keep us from digging through an estate sale. Although our determination wasn’t exactly looking like it would pay off.

We saw people coming up from the basement and went to check it out. Someone was really into glass art. This was one of their sculptures. I think it is a jellyfish.

There were boxes of all kinds of stuff down there — none of which I needed anything to do with.

I went back up and didn't get anything else, except for a picture of this scale. (It was not accurate, at least in pounds. Can't speak to the kilograms.)

The next sale was outside. Annoying Jewelry guy was there. After muttering about what a turd he was and taking a quick look around, we got back into the car. Meghan started to pull out and realized he was standing in the street. “I could take him out right now,” she said. “Should I?” We ultimately decided against vehicular manslaughter, but it was nice to dream for a moment.

One thing I have realized after over four years of doing this blog is that for as many sales as we have been to, there is still always something new to encounter. Like at this next sale, where they had a pair of “greeters” perched on a chair, waving politely at every car that passed by.

We had actually been to a sale here before, but I think it was before last Christmas. Or maybe they just hadn’t gotten around to attempting to sell their holiday gingerbread display that time.

We were winding down at this point, but made a few more stops. One sale had gone for the “imperative command” style label on their free box. Not sure it was working.

And another had this box of fascinating faces.

They were newspaper printing blocks (I’m sure there’s a technical name for them that I don’t know), all pictures of Masonic dudes! Pretty cool — I’m actually still surprised that neither one of us ended up buying them. I hope they found a good home.

All in all, not too bad for a wet September day.