Both Jenny and I are on the one week count-down to Oly Manor and that is always a nice to thing to look forward to when it’s a holiday weekend … Labor Day weekend is usually pretty bad for sales.

We hit a sale that maybe you remember from the rainy carport last year.

This time was good, but not as amazing. Tons of vintage and oddball items.

Last time I picked up so many cool items that I was thinking I would really score something. We both picked up a few things — Jenny got a pretty cool 1979 book about David Bowie — but nothing super amazing.

One of the next sales unearthed the most amazing/gross/interesting/heinous jean jacket I have ever seen.

I don’t think I need to mention this, but cow arms? Don’t most women want to appear thinner? Cow print doesn’t give the illusion of thin, no?

AND (I know that really is enough, right?) the guy was putting up his sale signs with an electric screwdriver. Wouldn’t that harm your trees that you probably put a ton of time into growing?!?

The fact that most of the sales we hit were crappy was really okay, since we didn’t expect very much. But we did hit one really big winner.

Some woman who had been an art school teacher had died a few years ago and the family had just pulled all of her stuff outside in yard sale fashion. She had some really crazy taste, and had loved hands. There were tons and tons of hand items.

I picked up so many great things. Three pairs of ’70s Frye boots, tons of vintage clothing. To be honest, I have no idea what Jenny purchased. I just was so in the yard sale zone. I ended up with three tall kitchen bags filled for $30.

We ended up hitting a different area, taking time to sit down and have a snack (something that we rarely do) and hitting a bunch of overall bad sales. Like the sale with the life size Lord Of The Rings stand up.

And one of the more oddball items we have seen at a sale: the portable blacklite for all those on the go! A travel black light? It even looks like it’s for your auto. And they had two of them. WTF?

One of the last sales we hit was a supposed 10-family sale that turned out to be four houses, including an old woman with kitty ears on (I shit you not). The next house had a guy that serenaded us with his clarinet. It was sort of cool and freaky at the same time.

If we hadn’t found that one great sale early on it would have been a pretty fruitless day, but we managed to fill up the trunk.

By the way, I stopped at one sale on Monday. While I was there, one of my sale nemesises came and said what he always says: “Got any jewelry?” The seller said she had some carved Bakelite bracelets earlier, but they were already gone. My heart sank a little at missing out on those, but it was awesome to see the pained expression on his face!

After missing last weekend’s sales I was excited about heading out last Saturday. There were a bunch of listings that looked great, including one that our friend and occasional guest-star Leslie was going to be selling at. Karl joined us again and we all met up at 8:00, heading straight to the one sale crazy enough to start at 7:30. Unfortunately, it sucked. As we left, Meghan noted that Old Navy does not qualify as “designer clothes” (as their ad had stated).

It was about 8:15 and there was nothing else starting til 9, so we made an early coffee and danish stop, then headed to Leslie and friends’ sale … we figured they might let us look through early, but they were barely even starting to set up. So we headed to one of the more interesting sales, listed as “Vintage/Ethnic/Collectibles.” When we got there we realized it was a building where we’ve been to sales before … which were more along the lines of antique mall stuff than funky yard sale junk. I didn’t have high hopes, but their prices were actually pretty decent this time; it seemed like they were more interested in making things go away than raking in the dough. Items were laid out on all-one-price tables, ranging from 50 cents up to a whopping $10.

Each of us bought one item — I got a very ancient little book of plays especially written for home performances. Ah, the good old days before TV!

I decided we should go out of our way a little to hit the next sale since it sounded really good: artists/collectors getting rid of a ton of cool vintage crap. All I had to say was “they have records,” and Karl was on board. We headed up north, right through the area with the awful “neighborhood sale” that Meghan suffered through last week. “I have a bad feeling about this,” she said. Our hopes were perked up a bit by their “Big Ass Yard Sale” sign, but when we pulled up they were still setting up … at 8:55. Should we wait around? The guy setting up (who was wearing a homemade-looking t-shirt of a Doors record with flames shooting off of it) didn’t look that close to being done, and the garage was tied off with rope. We decided to ask if he’d really be ready at 9:00, and he informed us that his sale started at 10:00. Whoops! Score zero for my listing-reading skills.

We headed back into our regular stomping grounds, making a stop along the way at a pathetic block sale. Two of the sales we just drove by. One had a section with some clothes hanging up, and while Meghan and Karl perused them I checked out the other area. Horrible! I told them not to even bother looking. So far, the morning was off to a pretty uninspiring start.

Back to our friends’ sale, which was billed as the “12th Annual Green 55 Memorial Sale.” Leslie once explained to me what the hell Green 55 was, but I have long since forgotten. But in any case, the sale was great, with all kinds of crazy cool crap. The first thing I fixated on was this extremely strange-looking tea set.

The seashell motif is kind of cute, but why does it look like it’s covered in algae? Also, that stuffed animal really has a lot going on. It was definitely not the only weird toy in sight.

There was one table that was almost completely covered with dolls, in various states of undress and disarray.

Karl grabbed an insane M.C. Hammer doll (in its box!), then began digging through the records. He pulled this beauty out of the crates.

They also had these lovely Paint-By-Numbers, which I presume are illustrating some great historical/biblical moments.

Basically, if it was fun, bizarre, kitschy, or schlocky, they probably had it for sale.

We paid for our purchases and while we were loading up the trunk, I noticed that several of the records Karl had bought had Meghan’s distinctive yard-sale price stickers on them. Everyone selling there had been to our last sale, so that wasn’t too weird … but it was still funny to see them making the rounds.

Next, we saw signs for an alley sale. As we’ve mentioned before, these can be a bit treacherous to get in and out of, and/or overly isolated and creepy. This one was fine though, and the only creepy stuff was creepy in kind of a cute way.

Karl bought more records here and Meghan pulled some old jars out of their free pile. We made a few uneventful stops nearby, and Karl kept asking if we could go back to the “Flaming Doors Record” guy’s sale. I felt like we might have jinxed it by showing up early, but I was still curious. It was well after 10:00 by the time we made it back there and of course there was a small throng around the records. Karl dived in but it turned out they were $3 each or “as marked” — not cheap enough to go nuts over. I looked through the nice but pricey collection of vintage tablecloths (I heard the woman seller telling someone that she loved them, but married someone who can’t stand cloth covering up his wood tables). Meghan scored an amazing deep pink velvet coat, but overall the sale was a bust. Although on the plus side, they did have this lovely piece of artwork (labeled “Psycho And Elvis”).

This day really wasn’t panning out the way we’d hoped, so we decided to go to a new area. Karl had heard that there was a neighborhood sale in Maple Leaf so we headed out that way. We found a couple of so-so sales, then made another snack stop at Cloud City Coffee. Meghan was bummed that they were out of their amazing plain croissants, but then we saw a tray coming right out of the oven! They were almost too hot to eat, but dang were they good. Karl and I also had some refreshing chicken salad, and he topped it off with a slice of their indescribably delectable coconut bread. Yum!

Okay, enough about the chow … back to the sales. We found a couple of signs for sales, but nothing amazing. Finally we hit three sales on one block, where they actually had maps for the neighborhood sale … which consisted of SEVEN sales. Wha–? And here Meghan was bitching about 16 sales at the Broadview sale last weekend. This pitiful excuse for a neighborhood sale made that one look massive!

It was getting hot, and the lack of good scores was making us a little cranky. We took a little bit of a winding route home in order to hit a few more sales from my list. One of them had listed “tons of shoes,” and they were not lying.

Meghan asked what size they were and how much. The woman said they ranged from about 8 to 9, and these ones were $5, and the ones on this side were more, and some of them were Brazilian, and some were Italian, and she had sold some online already, and she just loved shoes, and now she was moving so she had to get rid of some, and … we wanted to smack her. We left without buying a thing.

Next we found a sign for the “Three Amigas” yard sale. This sale was just okay, but the great thing was that they were giving out free cookies. And not just any cookies: amazing cookies. They had big chocolate chunks and pieces of dried apricots and for some reason they were just mindblowingly good. Each of us took seconds and while we didn’t buy much, I think the sellers at least appreciated the lavish praise we bestowed on their baking prowess. They said there were brownies coming out next and we were tempted to stick around, but we dragged ourselves onward … where we found this crazy display of sale stuff in a traffic circle.

The stuff at this sale was mostly bad, but Karl did find his second pointy-atomic clock of the day here (while irritating the seller with his intentionally inane comments about why they call it “midcentury modern” … she was not amused).

Around the corner was another sale. This one wasn’t that great either, but at least it had a lovely view of Green Lake.

After waiting around for slow-poke Karl to finish digging through the crap, we were really ready to call it a day. We were all getting a little cranky and tired out. We kept giving each other shit, then making fun of each other for being overly sensitive, and on and on in some kind of demented vicious (but harmless) circle. Karl made a comment about how he was in a state of carb overload from all the baked goods and we realized that we weren’t just crabby … we were carby.

So we were determined to just go home, but yet when we saw a tempting sign … the car just sort of involuntarily turned in that direction. It turned out to be a sale at a house where years ago Meghan and I had been to a great estate sale (or series of sales, since it had spanned several weeks). The new residents told us how the man who’d lived there had left the house to the next door neighbors, who’d been looking in on him and bringing him meals after his wife had passed on. We didn’t buy anything, but we each took magazines out of their free pile. We didn’t take these, though.

I can’t get over the wide range of incredibly bad looks those guys are working. I mean, why would you want to learn guitar tunings from someone who is obviously way too into his giant poncho? Or chord vocabulary (whatever that actually means) from Mr. Sideswept Long Hair and Too-Tight Pants? I won’t even get into Frank Gambale and his “technique.”

Finally we made it back to Meghan’s and snapped the obligatory trunk photo before dispersing all the goods.

For a not-great day, we all ended up with some decent stuff. I think it was just that a lot of the sales that had sounded really great turned out to be duds. With the unlimited space for write-ups on Craigslist, it’s all too easy for people to make bad sales sound amazing. (Sadly, even with all that space, some of them forget to list their address. I noted three sales which I would have loved to hit if I had known where the hell they were! I mean, one of them said they had “fiesta ware and heavy metal.” I don’t usually buy either of those, but the combination sounded promising. Alas.)

At least we had some yummy baked goods … even if they did make us feel all carby.

Jenny had warned me that she wouldn’t be doing sales this weekend. She also had sent me an email earlier in the week letting me know about the Broadview Community Garage Sale. My friend (and previous guest star) Tokyo Rose wanted to come along, since she just purchased her first home and needs to start filling it. She even made a list and brought along my copy of the Apartment Therapy book. I made a list of sales, but I didn’t get too crazy, since I was thinking about the amazing Broadview sale.

First, we hit yet another creepy doll sale, with hundreds of dolls.

I didn’t look around too closely, although this Baby Skates one did catch my eye.

This was connected to a sale that Jenny and I had hit last year, but they managed to get their two neighbors to join in this time.

We didn’t go to tons of sales on the way to Broadview. When we got there we didn’t see any signs and it took two sales to even get a map. When I looked at the map, it had just 20 sales on it. And 4 of them were on Sunday. WTF? A “community” sale with only 16 sales? What a waste.

We then hit a sale at Salty Dog Pottery. I was sort of excited, since I drive by this building all the time.

It might have been good earlier, but by the time we got there it was mostly just nice pottery and oddly, two tables of ’70s Avon perfume bottles.

We drove by this really large and odd community bulletin board on a side street.

The next sale had mostly dog figurines. A lot of them.

Of course, this was nothing compared to the World’s Largest Collectible Dog Museum I visited in Waco, Texas last year.

Driving on, we spotted one of the more interesting sale signs that I’ve seen.

When we got to the sale, Tokyo found a really great 50s formica table for her new place and I picked up a wonderful 50s men’s jacket. And while we were there, the guy that painted the sign … painted us. His name is Sam Day and he paints people at weddings.

O.K., neither of us really look quite like this, but it was something that hasn’t ever happened to me before at a sale.

I took a trunk photo and really this might be one of the worst trunk photos ever.

Since it’s so bad, I pulled out one thing to show you that I picked up for a whopping $13.

It’s a Gallia Deco tea, coffee and creamer set. I can’t seem to find much information about them, but I think you can tell how amazing they are. This is the cleaned up version — it was pretty nasty when I picked them up. I used some serious elbow grease to get them to look like this!

Earlier in the week we had a brief debate about whether to stay in our area or branch out. There were some interesting neighborhood sales, but our neighborhood advertised at least three block sales, plus a whole lot of other stuff, so we just stayed close to home. Karl came along for the ride and we got an early start.

There were two sales advertised as starting at 8:00, but one wasn’t even there … perhaps because it was threatening to rain (though miraculously it stayed dry all morning and even got kinda sunny). We made an early coffee stop and then headed to the first block sales, where things were just getting set up. One of the sales had a huge mound of clothes in the garage and everything was only 25 cents. We each took a spot around the pile and started digging. I found some boring-but-worth-a-quarter items, then pulled out two cute vintage sweaters, including one ’50s beaded yellow cardigan in great shape. For 25 cents!

This sale also had a bunch of fifty-cent books. I grabbed a bunch of those too, but was wary of this batch.

I pointed that last one out to Meghan, who actually opened it up and flipped through the pages … until we both laid our eyes on a truly horrifying photo. I will not even attempt to gross you out by describing it, but let me just say that Meghan slammed that book shut faster than I would have thought possible. Karl heard us shriek and wondered what was up. I handed over the book, telling him “Don’t open this unless you never want to have sex again.” He stared at me quizzically for about two seconds, then curiosity got the better of him and he opened it up. Sure enough, after flipping through a couple of pages he slammed it shut with a pained yelp. I don’t think he really recovered all day.

Next door Meghan discovered a cute old wood table that I purchased for $3 thinking it would be a good art-project table for my daughter. It was too big to cram in the car so I said I’d get it later. When I did, it was quite a bit bigger than I’d realized — not sure it was really a wise purchase, but for $3 I can always ditch it later if I decide it’s just not working out. The seller told me how it had been their kitchen table when they lived driving around in a hollowed-out school bus for a couple of years, then later they sawed the legs off to make it into a coffee table. (She also confirmed that someone next door was an obstetrician/gynecologist. Which explains them having that book, but even so … I really think there are things that just shouldn’t be put out at your yard sale for anyone to see, and that is definitely one of them.)

We hit the next block sale and it was decent too. The third one didn’t appear to be happening — not sure if everyone just got scared off by the possibility of rain, or what. Then we wasted some time driving around looking for a sale that Karl had read the ad for (and remembered it said “records”), but couldn’t remember the exact address. We never found it, but we did find signs for another sale that hadn’t been advertised. We were excited until it was down an overgrown, slightly creepy alleyway. Karl hummed the banjo tune from Deliverance as we bravely walked in. All we found when we got there was this … times about twelve.

Yes, it was one of the dreaded “tool sales.” We barely even pretended to look around before splitting.

We hit a few more decent sales — nothing extraordinary, but each of us found a few cool things. Then we found two sales across the street from each other. One of them had an amazing formica table with a set of chairs … which had already sold. Meghan did pick up some cute shoes there. We then walked across the street, perusing the goods. Meghan and Karl were yelling back and forth and they must have said each other’s names, because the strangest thing happened: the seller said “Oh my god — you’re Meghan and Karl? Is that Jenny? Are you guys from Yard Sale Bloodbath?” We were stunned to find ourselves at the sale of someone we’d never met before who reads our blog. It was cool, but completely unexpected! I told her I felt like we should take a picture, but she urged me not to. So I’ll just tell you that it was a good, solid sale — plenty of items, fairly priced, nothing disgusting or disturbing on display. We each ended up with stuff — I bought a poker set (chips and cards in a cute little travel case) and a few still-sealed soaps.

Our next stop was a house where I’d been to a sale years before and picked up a working ’70s Technics turntable for $5. Unfortunately, there was nothing I wanted to buy this time around, but there was a grade-school boy who shouted, “Card tricks! Twenty-five cents!” I made Karl give him a quarter and he proceeded to do a very long trick in which he repeatedly asked, “Um … is this your card?” We felt bad that he seemed to be screwing it up, but it turned out to be an elaborate setup for a grand finale where the right card was revealed.

Next we went to a sale with boxes and boxes of books, all old and slightly crusty. I debated getting a home taxidermy handbook but decided to pass. I think that was a wise decision. Karl found some records, including this questionable item. At first he just laughed about it, but somehow he ended up falling under its spell and was compelled to bring it home.

It was 10:30 and the trunk was already pretty dang full.

Since we weren’t far from Meghan’s house we decided to make a quick drop-off. Then we headed back out … to lame sale after lame sale after lame sale. Really. I think I bought one item the entire rest of the day. We wondered if we had somehow jinxed ourselves with the early dump or whether that was just the way it was meant to be.

After a whole lotta nothing we decided to call it a day and get breakfast. While unsuccessfully looking for parking we saw a sign for another sale, so we headed off that way. It turned out to be in a new house, built in the same spot where a guy Meghan had dated long ago used to live. Meghan mentioned this fact to the new owners and they said, “Oh, the Rat Palace?” Meghan told him that actually her ex kept the place pretty tidy, but they continued to say “Rat Palace” about ten more times … it was very odd. They seemed to have plenty of money but no taste. We didn’t really like them, or their stuff.

Hoping to end on a better note we headed off to just one more sale. Once there, it took us all a few minutes to realize that the two people standing around weren’t the sellers, just fellow shoppers. In fact, the “sale” had ended, and written in chalk on the ground was “TAKE STUFF, LEAVE $.” There was a glass jar with “Donations Please, P.S. Karma” written nearby.

One of the guys shopping said something about how we should be sure to leave some money, since the people were moving and needed cash. They seemed to be examining every item on display, debating whether to take it or not. They left and put some money in the jar. When Karl went to put in his offering, he discovered they had left a whole nickel. Nice! Meghan took a few things and made a small donation; I took nothing and left nothing. As we drove off we debated the odds on whether the money in the jar would be stolen, and whether the nickel-leavers would end up coming back later to do it themselves.

All in all, not the most mindblowing day, but we all ended up with some decent items!