You know how sometimes there is a theme for the day? Well, this Saturday was the complete opposite, with a ton of sales and a little bit of everything. Recurring guest star Karl came along for a great morning of sales. (And in a stunning turn of events, it was hot, sunny, and gorgeous out!)

One of our first stops was a sale that we’d been to once or twice before. The seller had tons of great vintage items … priced just high enough to make me think twice. Karl did pick up a Pac-Man drinking glass here.

At the next stop, we admired the effort put into this lemonade sign … although no one seemed to be there to sell it.

I guess it was still a little too early for lemonade, so we just looked at their stuff. I noticed the writing on this label and was rather stupefied.

I walked over and showed it to Karl and we both stood there with our mouths open for a good minute or so, before he realized it was meant to say “Set.” Oh.

After a few unremarkable sales we headed to one whose ad was scary, yet intriguing, mentioning “sexy hippie clothing and vintage birdhouses!” I figured it would be horrible, but of course I was curious. It turned out to be run by someone we knew, and wasn’t scary at all. In fact, it was chock full of interesting junk. Just the way we like our sales.

The “sexy hippie clothing” seemed like slightly false advertising (not that I minded in the least!), but the vintage birdhouses were definitely present.

We saw lots of odd items throughout the day, including this drinking fountain just plopped down on the lawn.

Along with the fountain there were a ton of clothes for sale, but nothing that interesting … or so I thought! Meghan’s yard sale superpowers led her right to a bunch of two-dollar ’50s sequined tops hanging on some tree branches. Dang! That was a good sale (with a couple more right nearby) … but some of them were really pathetic. At this one it looked like the sellers had just given up. Keep in mind it was only about 10:30 a.m.

At a moving sale, Meghan picked up a hilarious set of headphones with built in mike, proclaiming them “totally Wild World of Sports!” Remembering Olympic Manor last year, we asked her to please put them on and wear them around all day. Of course, she obliged … although they were only worn while she was at the sale, much to the entertainment of me, Karl, and everyone else there.

We went to one sale inside an apartment where we encountered a pair of our least favorite yard-sale-going specimens: scanners! I went over to see if they were even scanning anything good, finding them huddled around a pretty unremarkable stack of CDs. While doing this I heard Meghan loudly complaining about them to the seller. We headed out to the car while Karl finished rummaging through a box of records. When he finally came out, he told us that he’d talked to the scanner dude. The conversation apparently went something like this:

Karl: Is that laser going to hurt my eyes?
Scanner: What?
Karl: You heard what I said.
Scanner: Ha ha … how’s it going?
Karl: Seriously, do you guys ever find anything you can sell for more than five bucks?
Scanner: Actually, one time I sold a Tori Amos bootleg series CD for $299!
Karl: There must be a lot of lonely people out there.
Scanner: What does that have to do with anything?
Karl: A lot.

This exchange kept us laughing for the rest of the day.

The next sale was great, with Karl purchasing so many items he had to make plans to come back later to pick it all up. The stuff was mostly on their porch, with a few items inside. I found some great books and was really excited until the seller came in and embarrassedly told me that only the items on the card table were part of the sale. Sad.

Next was a sale where their ad said the sale was on “Saterday.” I didn’t expect much, and I was right. It was two dudes with a few bedraggled piles of stuff set out on the strip outside their apartment. The only thing that surprised me was that they were drinking bottled water rather than cans of beer.

Driving to what we’d planned to be our last sale, we saw a flyer for a school rummage sale that I swear wasn’t even advertised in the paper or on Craigslist! We figured it could be good. On the way we stopped at a sale hidden down a narrow pathway between two businesses. The people were friendly and funny (and kinda baked), and we all found stuff. Meghan bought a great leather jacket for $5, I bought a tiny Ramones t-shirt for my kid to grow into, and Karl bought a mind-boggling record, which we’re hoping he’ll write about for us soon.

We parked on the wrong side of the rummage sale, which turned out to be OK since there was another sale nearby where Meghan got the most amazing vintage high-heeled shoes ever — you’ll see them in the trunk photo, though it doesn’t really do them justice. The seller said they belonged to her great-grandmother and they were a mere two bucks!

Finally we found the way into the rummage sale, which was massive.

Most of it was garden-variety stuff, with a few cool items … and a few not-so-cool items, like this almost-indescribable purse.

I bought a few books here, rounding out my extremely small pile of purchases. Really, for hitting probably 20+ sales, you’d think I would have bought more … especially considering that Karl and Meghan filled the trunk and then some! There were a lot of things I was on the fence about but just wasn’t quite motivated to buy. That’s the way it goes sometimes and really, that’s okay by me. There’s always next week …