So, remember when we were going to have a sale a while back, got rained out, and then ended up serendipitously finding another place to have it? The other folks we were originally going to sell with said they were going to try and get an indoor sale again soon. The idea was to have it inside a local bar/concert hall, the Tractor Tavern, on some Sunday or another. Some of them had done it there before and it seemed like it would be a great place. We talked about which days we could do it and Sunday the 9th was tossed around as an option … then we didn’t hear anything about it and figured it was off. Come Thursday, we find out it’s on! We both had some of our leftovers from last time priced and ready to go, but had to scramble to get the rest of our stuff together and put the word out as best we could.

The plans weren’t entirely organized and we weren’t even sure what time we should get there on Sunday morning. A little before 9:00 I showed up and found Meghan talking simultaneously to the (very confused) cleaning woman finishing up at the bar, and to one of our other friends on the phone. The girl who coordinated everything showed up with the keys and we managed to straighten everything out.

The rest of the sellers (6 in all) started to trickle in and we got to work setting up. Our friend Michelle had brought some clothes racks, which were great since we all had a ton of those. We also hung some up using a homespun rope contraption, which didn’t really work so well. Some of the clothes I brought were the last bits from the crazy $3 sale — after sorting through and deciding what to keep, sell, or give away, there were a few items that had me scratching my head as to why I actually thought it was a good idea to purchase them, so they ended up here.

As we were setting things up who wanders in but Annoying Jewelry Guy! Even though we see him on a regular basis he never shows any sign that he recognizes us. I don’t know if he’s antisocial, or just so lost in his jewelry-seeking world that he truly doesn’t remember seeing us before. In any case, he didn’t stay long after we made it clear that a, we weren’t ready yet and b, we didn’t think anyone had any jewelry.

Finally everything was ready and it was just about 10:00. I have to say that it was a pretty good spread. The only trouble was that it was kind of dim — your eyes adjusted after a while, but when you first walked in it looked pretty bad. It was even too dark for our not-very-sophisticated cameras to get any decent pictures, but thankfully fellow seller and photographer extroardinaire Kevin Schlosser came to the rescue — all the photos in this post are his.

I have to say that this was one of the most fun times I have ever had doing a sale. We had a steady stream of shoppers throughout the day, thanks to a combo of word of mouth, our half-assed online promotion, and overflow from the Ballard Farmer’s Market happening right up the street. Meghan and I skipped out at one point to put flyers up by the market and spread the word. She kept saying she wished she had a sandwich board to put on and walk around, which would have been awesome.

Girls were going crazy over the vintage clothes. Some of them started accumulating quite the piles. We let people take stuff into the bathroom to try on (and/or inspect under brighter light). Of course, some folks just pulled stuff on over their clothes right by the racks.

The bar wasn’t serving, or I’m sure people would have been drinking and shopping at the same time. It was a pretty fun crowd for the most part, although of course we had our share of nutters. At least the freaks provided some good conversation as we rehashed the strangest behavior seen over the course of the day.

I managed to pull together a pretty entertaining (at least to me) lot of magazines, books, and other odds and ends. Lots of it I had purchased at various sales over the past year or so, but I was really ready to send it on to a new home (you know we are active participants in the yard sale catch and release program). Greyhound racing programs, Mexican comic books, horrid recipe booklets, assorted issues of Sexual Behavior magazine from the early ’70s … sadly, I was left with at least half of the pile at the end of the day. With such quality items, how is that possible?! I kept most of it to try again, not because any of it is worth very much money, but more out of a fervent longing to see these oddball items, which somehow grabbed my attention, finding new appreciative owners someday.

At about 3:30 we started packing it up. I think everybody kept some of their leftovers, but we had a big pile to get dropped off at Goodwill too. Except for the aforementioned ephemera and one or two other items, I was ready to see that crap move on out of my life. It didn’t hurt that the day turned out to be fairly profitable — I made close to $200, and I think everyone else did pretty well too! Plus I think we all ended up scoring a few things from each other. Not bad for a sale that I really thought might not actually happen.