After finally getting back in action last week I was excited to head out again. Sadly, there weren’t many promising sales listed! We decided to coordinate with Karl and meet up at an amazing bakery that we don’t get to very often. Yes, we wasted precious sale shopping time, sitting around eating delicious bagels and pastries. What can I tell you — if there was anything that sounded great starting that early, we would have gotten our treats to go.

Our first sale was a moving sale that sounded like a crazed collector paring down, with records, books, CDs, and toys all mentioned in the ad. These kinds of sales can really go either way, but we figured it was worth a stop. The upstairs had lots of things scattered around, but I went straight to the basement, figuring the good stuff might be down there. Dang, was I wrong. Here is a representative corner.

The basement was dark and disheveled, and it had a little bit of that crime scene vibe that is sometimes present at moving or estate sales, so I didn’t stay down there long. Back upstairs we all started ransacking a box of $1 CDs, each pulling out a few winners. While totalling up what I owed, I spotted a talking Pee Wee Herman doll! The seller said it was $10, so I snagged it.

After I paid I noticed some decades-old boxes of Mai Tai and Daiquiri mix. I asked if I could take a photo of them, and the seller said “Oh, you can have those.” I really would have rather taken a photo and left them there. But I felt like it would be rude not to accept, so now I own them.

I joked that I’d bring them to a party and leave them there, but honestly I’d be afraid someone might die. I think I will just put them next to my ancient chocolate credit card.

Our next stop was the Rat City Rummage Sale, held at a former roller rink in White Center (just south of Seattle, or technically possibly the southernmost part of Seattle … I’m never all that clear on these boundary details).

Meghan has a long history with this building and spent pretty much the whole time freaking out that it wasn’t a roller rink anymore. Finally she just had to go outside. She didn’t really miss that much — there were some cool crafty sellers there, but not enough oddball junk as I would have liked to see. One guy had a ton of great old ’70s iron-ons, but wanted about $10 each. Having once experienced the heartbreak of applying some vintage iron-ons that proceeded to self-destruct, this was way too expensive for me. Karl purchased what he declared was the only record in the whole place. This didn’t end up being true for long: a guy we know was loading in boxes of ’em. But since Meghan had already abandoned us I had to drag Karl away pretty quickly.

Karl then suggested we hit a nearby Goodwill and we headed off that way, stopping first for gas. Meghan went in to pay and then pronounced it was the grossest, skankiest mini-mart ever. She had a look of horror as she tried to describe its heinous stench, adding that there was so much junk piled up behind the counter that it looked like a mad hoarder was living there. She urged us to go in and see for ourselves, but we weren’t having any of it. Between this and the roller rink, I have to say it really wasn’t her morning.

It’s been a really long time since I’ve found anything to get excited about in a thrift store, and this Goodwill visit was just more of the same. I know other people still score, even in our neck of the woods, but I just haven’t felt the thrift store mojo in a while. No one ended up finding anything, so we headed next door to a Mexican grocery and stocked up on homemade salsa, chips, and tortillas, which was way more exciting than anything at Goodwill that day!

We had one more sale to hit, but first we somehow ended up making yet another food-related stop at a grocery import place. (In the interest of not turning this into Yard Sale Foodbath I’ll spare you the details.) Then we made our way to the sale, whose ad had promised “awesome hipster vintage” among other things. It said the sale was outside an empty building and that they’d be there til 4:30 unless they got kicked out. Then it said they would rent spots if other people wanted to sell. Seemed awfully cheeky to offer to rent out a spot at someplace you might get kicked out of, but whatever. The part of their ad that really won me over was “LIVE MUSIC BY CD PLAYER. TWIN PEAKS SOUNDTRACK BITCHES.”

Sadly, there was no Twin Peaks soundtrack playing. And I guess this is what passes for awesome hipster vintage these days:

They did have some reasonably good stuff. We all loved this sign.

And their mannequin displays were excellent.

Despite all that, we bought nothing.

Three sales and one thrift store … I’m surprised we had enough to even get a decent trunk shot! Of course, the food items are taking up some of the room …