We didn’t make it to sales on the 4th of July. There weren’t that many happening, and it was nice to have a break. So we were rarin’ to go out last weekend! Karl joined us, and we started out at a sale that claimed to have a lot of stuff. And did they ever.

Stuff was arranged all around the yard. They seemed to have a little bit of everything. Make that a lot of everything. From old soda pop bottles …

… to water skis …

… to these amazing walls of storage lockers (sadly, too huge for us to do more than drool over).

Meghan found some roller skates marked $40. She asked that if was really the price. “Oh, no,” the guy said. “How about twenty-five?” Still too high. Karl made the only purchase here: a huge ’80s boom box that Meghan pointed out to him. We are talking massive, give you a pain if you carry it around huge. This had a nicer price: five bucks.

After a few more dead-end sales we hit one that had some fun oddball stuff. Karl made a beeline right over to a huge round hanging lamp … with “Schlitz” on it! It was $25 and the seller was excitedly telling us how it lit up all crazy when you plugged it in. Meghan saw it and said, “Ooh, are you going to buy that?” Karl just sat there, hemming and hawing and contemplating the purchase … for what felt like ages. Finally Meghan had had enough and said, “Will you take $20?” The seller agreed. Karl acted all bummed, but he had his chance! He ended up being fine about it though, even happy that she was the one who got it. Plus, she’d already tipped him off to the boom box, and later found him a cool vintage radio at a later sale – another $5 audio score.

We hit an estate sale that was really boring, just filled with the most unremarkable items. Anything cool was priced too high, and most of it was just crap you would find anywhere. At least everything was pretty tidy … until you walked past the bathroom.

Karl bought a hideous ’80s mug that said “Boss Lady” but otherwise it was a bust.

At another stop I heard Meghan call out “Do you have two dollars?” Before I could answer, some other lady got perturbed thinking Meghan was asking to bum some cash off of her! Meghan tried to clarify, saying “I’m not talking to you.” It came out sounding harsher than she meant it, and the woman walked away looking kind of upset. It was an awkward moment, on top of the fact that the seller had accidentally tried to short-change her when she’d paid with a twenty (which had let to the request in the first place).

The day went on without any really amazing sales. I bought a few CDs, but nothing special. Really, my big score of the day was probably a Tinkerbell dress-up outfit for my kid. Meghan found a few things and Karl picked up a black velvet Snoopy painting, but it wasn’t shaping up into the most fruitful day.

We hit a block sale, where they had these ancient framed photos. Cool, but too expensive.

There was also some stuff that was just plain weird. I was astonished by this item, priced at $275!

I asked them what it was exactly, and they said “It’s art!” Um, yeah … I think I made some stunned comment about the price, and they said, “Or, we’ll take FREE.” Given some of the crazy-ass pricing schemes we’ve seen at sales before, it hadn’t occurred to me that the high price tag was their idea of a joke.

We hit a few more yard sales. One of them was unremarkable except for their yard was made completely of Astroturf. Driving away, we saw their sign. Standard issue, except for that extra piece on the bottom.

We could not stop laughing about “Nice quality” scribbled forlornly on that bonus arrow. Let’s have a close-up, shall we?

Just as with Babee Tenda, “nice quality” became one of those phrases that we could not stop saying for the rest of the day. Who am I kidding? We’re still saying it.

Here is the trunk, complete with the wondrous globe o’ Schlitz …