I am not that used to going out to sales alone anymore, since I usually have someone with me. I don’t mind going, but figuring out the addresses while driving gets me a little turned around. The upside is I can leave when I want or not go at all or drive around in circles and no one cares.

This weekend was the Crown Hill Neighborhood sale. Some years it’s been really good, some years not so great.

As less old people live in our part of town and more families move in, they have less old/good stuff and for lack of a good way to put, more disposable goods. When I say disposable, I mean items that come into your home from Old Navy or the dollar store for a year and then end up at Goodwill.

The first good sale was a woman that honestly I can’t tell if she is a picker or collector, but I have been to her sale a few times. This time around she and her guy planned to move, so she was really unloading.

There were piles of clothing, and the book sellers had stacks going — this is what the books looked like after they left.

I picked up a few things for a whopping $6. She told me that if I came back on Sunday at 3:00, everything left over would be free. She hadn’t really finished unloading the entire garage, but I knew I could be there all day if I waited around.

The next street of sales I hit had this nice sign.

But once I turned, then I saw a ton of caution signs on their street about kids playing. I had a woman screaming at me to slow down, “KIDS ARE AT PLAY HERE!” First of all, I am going 5 miles an hour. Second, there aren’t any children currently playing on your street. Third, you are standing in the middle of the road and I am not going to hit you (I did think about it). After that I didn’t want to buy a fucking thing from this family or her neighbors. I am not trying to be a total jerk, but I could barely go a slow enough speed to have my car stalling … it wasn’t like I was flying along at even 20 miles an hour.

I was also getting a little miffed about the overall quality of the sales, plus that interaction about my driving bugged me enough that I just picked a new area to hit. Blue Ridge has a yearly sale at a different time, but it’s close enough, so I drove over and found this funny little sale.

Her sign was great and I picked up some really nice design magazines that I would never pay $7 for on the newsstand. She had some other nice items, but not really my style.

I thought I would just wander around and stopped at a sale where the woman was a lawyer who had just lost some weight and of course her old size is my current size. She had nice taste and the tags were still on most of her clothing. I picked up a few items, including a really nice $300 suit with the tags still on for $30. I rarely ever have to dress like that for work, but the suit is really pretty.

All these tutus at the next sale made me sad that Jenny wasn’t with me, since they seemed like something her daughter would love to have in her selection of dress-up clothing.

The next sale was at a huge ranch-style ’50s house. I remember buying records here many years ago. They had a nice display of tables with vintage dishes –- not that I’m allowed to buy dishes.

I stopped at another sale to looked at this 70s moped.

I was taking a photo of it for my husband. I had my hand on the seat and the man that we like to call “furniture guy” walked right past me and asked the price. Before the owner could say anything I said “Oh, do you mean the moped that I am currently looking at?! You mean this moped?” He became sheepish and skulked off.

I did call my husband and he almost purchased it, but couldn’t get the guy to come down from his $200 price for a moped with no title that hadn’t been running in over 15 years. I went to a few more unremarkable sales and ended up calling it quits around 11:30.