Meghan and I attempted to make an early start on Saturday, but there wasn’t much to hit early. Perhaps that was because it looked like it could rain at any time. We made a couple of stops and hit the bank, then drove up to this sale, where the sellers had just finished hanging this enormous banner.

Meghan remembered shopping here years ago and told the sellers that they had helped her get a record cabinet home — which she loved for years until her basement flooded and it got ruined. I think she actually got a little re-traumatized while telling the story. They offered to help again if we made any large purchases. We each bought a small item or two — nothing we needed assistance with. We also laughed at these intriguingly wacky nail clippers.

There was a church rummage sale around the corner but it wasn’t supposed to open until 10. “Too bad, or we could just walk,” Meghan said. Then when we drove past it, it seemed to be open already!

We parked the car again and went to check it out. It was nice getting in there a half-hour before it was advertised to start, with only a few other shoppers.

There was a lot of stuff. Some of it required closer inspection — I’m not sure you can tell how large these are, but they were kind of amazing.

Meghan carried around two vintage men’s shirts in fantastic patterns — like stripes made out of a belt motif, each in different color schemes — but ultimately deemed them too musty and stinky to deal with.

I was eager to check out the book section, as I remembered it being really strange and interesting at past sales here. This time around it was similarly entertaining.

Outside there was a free pile sort of spread around the trunk of a tree — an interesting choice, but I guess practical, since it was about to start drizzling at any moment.

Meghan grabbed some magazines and an envelope of promotional photos from some Arnold Schwarzenegger movie … ? The details are vague in my memory. We passed on this item.

One of our next stops had this fantastic sign out front.

The sale was actually pretty good, but very strange — lots of original screenprinted art, a megaphone (new and sadly too expensive to buy just for kicks), a few books and CDs, and a bag of old photos — I looked through and almost all of them were boring. Meghan did purchase a few that had groups of ’40s girls in bathing suits.

Next was an estate sale that Meghan had spotted a sign for earlier. It hadn’t been advertised and hardly anyone was there. We walked in through the garage, equally intrigued and repelled by this amazing painting that we could see through the doorway to the basement.

That was not the only portrait they had.

As we walked in, Meghan muttered, “smells like tinkle!” It was a bit much, but it didn’t stop us from checking out their stuff.

Meghan considered buying a set of vintage suitcases — there were something like five of them and they were in good shape but felt a bit … sticky. We did each grab some jewelry and I got a great vintage kid’s dress. Meghan found a cool lampshade and few other items, then spotted an old Singer sewing machine. She asked the seller how much it was and got the whole story of how it had belonged to her mother … “Do you want to keep it?” Meghan asked, but the seller said no, and charged Meghan $30 for all of her items, sewing machine included. Meanwhile, I was browsing through the records — mostly unremarkable schlock, but I had to go ahead and purchase this gem.

Next was another estate sale. We walked in and I started to browse, then I heard Meghan ask the seller, “”What in god’s green earth is that?” There was a pause, and then she added, “Is it a rat?” The seller said, “No, I think it’s a mummified mouse.” I was aghast — how is that ever going to be something you want to hear? Not only that, it was a mummmified mouse painted gold and stuck onto a piece of glass.

This should have been our cue to run away screaming, but apparently neither urine odor nor petrified rodents are enough to keep us from digging through an estate sale. Although our determination wasn’t exactly looking like it would pay off.

We saw people coming up from the basement and went to check it out. Someone was really into glass art. This was one of their sculptures. I think it is a jellyfish.

There were boxes of all kinds of stuff down there — none of which I needed anything to do with.

The next sale was outside. Annoying Jewelry guy was there. After muttering about what a turd he was and taking a quick look around, we got back into the car. Meghan started to pull out and realized he was standing in the street. “I could take him out right now,” she said. “Should I?” We ultimately decided against vehicular manslaughter, but it was nice to dream for a moment.

One thing I have realized after over four years of doing this blog is that for as many sales as we have been to, there is still always something new to encounter. Like at this next sale, where they had a pair of “greeters” perched on a chair, waving politely at every car that passed by.

We had actually been to a sale here before, but I think it was before last Christmas. Or maybe they just hadn’t gotten around to attempting to sell their holiday gingerbread display that time.

We were winding down at this point, but made a few more stops. One sale had gone for the “imperative command” style label on their free box. Not sure it was working.

And another had this box of fascinating faces.

They were newspaper printing blocks (I’m sure there’s a technical name for them that I don’t know), all pictures of Masonic dudes! Pretty cool — I’m actually still surprised that neither one of us ended up buying them. I hope they found a good home.

All in all, not too bad for a wet September day.