Oh, Saturday. Oh, Mt. Baker community sale. Home of Sweet and Savory and one of the few reasons that we could be writing a food blog.

Drive over to meet Karl after having a pretty good Friday. Grab a treat and then start hitting some sales. We ran into Spencer from The Anne Bonny. I knew that he was hitting sales in the South end, but since we usually hit Ballard, I never run into him. Chatted for a moment, but we had sales to hit.

At one sale they had tons of clothing in bags and strewn all over the lawn. It wasn’t bad stuff, but only if you are a size 2.

I did pick up a Diane Von Furstenberg silk dress in one of their messes. There was a guy at this sale and I kept thinking I knew him, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Hmm, if I squint and imagine I have on beer goggles will I remember him? Aha, I went on a horrible date with that guy 20 years ago! Ehg. Get me out of here!

We hit a block sale with about 5 sales.

One had records, so Karl was happy, and the owner let Karl know that he was the first person to purchase any records. I have learned that if I want to buy any decent records with Karl, I have to get to the stack before him. Some douche at the sale had purchased 100 DVDs from them. Both Karl and I made comments about how it was going to take a really long time to watch all of them. Maybe only funny to us, since it was so obvious that he purchased them for resale.

I think that Karl was a little sensitive that the south end might be a bust for me after last time. The Alley sale didn’t really help, since Karl bristled the second we saw his yard sale nemesis. She just seemed like an annoying mom to me, but Karl had a few stories to tell about her bumbling ways. Here is a question — if you have more than one nemesis, what is that called?

The Alley sale was a massive bust. I am really getting tired of people thinking that crap from Old Navy or Wal-Mart holds any value. Just take it to the Goodwill or better yet stop buying so much junk.

After hitting more sales, Karl get a call from a friend saying that he’d just gone to this great sale at the very end of Beacon Hill and that we should really go check it out. We drive and drive for what seems like 20 minutes to hit one of the worst sales I have ever been to. Tons and tons of horrible clothing and everything was a little too dingy and sort of like it had all been outside the night before. All told, the entire drive there and back took almost an hour of prime sale time. Honestly, with friends like that guy, who needs enemies.

Since we both needed a massive unicorn chaser to clear out the bad juju’s from the Beacon Hill sale, Karl made us hit the Yesler’s Mews sale. A nice little blend of drag queen, neighbors, and someone moving, mixed into one sale.

What did I see when I started to walk up the stairs? This amazing sign.

Great way to get folks to come to your sale and insult your neighbors at the same time.

When I was getting ready to drop Karl back off at his car we hit a sale in an old gas station. I think the “urge to purge” is a permanent sign.

We did manage to fill the trunk once again …

My mom has been wanting to come down and hit some sales for a while now, but as readers might remember, my mom can’t read any street signs or navigate. Fun, eh? Since my Friday sales have been so good, I thought she might want to drive down to Seattle and I would get a sale list together for Friday. I created the list with each address in HUGE font + bold and underline. How could anyone not read that? Then I put a number next to each sale based on what sounded good.

Our first two sales didn’t seem to be open yet, ten minutes before they were due to start. We drove back and forth between the two sales until 9:00.

The first sale was mostly baby stuff, but I did see a sort of nice woman’s 40s or maybe 50s jacket. When I asked the price I started to get a long story about the jacket. I started to walk away from her story about how rare the fabric was and how it wasn’t allowed in the country in the 50s… She said “O.K., how about $5?” SOLD. Later on I did look up the fabric and it’s Vicuna and it is rare. For once I should listened to the story!

We head back to the other sale and they aren’t unpacked at all, boxes of musty paper and old books. JUNK.

After that we needed to work out what sale to hit next. One estate sale was started at 10, but it’s 9:30 and we would be about 20 min. early. I know that the major pickers think nothing of going many hours early, but that just isn’t our style. We thought we would just drive by and see how it was going.

The sale was in full swing and was huge.

There was crap all over the lawn, in the house and in the back yard.

A woman that I see at sales (that always hits them early, and who I have seen score stuff right before me over and over again) had a huge pile started of vintage lamp shades and kitchenware. Ehg. The second I see her I just groan internally. But the sale was good, I hit the large 25 cent area and picked up some old sun glasses and a couple of purses.

I did stay away from this HUGE bunch of cleaning products right next to the 25 cent area.

I was just taking my time, since picker lady was rushing around like a crazy person adding stuff to her “pile” and being very “Those are mine! I already bought that! That is my pile!” (You can see why I can’t stand her, right?)

With all that said, I still had amazing luck at this sale. I hit the fabric room and picked up two large barkcloth drapes, more fabric and a few other vintage sewing items. Then I hit one of his closets and picked up two 50s gabardine jackets (for a dollar each) and a few other jackets.

Now I have a pile, and my mom is adding stuff to it. We ended up at the sale for well over an hour just going back into the house, then the back yard, then into the 25 cent area again. Each pass was more stuff. GREAT SALE!!!!

After that we drove way out to the Shoreline area and hit a large church sale.

My mom hit the main room while I hit the clothing area. What a mess! Nothing was hung or even sorted with the exception of the household stuff (drapes, towels) and the kids’ clothes. As I looked around I noticed a very long table of baby items … and then the baby.

I snuck out my camera and went to take a couple of quicky photos. Not everyone wants a stranger taking a photo of their baby. An older woman working the sale came up to me and wanted to know what I was taking a photo of, and she started to laugh too. This made the mother of the baby come over and want to know why we had been pointing at her baby. She said she hadn’t noticed the sign, but that it seemed like a good place for him while she looked at the baby clothing.

The sale was a bust for me, but my mom purchased so much stuff that we filled the remainder of the car.

It’s not that often that we get a full trunk and back seat too.

I’d like to start today’s post by informing you of the results of my unscientific survey of the books currently most likely to be seen at Seattle yard sales: The Devil In The White City, Running With Scissors, and Good In Bed. I saw each of these books at least five times on Saturday. Probably more. You also still see an alarming number of copies of Wild Animus, but since zillions of copies of that book were distributed for free a few years back as some kind of weirdo marketing campaign, I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that they’re still making the rounds.

OK, now that we have that out of the way, on to the recap. Our first stop on Saturday was a sale whose ad was possibly trying a little too hard to be wacky. Some of their stuff was sort of the same. I mean, just because you draw a black star and the word “Devil” on your ramen package does not mean anyone is actually going to pay a dollar for it.

And come on … how “vintage” is this Juicyfruit?

This was a multi-seller sale and there was only person minding the shop, who I don’t think was the person responsible for these items, so I couldn’t tell if they were seriously trying to cash in on this stuff or (more likely) were just having fun and trying to entertain themselves.

We moved on to a few uneventful sales, then stumbled upon this. I’m guessing that when you own a very large spider, you take advantage of every possible opportunity to use it.

This was the first sale I’d ever seen which greeted shoppers with a list of the items on hand. Kind of like a menu, or a table of contents.

I’m not sure if everything in this drawer was meant to be in the sale. I didn’t see those on that list of items!

This is the second week in a row (and the second time ever) that we’ve encountered condoms at a yard sale. I sincerely hope that this isn’t the beginning of a trend.

We headed over to a “crafter’s sale.” This can be good or bad, but something about the listing made it sound promising. It turned out to be a small but very cute sale.

Meghan tried on a pair of Camper shoes that were sort of abstract (as Campers tend to be), but kinda cool. They fit so well that she just kept them on for the rest of the day. (Yes, she did pay the seller first!) She also got a ton of magazines, a nice wicker storage box, a dress, and a book from the ’60s whose title made our jaws drop: Crafts For Retarded. I grabbed a bunch of odds and ends from the free box and purchased a stack of about 30 patches that said “HOOT” on them – $1 for all. I figured I’d use a few here and there, then you know the rest are headed for the yard sale catch and release program.

Next up was a fundraising sale for a local high school cheerleading squad. The team they cheer for? The Ballard Beavers.

We predicted that there would probably be a lot of cheapo size-zero clothes there, and this was pretty much correct. I don’t think either of us bought anything, but the folks running the sale were nice.

We meandered over towards Green Lake to hit a few sales. One was a fundraiser for an organization helping seniors and nothing was priced – you chose your donation/price. Meghan coughed up $10 for a pair of shoes and a pair of jeans, and I put in $5 for two items: a vintage warming tray (that will probably do little more than sit in its box on a shelf at my house, but it has such a great design I couldn’t pass it up) and a ’70s t-shirt with a very amateur-ish wizard drawing on it … captioned “Gandalf.”

After that we saw some signs for a nearby sale. When we pulled up I had sale ja vu, recalling a sale here maybe six or seven years ago. I remembered that it had strange and entertaining stuff, but was slightly overpriced. This time was about the same.

We moved on to a sale where we were greeted by this awful-looking display.

Yeah, there better be more than that! Unfortunately, it was about as bad as what was out front. The first thing we saw was a big pile of … Well, imagine that you took a stack of phone books, mail, and old papers, tied it together, and left it outside in the rain for a couple of years. That didn’t bode well, and sure enough, the other stuff …

And worst of all … what you never want to see at a sale!

The sale redeemed itself slightly when Meghan found and purchased a set of Lawn Darts. Although now I’m a little scared of going to her next barbecue.

Next was something billed as the “feel-good garage sale of the year.” I’m not sure about that, but it was full of weird stuff to dig through. Most of it wasn’t priced, but the sellers made it clear that everything was cheap.

Most of the stuff seemed to be from the ’80s, like this table full of fabric.

They also had boxes of fake food (age not known).

I started digging through a box of purses and kept coming across random debris left inside: gum wrappers, ticket stubs, wadded up tissues … gross, but then I kept thinking maybe there would be some forgotten cash inside one of them! But that wasn’t the case, so I moved on to another part of the sale, where I found this lying in the grass.

Meanwhile, Meghan was stunned by this fascinating sweater with a pattern that looked like fried eggs.

I’m not sure the picture conveys how very cropped and wide it is. She picked it up and put it down about five times, until it was clear she needed to just add it to her pile (which already had a bunch of vintage sheets, towels and other stuff). While she was getting her total, a woman started trying on various scarves she’d picked up and asking me what I thought of them. I’d give her the thumbs up or down, and was surprised to see that she completely followed my opinion in deciding whether to get them or not. It was like she’d somehow decided that I would be her personal style guru. When Meghan finished paying, the woman seemed disappointed that I had to stop advising her and pay for my items (two ’80s scarves and a set of black and white Vera pillowcases).

We started to head back home, figuring we’d stop at a few more sales en route. Meghan was starting to get a little punchy and proceeded to dish out potentially caustic remarks to three sellers in a row. It was all in good fun, but still cracked me up. First, a female seller gave her a friendly pat on her arm while they were talking, and she responded by sternly saying “Don’t touch me.” (I told her she was channeling Karl.) At the next sale sale she just announced she was going to be irritating when we walked in. The seller seemed concerned, but that was the end of it. Then we went to a sale where we could tell as soon as we walked up that it was a bust. The seller started joking with us: “Hey, you girls look like you need some golf clubs!” Meghan’s reply: “You’re about as funny as my dad. He golfs too.”

Yeah … it was time to call it a day.

And that does it — another Saturday, another trunk full o’ crap!

Last Friday I hit four sales and filled the trunk, but since we have been in the middle of a freak Seattle heatwave, I haven’t been in the mood to blog … or really do anything. It was good sale-wise, but maybe not all that blogworthy anyhow.

I might have been feeling that way again when I headed out today, since I didn’t even bring my camera.

Karl arrived and I handed him a list of sales and let him pick which ones we should hit, since he had to go to work after sales.

Ehg. The annual no-side-walk-land Dibble Street Block sale. Blocked this sale from my mind, but the second we drove down the street I remembered how bad this was last year. I hate people that save all the stuff (like an entire garage full) from their last sale, then put it out again. Both Jenny and I have been known to hang on to a box or two of really good items, but that’s it — the rest is dumped at Goodwill. You know the kind of sale I mean, right? Every single item was at their sale last year!

A few of the sales were a little better. I made Karl buy the Bowie coke mirror that you can see in the trunk, and he picked up a couple CDs, but the block sale was a dud.

Since Karl was in charge of the list, I didn’t know which sale was next. In fact I belly-ached when Karl said it had started at 8:00 am. Man, I wish we would have been at this sale at 8:00. There was tons of vintage, and nice vintage at that. TONS.

I started picking stuff and stacking it and trying to work out having everything held, so I could go get more cash. Then Karl said he could lend me money. I found three vintage swim suits, in normal sizes. I asked if she would take a couple of dollars off one of them, due to damage. The seller then told me that “two girls had called her saying that they wanted to buy all of the vintage.” Humph. I am here right now. Where are these mystery girls that are off at some other sale?!

The seller didn’t bother me, but the idea that some girls are out emailing folks on craigslist to make sure they get whatever they want … Bad Sale Karma.

In the end I spent $140 and I could have spent way, way more. She had clothing, dishes, picture frames, linens. I wished I had my camera. I really wanted to ask her if she had any Bakelite jewelry, but decided against it, since I figured she would have had the items in the sale if she wanted to sell them. And I was already carting away three bags of stuff.

The only thing that I really wanted to buy that I didn’t was this painting of the girl with the mask on.

How great is that? It isn’t something that my guy is going to be cool with, and I guess her husband was creeped out by it too. She did have a lot of paintings and framed pictures for sale.

After we drove back home and I took a photo of the trunk, I drove back to get some photos and also to write down her blog. She seemed a little bummed that I was only taking photos now, when a lot of stuff was already gone.

I took a photo of the remaining state glasses — I purchased 9 or 10 of them.

The last of the clothing. The lamp shades are great, but I am not allowed to buy any more, since I have three or four of them squirrelled away without lamps to mate with.

We started chatting and I asked her if the two girls had come to buy all the vintage. I had guessed they didn’t, since most of the clothing was still there. She said that they did come and had purchased her Bakelite-handled purses and some jewelry. My heart just sank as I explained that is what I collect.

She did end up telling me about her blog and how she mostly sells very high end wedding and estate jewelry.

I managed to buy one more bag of stuff and was able to take a few photos … and two of the bathing suits fit me perfect!

While Jenny was getting Saturday’s list together, she found a craigslist post for a sale claiming to have 400+ urinalysis cups. How could the day be bad, right?

Friday night I get a text message from Karl. “Are you guys REALLY going out at 8:00 am?” Um, yeah. Both Jenny and I have been doing pretty good starting on the early side. Nothing crazy aggressive, like hitting a sale that starts at 10:00am two hours early — we both find that a little rude, but stalking a sale that starts in 20 minutes or so seems reasonable. When Saturday morning rolled around we knew that Karl would be late, so we figured we’d hit a few nearby sales and then swing back and get him.

We hit a sale in a townhouse and I don’t mean to judge, but if your house was built in the last 3 years, I am probably not going to want anything you have. 1) I collect old junk and 2) if you moved in recently you won’t have accumulated much. Plus, most of them just feel like you are at Pottery Barn. This one did, but we both purchased some nice high-end closet organizing bins for $2 each. As I was walking away I saw a huge bag of unopened hotel and Sephora samples for $3. I always like that stuff around for when I travel, so I bought it. She told us that her “husband travels all the time” and that’s why there was so much. Sorting through it at home later, I found a bunch of unexpired condoms. EEK! Did she know that was in there? Kinda gives a new meaning to “my husband travels all the time” …

We drove back home to get Karl. It was the Crown Hill neighborhood sale and last year it was sort of sucky, but the year before it was great. I remember we filled the whole car up in just a few hours. We figured we would drive and start hitting some sales and we really did manage to hit a sale every few blocks. Sadly, most of them stunk.

At one of them I found this awesome fire ladder in its original box. By the time you find this in your closet and then hook it to your window, couldn’t you run downstairs and out the front door?

Then we hit a sale that had this insane table!

What would make you purchase that? If a friend gave that to you, are you still friends with that person?

At another sale, everything must have been in storage and instead of unwrapping everything completely they just laid it all out. This photo is a small part of what they had. Did they think it was effective, or was it pure laziness?

And then we came across this.

Were all the sales going to be this bad?

We went to a church sale that Karl had hit a few ago, saying it had been small but great. I walked toward the clothing and when Karl went to head me off, I full on pushed him out of my way. Then without saying a word he was gone. I told Jenny that I bet he was already walking down the block to hit the next sale. I was right on the money, and when I called him on it all he could say was “yeah, that sale bummed me out so badly that I had to leave.” I think was also the sale that he mentioned needing a unicorn chaser — our new code word for being at a bad sale and needing to hit a good one to balance out the yard sale universe.

At this point we all seemed to know that Crown Hill was sucking the big one and we should high tail it out of there. Of course we hit a few more on our way out of the area, even though we knew it was hopeless.

We couldn’t get over how badly the sales had been, especially for hitting so many sales. Picking a new area, even 20 blocks away, can really help. We pulled up at this one, where they had a lovely display of parasols.

Karl bought a t-shirt from this box. I’m not sure it was really “ironic” but at least it was cheap.

Then we found a sale that had sooo much oddball stuff out front, including this wacky rainbow nightgown and strange jacket.

The guy running the sale said many of the items had been donated from some kind of artist collective.

More items inside? Cool. I started pulling out tons of really nice vintage clothes, even filling up a box. I had said that I needed to know the prices and the woman took each item out, one by one, and talked to me about each piece. Jenny just parked it on the woman’s couch. Then the seller seemed to get defensive when I told her that I wasn’t going to buy all of them. I don’t mind paying for good vintage, but you need to pay me if I have to hear that much about each item.

After that we found a free pile with tons of records. Karl picked up a stack – most were bad, but the price was right.

Even with free records tossed in, the day just seemed really bunk. Hmm. I guess we really are going to hit the urinalysis cups sale! It was actually a pretty mellow sale, and the seller explained that they’d only been used to store her bead collection. Of course this is after we talked about buying yellow Gatorade on the way to the sale. Karl even one-upped that by saying if we gave him $10 he would pee into one of them. G-R-O-S-S.

All that was left was the 14th Annual Lockhaven Apartments sale. We have gone to this sale off and on over the years and you never know what you are going to find. Last year it was awful, but we did overhear the stellar garage sale goddess referring to herself in the third person. Most of the sales there were pretty bad, but then we hit one table with stuff from some woman that didn’t throw anything out for years. Pay Dirt. Everything was old and cheap and we spent at least twenty minutes digging through it all. Karl and I each filled a box for $10, Jenny bought $2 worth of wacky early ’70s catalogs, and pretty much everything you can see in the trunk photo came from there. For a sale we didn’t expect to have much, it sort of saved the day.

Saturday was a gorgeous sunny day – perfect for hitting sales. We tried to get an early start, but there was only one sale open at 8:00 and it was awful. We started stalking the 9:00 ones early (not in a rude way — only hitting ones that already seemed to be open for business). They were mostly just full of typical boring items. This one guy did have a bunch of camera equipment. He seemed really paranoid about someone stealing them. We thought that was unlikely to happen, but then again some of them were evidently pretty valuable, priced at hundreds of dollars, so maybe he had a point.

He also had these sad couches outside — probably wouldn’t have minded so much if someone managed to walk off with those!

We drove down the street to another sale, which turned out to be the sale where Meghan had seen the pheasant on Friday. They had a sign that said “Closed for Business Today,” but just when I was about to take a picture the guy took it down. I guess they just left their stuff out in the yard overnight with that sign up. (They probably didn’t have any $500 cameras.)

Then a cop car drove past the house — he slowed down for a minute, then kept driving. Meghan’s mouth fell open. “That cop was at the last sale!” she said. “He’s going to yard sales while on duty!” We were amazed — we’ve seen cable repair guys in their trucks making the yard sale rounds, and I’ve often seen mail carriers checking out sales along their routes, but a cop?! Tax dollars at work … or maybe he was checking up on some stolen merchandise. Yeah, I’m sure that was it.

After a few more duds, we were starting to get concerned that it was 9:30 and neither of us had purchased anything. Meghan broke the curse by picking up a Muppet Show DVD for $2 at a multi-person sale. One of the other sellers seemed bummed that he had missed out on getting it for himself. As we walked back to the car, he started to serenade us in a sad little Kermit voice: “It’s time to play the music, it’s time to light the lights …” It was funny, but then I had that song stuck in my head for the next few hours.

Since we weren’t having much luck, I decided that rather than plowing through my list by geographic proximity, we should change tactics and head straight for the sales that sounded the most promising. So we headed to a benefit sale for Italian Greyhound rescue programs. They had tons of stuff, plus some representatively adorable rescued greyhounds on display.

Meghan bought a ton of dog stuff (collars, chew toys, etc.) and an insane red leather jacket. I picked up a few pieces of sheet music and a couple of skirts. Then I saw this “Halston III” box and wondered what was inside. Turned out it was a magical time travel machine which transported me back to my youth for a good few seconds. I don’t know how many dozens of these woven potholder things (that are really almost useless for holding a hot pot) I made back in the day.

Our next stop was a sale that proclaimed itself to be “big and funky.” This actually turned out to be pretty accurate.

Against my better judgement I picked up a shoebox which said it had scraps of paper and such for collage art … I need this kind of thing like a hole in the head. I just got rid of a bunch of random paper bits I’d saved over the years. But when I opened it up, the first thing I saw was an amazing vintage photo of a short-haired woman with big round glasses, from the 1920s or thereabouts. Whatever else was in that five-dollar box, I was sold. I also picked up two dresses (one vintage, one new) and found a really great piece of barkcloth shoved in a bin way at the back of the sale. Score!

One of our next stops was this “Lawn Sale.”

It’s not a yard sale. It’s a lawn sale. Let’s get that straight.

We meandered further on. I was really not at the top of my navigating game (although it got better as I continued my caffeination regimen). Meghan had to make some executive navigational decisions a few times to avoid getting into what she referred to as some “possible stuck in the vortex bullshit.” This got us through to an area we don’t hit that often, where a sign promised much more than just a yard sale.

But we weren’t there for drinks or advice, and a quick perusal of their stuff revealed nothing too interesting. The seller asked Meghan if we were out going to garage sales today. Meghan told her we go every weekend, and the seller replied: “I built my marriage on garage sales.” We still have no idea what this means.

We went to a neighborhood two-block sale with a whopping three sales (all bad), then hit a sale whose ad said they had lots of Burning Man stuff. This is usually bad, but sometimes they are at least interesting. They did have this flashy mannequin, but most of the sale was boring baby stuff!

It’s not like I wanted the Burning Man stuff (whatever that might have been), but it seemed a little bait-and-switch to me. It was also right by a street fair where some truly awful music was starting up, so we got out of there quick.

Driving away we saw one of their signs. I couldn’t help thinking it looked like something gruesome had just taken place.

Our next stop was a sale in a parking lot. Two girls sitting on the stray furniture across the lot yelled over to us, saying that all the clothes were “about a dollar.” For some reason this seemed really funny, like some things might be 94 cents or $1.12.

I found an inexplicable t-shirt which looked like it was from a rock tour by some weird shrimpy guy dressed up like the lost member of KISS. The seller explained that it was some kind of jokey reference to a deposed Thai politician. Naturally I bought it.

We hit another “neighborhood sale” with only a couple actual sales. We pulled up to one and I suggested it might just be a drive-by, but Meghan said we had to stop. Why? This was the house with a huge Bettie Page mural on the side of it. I’ve marvelled at it from the freeway before, so the opportunity to go to a sale here was kind of cool.

The sale turned out to have wackier stuff than I’d expected, but all I bought was one book.

We were both pretty much ready to call it a day after that, but on the way home we saw the all-too-familiar signs for yet another installment of the “avant-garde lady” sale. We pretty much had to go. I don’t think either of us expected to find anything at this point, but I got some crazy new wave checkered sunglasses and a vintage horse head painting. Meghan got a nutty rock n’ roll book, some beach glass, and a ceramic duck (breaking up a ceramic duck family, since one of them was plenty).

For a day that started out sucky, it turned out to be downright decent!

I was able to make the Friday sale rounds for the first time in ages, and it was a warm 85 degrees. Jenny and I had just been talking about how this year hasn’t really seemed to be as good as past years. I think we both felt that it could turn around any time. Really, you have to keep kissing a lot of toads when it comes to yard sales.

Karl had the morning off, so we made plans to meet at 8:30 without Jenny, since she had to be at work. I hadn’t really had to organize the sale list in a while … I am out of practice.

The first sale was a really crappy church sale. Too bad, since church jumbles can have some of the best stuff. Karl picked up a couple of wacky items.

Two blocks away we hit a really large moving sale and I liked its oddball style. It’s not often you go to a sale with a stuffed pheasant hanging in a tree.

The seller had decided to part with a few of his many motocross trophies.

There were also tons of magazines. Sadly, some smelled a little like dog pee. Gross!

After that we went to a really great hippie sale … no, it wasn’t really that hippie, but the seller was from India and the vibe was very boho/hippie. She was really nice. Some guy walked up and very rudely asked, “Is this all you have?” I mean it just sounded so bad that I full on made fun of him as he was walking away. As we started to leave we saw another guy get out of his car and run to the sale. Really? Running? To a sale that there are no people at? Karl and I couldn’t resist yelling at him out of the car window.

We followed a crazy looking sign to our next stop.

I recognized it the second we pulled up.

It’s where I encountered this awful gem two years ago.

I am not even sure how anyone could own this much crap. Honestly, this guy had a moose head made from old nylons that was mounted on a cut-out piece of wood, so you could hang it above your mantel. When I made a comment about the moose, he pulled me and Karl into his house to show us “an item that my wife wouldn’t let me hang on the wall until recently.” Neither of us really wanted to go into his house, but he insisted. The offending item? A hat rack of a wildebeest head.

We hit a few more “meh” sales and then we hit a sale that had one of the most odd items that I have ever purchased: The Doberman Quarterly from 1985. You will have to wait for a book report, but let me tell you that the cover is ladies in bikinis with a doberman. It’s un-fucking-real. They didn’t really have anything super incredible, but I am assuming that someone looking for a vintage cruiser would have been stoked.

The last sale we hit was pretty amazing for both of us. Karl hit a box of LPs and I noticed a box of 45’s in the front of the dusty garage. I was trying to point out the box of 7″s to him, but he seemed distracted. I was mostly just trying to let him know that they are there. I don’t usually look at records with Karl, since he is a bigger collector. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. But I figured, what the hell, I’ll take a peek. I was pretty amazed to find a copy of “The Witch” by The Sonics for 25 cents. When I showed it to Karl he said “I’ll take that!” Um, no. I am not a total idiot.

Karl did pick up some 7″s and was super bummed to see a set of speakers being walked across the street to the neighbors’ house.

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 …