Each time I go to an estate sale, it never ceases to surprise me how dramatic they are. The people who attend these professionally are extremely nutty. They take it way too seriously, are way too competitive, and are the definition of Minnesota Nice: mean as hell. The last one is a rant all its own from which I'll spare you presently. I haven't been attending a lot of sales since winter finally ended and have been spending my time garage sale-ing and thrift hopping instead. If you've read my previous posts, then you know my distaste for the largest estate sale company here. I try to steer clear of their brand of crazy because it makes the wait and the shopping more stressful than the joy that comes with treasure hunting. This week BJ and I encountered a new situation in which I learned a lesson that will be invaluable in the future. Always take a picture of your pre-number with the time for proof, and maybe even a picture of your parked car.
I found this sale in the middle of the week and told BJ not to make any late night plans for Friday because we would be waking up before dawn on Saturday. We woke up sometime during the 4 o'clock hour, had some toast, and headed out for the sale about a half hour away. We got there at 5:34 am CDT. The sale was in a house on a very small cul de sac that was open to the intersecting road. BJ grabbed numbers 2 and 3 from the plastic bag of numbers hanging from a car window with a man sleeping inside. Never have we ever woken the number person up to let him know we were grabbing numbers because it hasn't ever been a problem before. In fact, one of the people who does numbers actually sleeps overnight in a camper! We decided to not park in the cul de sac for ease of leaving after shopping. We didn't park far away, it was just on the intersecting block which every single person attending the sale had to drive on, thus past us. This includes the two men in a car who subsequently stole our numbers. The guy handing out the numbers "renumbered" us because he says that we came in the middle of the night and left. He practically yelled at us, "You can't do that!!!" I was outraged that we had woken up early and sat in the car from 5:30 until 8 am for real numbers and were being kicked to the back of the line. Luckily the numbers guy came to his senses and decided that since I told him when we got there and it was before the other two guys and I told him where we were parked and why we didn't park next to him that he would "take [us] at [our] word." He spoke down to us condescendingly that you always have to wake the number person up. His friends who tried to steal our numbers chimed in, "it comes with the job." I've been to a lot of sales and this has never been a problem. I didn't know there was an unwritten rule that you also had to park in number order. He told us we have to park within the sight of the number person. It was f-ing ridiculous and made my blood boil. What about the people who parked in front of us on the same street and the people who had to park around the block on the other side because so many people attend these sales?! I only went to this sale because there was a pink daisy space saver and a pink 501 and I would be damned if I didn't get those with my rightful place in line! On top of that I was hangry with low blood sugar. By the time I got into the sale, I was afraid of holding my precious glassware for fear of dropping it with my shaking hands.
The lady in the fabric/jewelry room was really nice and helpful which is rare at these sales. I appreciated her presence. She helped me find a match for the black cat Halloween earring I found and told me that a lot of the fabric was straight from the 50's and 60's. So fun! I only got 3 yards: 2 of a small floral pattern and 1 yard of a cheater quilt print. It was only $1/yard. I wish that I had been able to look more, but they let way too many people into the tiny house and I was shaking too bad to dig through the piles.
I found a little witch candy container that looks like a Gurley candle which I got for 50 cents. I thought about not going into the basement because that's where Crazy literally ran to when the door opened, so I knew that it would be the epicenter of insanity. There were a lot of model cars, toy tractors, and Tonka trucks there. That equaled a lot of grumpy old men. That's kind of a given because I'm telling you about an estate sale and that's the majority of who attend them here. Anyway, I had to awkwardly squeeze past two of said men to get to the snowman blowmold that I spotted down there. It's really grossly dirty and doesn't have a cord, but those things are easy enough to fix. I also got a couple NOS Aunt Martha's iron on embroidery patterns. They are both of cats, of course!
Sorry for the long winded post. I'll leave you with this picture of pink and turquoise bowls I found at the thrift store last week. That's all from last week, but wait until you see my finds from Sunday!
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