Begging for Bargains

 I really, really should be ashamed, but I am defiantly not!  I went forth on Friday and Saturday and I shopped - not too much, but yes, in the midst of the great October Overhaul, I hauled home more.  I do mean more.  A true mountain of more.

It started innocently enough.  Even though this was the weekend for the city- and county-wide yard sale event, I was not planning to do anything except corral my junk.  

As I was running errands there were about ten signs around the neighborhood announcing a vintage estate sale.  I had to go.

I was so ashamed of my slide into begging for bargains that I neglected to take pictures of the three sweet 1950's black chalkboards I picked up.  There were a set of five metal chairs.  I hemmed and I hawed, but the brothers and sisters would not budge on their prices, but invited me back on Saturday at twelve when everything would be half price.  I packed my chalkboards and silently stole away saying to myself, "It just wasn't meant to be!"

Now you know Chucks and I have a set routine on Saturdays:  yard sales, me painting or cleaning stuff,  BBQ sandwiches, sweet tea, and Carolina football.

I know, it is a truly exciting existence.

You know what happened.  I went back to that estate sale.  Now, to my credit, I did not go to any other of the fifty or so near me - just one.

They had added more.  Much more.  It was half-price day.

Here is the list as you follow the ever-increasing picture parade:

Two dark green boards that were originally  the back of a sofa their great-grandfather built.

A small bookshelf (I need this to overhaul!)

Four spindles.

A painted cabinet door.

Three full-size woven spreads.

This one yellow, white, and gray.  Look at that detail.  It looks just like ruffles, but it is absolutely flat.

This one is red, cream and gray in a large block pattern.

They are so, so soft.

You would have bought them.  I know you would have.

This one has two roosters in a face-off - in black, gray, and white.

 There was a great big roll of fabric taped with duct tape with paper labels a lady in front of me pulled out from under a table.  She exclaimed she had not seen this item since the early 1960's.  She said she might want them if the price was right.  One brother said half price.  She put the roll back.  I asked if she minded me looking.

There were cowboys and Indians in white, brown, yellow, and red.  Definitely brought back memories of The Rifleman, Sugarfoot, and Bonanza.

She said, "Take them - I don't need them."

"Need?"  Who said anything about "need"?

There were four twin spreads!  All together for one great price.

I reversed one in the photo so you could gaze in wonder at what was my childhood.  You know I still have my Dale Evans cowgirl boots.

 So the secret was out - there was still piles of stuff in the boxes under the tables that had not made it to the sales tables.  One sister said they were too tired to care anymore.  She was wrong.  The hard bargaining was fixing to start.  Over a humongous box of mattress ticking covered feather pillows.

She insisted they were a bargain at $2 a pillow.  I begged for a better bargain.  She nailed me as a "dealer".  I don't know why that is bad, but I owned up to it.  I countered with I will buy more stuff.

 She counted - 20 pillows, yards of blue and white and pink floral mattress ticking fabric, and about a dozen ticking covers.  All from a defunct camp.  All packed up in 1970.

The smell brought back fond memories of camp - the pillows smell of must, dust, and a faint waft of cedar.

I begged some more and added more to my pile. 

 

Finally her brother informed her she would be taking all this stuff home if she did not let it go.

She conceded.  The mountain of pillows are mine, all mine!  Maybe she won after all!

 Also in the growing pile was:

A Game of States

A bag of various game pieces

A box of Dennison red stars (15 cents printed on the box!)

A neat box from a Vermont jeweler with two coils of silver made in Denmark (don't have a clue - maybe floral supports?)

A Sears and Roebuck ruler advertising Kenmore sewing machines

 I am showing this game again.  Why?  You have seen this game or one like it before.  Every child in America had a game  about the states at some point in his/her life.

What is so special about this incomplete and tattered game?

There are only 48 states!!!

It was produced in 1950 - no Alaska, no Hawaii.

In addition to the plunder I have confessed, I picked up a cigar box of rusty nails, screws, and casters with a green enamelware covered refrigerator container of nuts and bolts.

Loving this red, white, and blue color scheme.

And the metal chairs?  I forgot them and left without them.  Maybe that was a good thing.

This is what met me at the door when I returned home.  A furiously irate Miss Molly who spent three days at the vet hospital hooked to an IV.  She had two teeth extracted and her kidneys had stopped filtering.  She is having to stay mostly inside and must have two kinds of drops twice a day.  Both Chucks and I fear the Molly Monster when she is in this mood.  Normally a super-sweet kitty turned demon kitty over the thought of us putting medicine in her.  We have managed to get about half in her with minor scratches.

By the way, who knows how to get the funk out of feather pillows?  I'm just asking.

See y'all!





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