Waffling Over Used Skis and Cookie Shooters
Gwamma likes yard sales. I'm sure they have yard sales in CA, but maybe she never had the need. And as a very scholarly and spendtrift friend of mine once observed, only about half of the yard sales are worth attending. This is because poor people selling their stuff need the money, rich people selling their stuff need to get rid of it. One type of yard sale has higher quality and lower prices than the other. For whatever reasons, Gramma and AK came home this morning from their tour of the yard sales gleeful as kids at Christmas time.
Legitimately, Gwamma needs a dinette set. Her old one was old, rickety, uncomfortable and smoke-stained so I pronounced it dead when we cleaned her place out last Spring. Of the new pieces of furniture/appliances she'll need, the dinette set is the most expensive (although we are giving her one of our fridges, and she's buying the seller's old washer/dryer cheap for the time being. . . ). Furniture stores are right up there with used car lots when it comes to sleazy sales people and profit margins so big they should be illegal -- so it didn't take long for AK and Gwamma to decide Estate Sales would be the place to shop for a dinette set. Estate Sales are a cross between Yard Sales and Estate Auctions. Quality furniture is a little harder to find than at an auction, but if you DO find a "find" chances are much better you'll get it for a deal than at an auction where everyone else has also found your find. In any case, this is no doubt the excuse they'll cling to: "we were looking for the dinette set!" -- if they come home the next few Saturdays as loaded-down as they did today.
I applaud them on the as-new window AC unit they got for $20.00. And they did get Gwamma's home seller (breaking every rule in the realtor's book, just casually dropping by the seller's house becuase AK thinks the seller is THE CUTEST thing in the world and just HAD to introduce him to Gwamma. . ) to say he'll probably leave her his dinette set, so that will save a lot of money and allow for a less-frenzied Dinette Set Search. And I am loathe to criticize the canning jars because as YICKMOCIOUS as it is to see them muckied up with what was surely at one time SOMEONE ELSES FOOD -- I'm awfully partial to what AK does with the canning jars and would hate to be barred from the wall of canned yummies in our living room.
And. I'm pretty sure the rest of what unendingly poured out of the car (how did all that FIT IN A PT CRUISER??? Where the PT stands for "PRETTY TINY"???) falls into what I'd call The Crap Category. Door mirrors, kitch display cases, used skis, alarm clocks, funny-shaped & pretty-colored cooking pots, GD canning jars. Baskets of all shapes & sizes (for, um, Easter?). Many large yard leaf bags full of stuff I don't even know about. Used hankerchiefs, used scout mess kit. And right before I decided it was too much for me to take, right before I retreated into The Mancave, in the kitchen I swear I saw "The Amazing Cookie Shooter! As Seen On TV!!!"
Now let me say: the prices seemed to be right, it doesn't sound like anyone paid much more than a buck for any one thing (though AK may have briefed Gwamma on the need to lie to me about the prices. . . .). This is important, as anyone who's passed 3 yard sales has seen 6 sets of used skis for sale and know you should never EVER pay more than 25 cents for a set of used skis. And I can see where some of the items may, at some time, perhaps once or twice in our lifetimes, be handy. And they did bring home baked goodies for us men (we did protect the house from, um, terrorists while they were gone. . . ). And I very well may get kicked by Gwamma, and otherwise denied freaky-love-down-by-the-fire by AK because I told the whole internet about how they brought home crap. But I am rightfully concerned about setting a precedent here. If I admit that yes they found stuff that a)we needed and b)was in great shape and was c)at yard-sale prices? They'll be out every Friday and Saturday, driving ever-farther to get the deals, trading in the Pretty Tiny Cruiser for a 26-Foot Pense truck so they can buy more, and I'll be stuck at home HOLDING OUR OWN YARD SALES TO GET RID OF ALL THE STUFF THEY BOUGHT AT THE YARD SALES!
This is my concern. Ya' feelin me?
I'm going to sneak upstairs & see if any of those baked goods are left. . . .
Tune in later for photos of last nights dinner which was almost entirely home-grown, and photos of Gwamma's "SOLD" sign!
Legitimately, Gwamma needs a dinette set. Her old one was old, rickety, uncomfortable and smoke-stained so I pronounced it dead when we cleaned her place out last Spring. Of the new pieces of furniture/appliances she'll need, the dinette set is the most expensive (although we are giving her one of our fridges, and she's buying the seller's old washer/dryer cheap for the time being. . . ). Furniture stores are right up there with used car lots when it comes to sleazy sales people and profit margins so big they should be illegal -- so it didn't take long for AK and Gwamma to decide Estate Sales would be the place to shop for a dinette set. Estate Sales are a cross between Yard Sales and Estate Auctions. Quality furniture is a little harder to find than at an auction, but if you DO find a "find" chances are much better you'll get it for a deal than at an auction where everyone else has also found your find. In any case, this is no doubt the excuse they'll cling to: "we were looking for the dinette set!" -- if they come home the next few Saturdays as loaded-down as they did today.
I applaud them on the as-new window AC unit they got for $20.00. And they did get Gwamma's home seller (breaking every rule in the realtor's book, just casually dropping by the seller's house becuase AK thinks the seller is THE CUTEST thing in the world and just HAD to introduce him to Gwamma. . ) to say he'll probably leave her his dinette set, so that will save a lot of money and allow for a less-frenzied Dinette Set Search. And I am loathe to criticize the canning jars because as YICKMOCIOUS as it is to see them muckied up with what was surely at one time SOMEONE ELSES FOOD -- I'm awfully partial to what AK does with the canning jars and would hate to be barred from the wall of canned yummies in our living room.
And. I'm pretty sure the rest of what unendingly poured out of the car (how did all that FIT IN A PT CRUISER??? Where the PT stands for "PRETTY TINY"???) falls into what I'd call The Crap Category. Door mirrors, kitch display cases, used skis, alarm clocks, funny-shaped & pretty-colored cooking pots, GD canning jars. Baskets of all shapes & sizes (for, um, Easter?). Many large yard leaf bags full of stuff I don't even know about. Used hankerchiefs, used scout mess kit. And right before I decided it was too much for me to take, right before I retreated into The Mancave, in the kitchen I swear I saw "The Amazing Cookie Shooter! As Seen On TV!!!"
Now let me say: the prices seemed to be right, it doesn't sound like anyone paid much more than a buck for any one thing (though AK may have briefed Gwamma on the need to lie to me about the prices. . . .). This is important, as anyone who's passed 3 yard sales has seen 6 sets of used skis for sale and know you should never EVER pay more than 25 cents for a set of used skis. And I can see where some of the items may, at some time, perhaps once or twice in our lifetimes, be handy. And they did bring home baked goodies for us men (we did protect the house from, um, terrorists while they were gone. . . ). And I very well may get kicked by Gwamma, and otherwise denied freaky-love-down-by-the-fire by AK because I told the whole internet about how they brought home crap. But I am rightfully concerned about setting a precedent here. If I admit that yes they found stuff that a)we needed and b)was in great shape and was c)at yard-sale prices? They'll be out every Friday and Saturday, driving ever-farther to get the deals, trading in the Pretty Tiny Cruiser for a 26-Foot Pense truck so they can buy more, and I'll be stuck at home HOLDING OUR OWN YARD SALES TO GET RID OF ALL THE STUFF THEY BOUGHT AT THE YARD SALES!
This is my concern. Ya' feelin me?
I'm going to sneak upstairs & see if any of those baked goods are left. . . .
Tune in later for photos of last nights dinner which was almost entirely home-grown, and photos of Gwamma's "SOLD" sign!
posted by Chris at
11:49 AM
1 Comments:
hehehe
As spouse to a dedicated "Yard Sailer" for whom I buy two different newspapers each week so she can cover two different geographical areas in her search for deals, I can only chuckle knowingly in your general direction. I have managed to put my foot down on her buying a newer, larger, verhicle solely for the purpose of increasing her hauling power on the weekends, but that is about the limit of my influence on the topic. In general I find the more often she goes the less likely she is to bring home less than useful stuff. Since she goes every Saturday, and has deciphered the arcane language of the news paper ads, she only brings home what she can use. So a huge portion of our childrens toys, clothes and furniture have entered the house this way. Some only stops at our house for brief moment before going onto family in Poland. The rest slowly fills up the nooks and crannies of our abode. Once those at or near their capacity of holding things that are no longer used I expect we will have our own yard sale. Very circular and almost zen like at that point. Either way, good luck and try not to start any fights over yard sales, it is not worth it.
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