Milstadt... Who Knew?!

Up at 6:15 today. No shower. Just a splash of water on the face, some deodorant reinforcement, and a cup of coffee.

Mission: Yardsale Adventure!

Agents: Nancy and Laura (Samantha is in Qatar having sex with her husband who is deployed for six months.)

Assistants: JoJo, Addie, Donny, Louie, and Gramma Betty.

Vehicle: Nancy's Big Van-O-Dreams.

Navigator: Laura.

Destinations: First Christian Church, Milstadt Middle School, MWR Estate Sale.

First Christian Church was our first stop this morning. They opened at 7. We were a few minutes late and distraught to see people already leaving, their arms full of boxes overflowing with merchandise. At the door they had posted a sign: "Everything 25 cents, unless marked." Well, hot damn! We entered the gym and scattered. JoJo and Addie went straight to the toys. They sniffed out all the usual stuff 8 year old girls need: purses made of denim, stuffed animals, anything with an American Girl logo. Louie found some cool USAF airplane models. Donny found a Razor scooter for $5 and assured me that all the scooters at our house are damaged or somehow inferior to this one which is covered in stripes of blue and grey duct tape.

FCC had no bake sale. Points off for that. We were hungry already. But I heard live music, some electric guitar, played by a shopper as he inspected the merchandise. Extra points for live music and enthusiastic shoppers!

At the last minute, as we were checking out, we saw a woman buying an old, hefty stoneware crock. Twenty-five cents! Laura offered her fifty cents. Betty quickly countered with one dollar. She said, "No! I need to use it for my cigarette butts!" Betty chased her to her car where she offer ten bucks cash, on the spot, for the coveted crock. The shrewd shopper refused. Then our adversary reveled that she had just discovered the crock was marked! It was priced at ten dollars. She peeled out of the parking lot, having just short-changed the church $9.75. God is watching, Crock Lady. God is watching.

(Originally there was a cute picture of the Crock Lady here but her daughter got very angry at me and demanded that I remove the photo. Please read her comment and chime in with your own. Did you, Blog Reader, get the joke about the Crock Lady or did you think I was really shaming her and threatening God's vengeance on her? I assure you, she was a lovely person. She did not peel out. That was hyperbole on my part, an exaggeration used to make the description funnier. And I'm sure she had a name... but I don't know it and if I did I would ensure her anonymity by not using it, so I thought Crock Lady was a funny nickname. And I do not believe that God was watching her or that he really gives a hoot if she paid 25cents or 25 dollars for the crock. I'm sure he has bigger things to worry about, like keeping people safe in Iraq and stuff. I apologize for hurting the feelings of The-Lady-Who-Bought-the-Crock and for angering her daughter. Her daughter is obviously very loyal and loving to defend her mother so vehemently. Moving on.)


Milstadt... Holy Cow! We have never driven so far for a yard sale. Having just experienced the 25cent sale at FCC we were expecting low-cost bargains. But what a surprise! This Milstadt sale was the Cadillac of sales! Each 3x6 table was independently operated. The merchandise was hand-selected, choice, grade-A garage sale fare. There were even home party vendors: Party-Lite, Mary Kay, Pampered Chef, and some purse company I've never heard of. We barely knew how to conduct ourselves in such an up-scale environment.

The highlights:

• Man with the animal skins, rhino horns, arrowheads, and owl figurines who asked Laura if she was with PETA.
• Linda, Table 8, who sold me some lovely bedding which JoJo will use for sleepovers and gave me a free box and temporary storage.
• Cute guy who looked like the Smallville guy and reminded me of Zac Ephron. Gramma Betty bought his black jazz shoes which he had worn in his ACTUAL high school musical! (It should be noted that Gramma Betty, aka: Bubbles, has exceptionally large and beautiful feet. She wears a 12narrow. So high school boys' hand-me-downs are a real find. If the shoe fits, as they say.)

Thanks to the Milstadt crew who staffed a really delicious bake sale. It was my kids' breakfast.

Props to the guy who carried our stuff about a quarter mile to the van. He collects old gas pumps, restoring them, or art-ing them into something entirely different. If you have one to sell, please post a comment on this blog.

Finally, after a brief sidebar at a sad, cold little garage sale, we finished our morning at a classic MWR Estate Sale. Despite the disturbing sense of death which hovers over most estate sales and the pungent feline aroma of old people's houses, this was a fine shopping opportunity. We found some vintage (1964?) Boy Scout manuals, an old Labyrinth marble game, and some lucky horseshoes. Louie bought the world's tiniest playing cards for a quarter, Donny bought two boxes of poker chips for 4 bucks, and Betty bought a 10 pound dictionary for 75 cents.

Something from the estate sale which demands public recognition is the hair art. I have heard of this but never seen it in person. Apparently, in the old days, people weren't satisfied with bronzed baby shoes. Parents of growing children who wanted to preserve a tangible bit of their precious one's childhood would collect and save their child's hair. They would somehow weave and twist this stuff into artsy-looking shapes and decorations. Here is a framed piece, approximately 11x17, commemorating the childhood of these two little kids with the hair that fell out of their heads during their childhoods. It truly left me speechless.

Here is a treasure from the Milstadt sale. It is a white, metal, enameled paper towel dispenser you might find in an institution's restroom. I have hung it in my kitchen, upside down from it's original orientation, and am filling it with plastic grocery bags. These bags are now at-the-ready for dog walking doodie-duty. The editors at Real Simple can contact me via this blog.

Until next week, this is Nancy, your YardSale Adventures correspondent, signing off.