Fame

I need Laura to finish nursing school and get back to work on the yardsale circuit. I am no good at Research & Development. I didn't check the News-Democrat until this morning and even then all I came up with was a raw list of the bazillion sales in the metro-east that started on Friday. Here is the list:

I am no good at turning this raw list into a yardsale action plan. In theory, I should use my $11.95 yellow detail map to find every sale. Remember this handy dandy St. Clair County street map?:

And then I should plot all the sales on the giant whiteboard like so many trigonometric coordinates:

And then I should use my full-size metro-east paper map to guide me from sale to sale:

But I did not.

What did I do? I shoved my babies in the Explorer and headed down Main St. looking for signs.

Pitiful. Just pitiful.

It's just too hard! I need Laura and her tenacious scientific analysis for maximum yardsaling efficiency. (haha! I said "tenacious" just for Donna Veile! Maybe she will comment with the "tenacious" story about the word "tenacious"!) When Laura is in charge of R&D, I operate the vehicle, and Samantha navigates, we are an amazing yardsaling team! We could be the US Olympic Yardsale Team! All other combinations of participants and duties are only attempts to reclaim the glory of the earliest days of the Yardsale Adventures. (Heavy sigh)

Anywho... I took JoJo and Oscar with me today. Out of necessity, in truth, although I do always enjoy their company. Like any children, if they are well-rested and well-fed they will be well-behaved. Since I woke them at 6:30 during summer vacation I was hoping well-fed would be enough. I packed this "magical bag of snacks" thinking that marketing is everything and that if I called the snack bag "magical" they would believe that graham crackers, Ritz, and peanuts were the most delicious snacks ever!

No luck. A sleepy Oscar refused to be photographed, but when he looked into the magical bag of snacks I can tell you that he made this expression:

Our very first sale of the day was in Swansea, that itty bitty town that somebody shoved between Belleville, Fairview Heights, and Shiloh. But when the BND advertises "Neighborhood Sale" I pay attention because to me that means "many sales in a short amount of time". Our first sale was a winner. It was perfectly sunny and warm, not yet scorching hot as it would get later in the day. The sale was robust, full of both high quality and high quantity merchandise. Here are my babies, basking in the early morning sunshine, their chlorine-bleached hair aglow in its greenness, perusing boxes of the most coveted of merchandise: Legos and Pollies.

This sale had lots of stuff priced to sell. But I think maybe they were crazy. Look at this:

This is a freakin' KIRBY vacuum for sale for $4!

Kirby, if you have been living under a rock or something, happens to be the best vacuum on Earth. At least that is what the guy said when he came to my house last summer and, after sucking gallons of dust mites from my carpets and mattresses, convinced me to spend $1200 on the exact Kirby model you see above.

This guy (dressed like a real player, don't you think?) bought the four dollar Kirby AND the Legos. I think he is some sort of shopping genius, this guy. I want to be married to him.

In the interest of full-disclosure, JoJo did acquire a Box-o-Pollies for only two dollars. We would have paid ten. I was thinking these thoughts as I decided not to present the proprietess with my YSA card. I didn't want her to feel bad. Here is Jo looking delighted with her Find:

From there we drove aimlessly, like travelers lost in the night -- or Joseph and Mary looking for an inn -- or chickens without heads -- for the book version of YSA I will have to choose an analogy -- we found a well-advertised skiv heavy on the girl toys. They offered this 3 foot doll for $10. Reader, I am telling you only Stephen King himself would have bought this doll. It was unquestionably possessed. You be the judge:

It was scarier in person. Trust me. I almost bought it just so I could burn it.

We headed toward O'Fallon. I was looking for better quality used crap. Usually I focus my yardsaling efforts on Belleville. But in Belleville we get a lot of old, weird crap. Some days I want old and weird. In fact, it is safe to say that usually I am looking for the most old, weird, random, arbitrary crap I can find... something that will make me laugh out loud and say, "What the...?" But today I felt like buying something nice, maybe some nice clothes or a discarded organizational device from Target.

But O'Fallon is new and uncharted territory for me! When do Rt. 50 and State Street diverge? What is with the traffic circle? Why are there so many new subdivisions? Needless to say, I got terribly lost, despite my excellent yellow map. The whole morning was different and new. Instead of QT we visited Circle K. (I will admit I felt a little embarrassed after last week's restroom debacle and therefore may have subconsciously tried to avoid the regular QT.) Instead of taquitos I had two egg rolls. Instead of weird, random, rusty crap we bought nice stuff!

There was a well-advertised neighborhood sale in Windsor Creek. They had signs all over the place. There was no way I could have missed this one. The first sign we saw upon entering the subdivision was this:

Honestly. Don't you just want to shove dollar bills into the chubby little hand that penned this sign? I'm sure they had nothing I wanted, but the sign was so precious I had to post it. However, they were offering this stuffed animal of note. It is a little side-hobby of mine to find "El Toro of Love" whenever he is for sale. It seems that the Hallmark corporation offered "El Toro of Love" a year or two ago and a lot of people bought him. We have seen "El Toro of Love" for sale no fewer than 5 times on the yardsale circuit. My own son, Henry, fell prey to the El Toro siren song. First, I offer a photo of today's El Toro. Then a video of Henry's previously purchased El Toro so you know what all the fuss is about... Except after 52 million tries I can't post the video of El Toro proclaiming his love for you. It sounds like this: "I am El Toro of Love. You are spicy like one million hot jalepenos!" But it is even better than that. I'm sorry I can't make the video load:

So I'm in the Windsor Creek subdivision, I'm attending all the sales they have to offer, and I come to a familiar looking cul-de-sac. "Hmmm. This looks like Kim's neighborhood." I think. Then I see the address "1000". I think, "Kim's address was 1000." Duh. I inadvertently stumbled upon my friend's yardsale!!

Readers, we must ask ourselves:

1. Why did Kim not call me to tell me she was having a yardsale?!

2. Why do I not attend to my friends faithfully enough so that I know when they are having yardsales?

From Kim we bought a Gator Golf apparatus and quite a few lovely stuffed animals. All present agreed that new stuffed animals should be properly introduced to one's existing stuffed animals so as not to create stuffed animal conflict or anxiety. Also, Josh is very sorry he inadvertently stole those cool signs from U of I.

After that we went home. I had to pick up the boys from tennis camp.

But today I gave some thought to serendipity. There are so many sales during the high summer months, a person could never attend them all, even if she were a devoted yardsale fanatic like me. And at each sale I meet a new friend, make a new contact, find a new treasure that begs reporting on the yardsale blog. It is only Dumb Luck that determines who gets blogged and who does not. For better or for worse, some of you yardsalers get press while others wallow in obscurity.

Today, as I casually minded by own beeswax at a yardsale, a woman approached me and said, "Are you bloggin' today?"

Well, HELL YES I am bloggin'!

But more importantly I had been recognized as The Blogger by a woman I did not recognize! That is FAME, People! And then I saw Jack. Jack is a yardsale regular who notices my car when it is parked in front of a sale! Tomorrow I will have to get a photo of Jack. He has excellent long hair. I am not sure Jack has a day job, if you know what I mean. Jack, call me and tell me where to find you tomorrow!! It will make excellent blogging if I can showcase you and your purchases!

Dudes! I am seriously famous! And you are my original-est fans!

Anywho... I saw a street today in O'Fallon called Smiley St. I would like to know the history behind Smiley St. because that is an excellent name for a street if you ask me. It made me smile, that's for sure.

Until tomorrow, Readers. I know you lie in bed at night hoping I will attend your yardsale or at least enlighten you to the presence of some excellent yardsale merchandise!

Tune in!