Current Mood : People-frustrated
Spent on Dolls : $1.82
Spent on Lab décor : 50c
Spent on eBay Speculating : $1.60
It was silly of me, but I hit two of the few yard sales out this morning. A dollar at the first one got me a denim kids' skirt (for the MSB girls), a pair of knit boots with leather soles (for Baby Crissy), a patriotic star ornament set, a flag-themed plastic jar that I thought came from Dollar Tree, but was marked $4.95 from Paper Warehouse, two action figure display boxes (always great for doll accessories), and a brass star ornament.
The second sale didn't yield as much, unless you count the train-wreck behavior of some other attendees as entertainment. Perhaps I should. After driving about two miles out of my way, I found the sale, and should have kept on driving, it was the dreaded Estate Sale. (sigh) That was NOT part of the ad. The sale was held in the house, typical for Estate sales, so the parking area in front was jammed, also typical. It was also on a very busy thoroughfare. So I circled the block and parked down the street a bit, a comfortable stroll on a wide sidewalk away.
While I walked, a van stopped in the middle of the street, right in front of the house, and disgorged two passengers. This narrow street has no shoulder, so this maneuver blocked both lanes. This was also during pre-football frenzy in a college town, about six blocks from The Game, so I thought it was amazing that no one honked. Little did I know this minor discourtesy was just a cherry on an amazingly entitled sundae. And these weren't silly teenagers - they were my parents' ages !
After the two ladies exited, the van driver backed up, which did set off horn-honking, and he proceeded to wedge said van in between the driveway and a very large live oak tree, half on the drive, half on the roots. Now nobody was getting out before he did ! He was in so tightly, only his door could open. I was amazed he even got it in there, I didn't think Molly-car would fit, much less this big van !
Once inside, the driver met up with the two women, who had pretty much taken over the sale. They'd decided one seller was there to carry around their purchases while they looked around, and twice examined what I was carrying, as if I was merely holding it for them. They pushed another shopper out of the closet by barging into it - she really had nowhere else to go but out ! - and sniped about the quality of the stuff for sale, loudly.
I was sooo lucky to have gotten behind them at the cash-out. They'd bought $200. worth of stuff, but proceeded to dicker about all of it, so they only ended up paying $100. for it all. Sorry, but with three folks behind you, there had to be somewhere else to complain about prices ! By the time they departed, there were five people behind me !
Signs all over the sale announced that they had to charge tax. OK. May be a scam, don't know, but I can't complain about it if I choose to buy stuff there, I've been adequately warned. Not these women. They loudly criticized it, and when the cashier offered to take their tax number, which they said they had, it was a horrible insult to them both. While one wrote it down so scratchily, I couldn't read it, and I was two feet away, the other quite literally threw their payment at the cashier. She had to catch it before it hit her ! They then expected their previous personal shopping assistant to carry everything to the driveway-juggernaut van, but she'd wisely vanished. This made the driver guy complain and whine. I paid for my $1.50 of stuff - a pair of themed Fashion Plates-type toys, one from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the other a Crayola Creature Maker - and began the trek to the car. I was able to hear them try to cram everything through the driver's door, and complain about how bad the parking was. And that someone else had pulled basically the same stunt on the other side of the tree, so yeah, they really were stuck. Couldn't even get into their vehicle, either. Yep, I enjoyed my little walk...
Since I didn't laugh in their faces, I rewarded myself a little for keeping my mouth shut, in hopes I'll do it again later. I was less than five blocks away from Hancock Fabrics, so I went in, even though I'll be there next Friday for the 5 Simplicity patterns for $5. sale. Hadn't planned on going today, but I was so close, so... They had no Betty Boop fabric that I wanted to use for Baby Boop, and nothing else I really wanted. Heck, just yesterday, I got my sewing labels, so... Even though Butterick, and McCall's patterns are also on sale next Friday, the McCall's were 99c today, so I snagged #4338, clothes for small (11 to 13-inch) and medium (14 to 16-inch) dolls. There's a lot there - jumper, long sleeve and short sleeve shirts in two different styles, jacket, romper, dress, pants, panties, hat, headband, and booties - to sew, so we'll see how it goes.
Salvation Army's in the same strip, and even though they're more or less completely redone the whole store, it still didn't have jack. And now it looked bad from all the renovations that weren't yet complete. Beloved Hubby called - the Craigslist folks had shown up, bought the stuff and left. If I could snag lunch on the way home, we'd be off to buy the computer right afterwards !
And that's been the rest of our night. Unpacking the new computer and getting the laptop ready for Dearest. He's gonna be so excited ! And we'll each have our very own ‘puter. Awesome ! The newest one - Dearest offered it to me, but I have this one the way I like it, and he deserves the new one, in my opinion - is stunning, and it came with a 22-inch monitor ! It's huge ! And it was actually cheaper that the other model we were looking at. Came with everything but a printer (we didn't need another one anyway) and a cable to feed from the modem, for less than $600. Wow. The one we were looking at was from a less-well-known manufacturer, with a 19-inch monitor, but this one went on sale this week, and is the same brand as mine, which has been stable as a table since we deboxed it.
So I'm excited and happy, and so is Beloved, but he feels some mild guilt. Heck, I don't know why he does, but I hope he's over it soon. I just want everyone to enjoy our latest ! Busy, happy day - and tomorrow's gonna be great !
