Rainbow's End

Yard Sale Adventures

This is a putrid time of morning to be sitting here wasting my substance on blogwriting (I didn't mean it, Mr. BlogCreator-please don't kick me off!) but I can't sleep and it's too dark to plow the garden so here I am.

I will be going to some yard sales in a few short hours- I guess I'll leave around 3:00 to make sure I get to the first one early enough to peer in a few windows-see if they look like they might have interesting things like tiki torches or cookbooks-greet the husband of the house "good mornin' " as he leaves for work and see what they got goin on for breakfast. Then I generously offer to help put out the yard sale stuff- you get my point here. Yes I WANT TO BE FIRST! ME, ME, ME!!!! I want to see all the stuff that even the goodwill man carries off delicately with the tips of forefinger and thumb--Anyways, thinking of yard sales reminds me of last weekend when my friend Francie and I....

Me: (@ 1:00 a.m. ) You wanna go yard saling?
Frances: Yeah!
Me: ( I really didn't think she'd say yes) Okaaaay, we're going to be leaving at about 5:30.
Frances: Yeah!
Me: (Not thinking she REALLY is understanding) Okaaaay, that means getting up at about 4:30. On a Saturday.
Frances: Yeah!
Me: (In case she doesn't remember anything from high school) You know that's about 2 hours from now.
Frances: Yeah!
Me: ( Not knowing if I'm really up to going* ) Okaaaaay.
Frances: Yeah!

Ha!Ha! One of great vocabulary, that Frances!

*I will go yard saling on the day of my funeral, given the opportunity.

So about 4:30 in the morning I scraped myself up out of bed, using the Pampered Chef All-Purpose Scraper, and jumped into the Smurf and went to pick up Frances. We drove down the mountian in a silence that only comes by being two nutty people with no sleep and not enough caffeine. Oh but the first yard sale!! What rewards for being the early bird (Minus the worms-I don't think I have those. Scratch,Scratch). I got my "Find Of The Day", which was a 3 1/2 foot crane with long orange legs and long orange beak, standing on a piece of wood. Yes!! Some dope had taken the liberty of gluing some chintzy-looking fabric to him and outlining it with gold glitter glue. Can you imagine how tacky! I'm going to take him home, pull off the offending fabric and pluck a few feathers from Dad's chicken and glue on. You can imagine the envious looks I got from others as I loaded my prize in the trunk. Frances choking and snorting with laughter ruined my image though, I thought.

We had to make a pit stop, to go bafroom and get eggrolls. After finding the bathroom at the gas station (which they had located in Kenya for tax reasons) , Frances took her turn first then I took mine. It was very cold outside, therefore I had numerous layers of clothing. Numerous. Have you ever tried to pull something up and as a result something else pulls down-then you have to pull that back up and something ELSE falls down, it makes me have muscle cramps, I tell you. After doing a dance that only the Jackson Five could duplicate, I finally got my clothes on and we were off again.

We went to a yard sale in a gated community-which means they have a gate to let you in. How novel. I never know how to act when I pull up to one of these gates and am looked at like I have roaches or something. Luckily, the guy manning this gate looked like he'd give Elmer Fudd a run for his money-so I just pulled up, rolled down my window and grinned. He said"Yard Sale?" Righto, old Chap! He let us through and I pulled up to the yard sale with the mistaken theory that I should be able to park where ever I wanted, you know the 6th ammendment and freedom of press and all that. The right side of the road had orange cones about every 30 feet and according to Frances a sign instructing those who could read not to park on that side of the road. Even if you couldn't read you weren't allowed.

Frances: Uh, Jaylene, I don't think we're supposed to park here. There was a sign back there and....
Me: NAAAAAAAH- this is fine, We'll be riiiiight back.

My theory on things like this is- if you just ignore what's going on, if that's what's convenient for you, you'll be okay.

Not this day.

I was blissfully rummaging through a box of cookbooks with Francie WHEN...

Bullwinkle (complete with bullhorn) : Would the person in the little blue Chevrolet cavalier please come and move your car. I repeat....Would the....
Me: (thinking) That's me and my smurf, he's talking about ME -of all the NERVE!!!!

Frances meanwhile is still calmly thumbing through the books, pretending she doesn't know what car she drove up in or who she came with. The only changes in her was a lovely shade of crimson beaming from her little face. She hissed out of the corner of her mouth-so no one would know she actually KNEW me and was TALKING to me- "He's talking about YOU!"

Number One: This guy SAW me pull up he was standing there about 30 feet from me, he could have simply walked over to me and QUIETLY told me to move. He just thought he would simply have a stroke if he didn't get to use his bullhorn at least once that day, I suppose.

As we were leaving, he made nice and gave us directions to get out which we promptly forgot- so we drove in circles looking like dummies-If he saw us he probably thought"She can't read and she can't drive-tsk,tsk. Must be from the mountain."

Then we went to Shop 'til You Drop @ the Methodist Church. They had lots of food samples which we put to good use. These were hoitytoity little booths like southern living at home, (where everything is one low price of 129.99) and pampered chef and Longaberger. The key to a free lunch is go to a place like this-have your friend distract the seller with lofty promises of parties-while you snork up a pile of food. Then you also take your kid and have them run around collecting napkinfuls of samples. THEN you go sit at a table in the corner, put on the glasses with the nose and mustache attached and wait. Sooner or later a new seller will replace the old and you can start all over! YAY!

We did actually BUY some food there-one thing called a fried Snickers. Heart Attack Heaven.

Then there was the rug.

Frances: Oh look at this rug-would this be good in my living room with that shade of green and red.
Me: (with the tone that says "DUH") Frances, that is not red-it's pink.
Frances:(probably thinking "DUH") That is a red. maroon and my color red.
Me:That is pink. I know pink when I see it and that is PINK.
Frances: That's red.
Me: (grabbing 2 unsupecting ladies) Ma'ams, what color is this color right here?
The Ma'ams: Red
Me: No,No,No, you're all whacky...That is PINK. PINK,PINK,PINK!!!

The Ma'ams proceeded to give me a LONG lesson on what was pink and what's not. The one woman, talking to me as if I were a bit slow said, Now what color is this?(talking about her jacket) Like any good kindergartener I said "pink." Riiiiight, she said, now this is pink. I informed her I was not decieved about the color pink, I totally recognized pink when I saw it. She didn't believe me and I was walking away and her and her friend was still pulling at various objects of clothing and saying" Now THIS is pink." I'm just glad neither of them had pink drawers on, because you can bet they would have felt the need to show and tell.

Such good times we have.

France, Thanks for being my friend, even though I am a total goofball! SNIFF!! Poor Me!

posted by Just Me @ 12:40 AM