Top Five Things to Look for This Summer at Yard Sales (Revisited Yet Again!)

Let's make a different kind of list.  Okay?

I promise that this is the last post on this theme for this year.  I started to actually make this one my post for the group blog, but decided that it might be better to stay within the boundaries of the given task.

I also toyed with the idea of making this a secondary part of the post I submitted, but ended up cutting it out for length.  After I decided that it might be a good idea to include an intro for new visitors, I became concerned about how long the post was.  In the end, I was very happy with the way the initial post came out, so I think I made the right call.

But some ideas are too good to let slide away.  Truth be told, this is a concept I have been wanting to blog about for a while now.  It just took the group blog to spur me into actually doing it.

When I first got my booth, I got asked one question over and over:  "What do you sell there?"  My answers must have frustrated people because I tended to describe items, rather than naming them.  I had one goal in mind when I took my first booth--to have a booth that wasn't like any other space in the mall.  To do that, I spent more time thinking about what the stuff I was selling would be like, instead of what it actually was.

Initially, I used to say that I wanted "things that made you think of bongo drums" when you saw them.  It worked for me--bongo drums are cool and interesting--but not for other people, who just didn't get what I was trying to say.  "You're selling bongo drums?"  "What about other instruments?"  "Do that many people buy bongo drums?"

In the end, I started thinking in terms of adjectives that best described the things I was looking for.  What characteristics do they all have in common?  This is the list I created.  It was important for me to define those terms, as well, using definitions that relate back to the purpose of looking for those items--the booth.

Unique:  Things that are different from the items others are selling.  If it is an item that others have in their booths, it still needs to be distinct in some way.  For example, others also sell books, but I don't sell the Danielle Steele, Stephen King, harlequin Romance, etc books that you find in so many other booths.

Fun:  I want things that make me smile when I find them.  More importantly, I want them to make other people smile when they see them in the booth.

Eclectic:  I don't want to be one note.  I want a range of items, from soup to nuts, that are distinct and different from each other, so that the overall effect of my space is a weird and wonderful menagerie.

Interesting:  Something so fascinating that you cannot resist stepping into the booth to check it out.

Oddball:  Stuff that is unlike stuff that you've seen before.

As time has gone on, my horizons (and my booths) have expanded quite a bit.  I don't hold to this list as hard and fast as I used to.  I carry some things that don't really fit onto this list--although it all does add to the eclectic effect.  Still, this list does form a key part of my guiding re-selling philosophy.  In the end, it's more about knowing how to bend and mold the list, instead of how strictly I adhere to it.

I don't really think I'm proposing anything that new here.  Most folks are already doing this sort of thing without realizing it.  Go back and re-read Donna's Five Things post.  Her opening is a list of adjectives!  (And I didn't even have to pay her so she would do it!)

Try it yourself.  Think about the things you're looking for at yard sales this summer.  It doesn't matter whether you re-sell or buy for yourself.  Can you create a list of five adjectives that gives a good overall description of these items?  Give it a try!

Feel free to share your own list in comments.

For an added challenge, try to do it without using the words "vintage" "retro" "antique" or "primitive."  I know.  BLASPHEMY!

Monday Rambles

I'm having a problem of skeleton indecency at my booth.

Really?

Anyone know what I can do about it?  I guess this is to be expected when you're working with folks who walk around with everything hanging out like they do.  Or at least it would be hanging out if it were still there.  Or something.

Also, there may be a headless goose wandering around this Halloween.

Beware!

I guess it's about time for the Country Crafts Zombie Apocalypse to happen.  FLEE!

Walnuts are falling in our back yard, so I guess that means it's fall.  Thing is, we've been in this house for 15 years now, and I never noticed that we had a walnut tree before.  In fact, I would almost swear that we never, ever had walnuts before!  Is this normal?

Another thing I love about this time of year is going through the stores and looking at all the seasonal merchandise--Halloween right now and the bits of Christmas that are trickling in.  Seeing all this fills me with happy thoughts about scooping some of that crap up when it's 75% off  for the booth next year.  Yes, I stalk the holiday merchandise!  Essentially, I case the joint, shamelessly.

So, I had a yard sale on Saturday.  I brought some stuff home from the booth (mainly that damn glass), grabbed my tables off Sorrow Mountain, and four boxes of books off the Hillock, then set to work in the shed--aka Sorrow Mountain, the Backyard Edition.

Except for those banana boxes and a couple of large items, this is all household stuff that we don't use/need/want.  I dug through about a third of it and ended up with enough for a yard sale.  Along the way I found the last of my mother's stuff.  (I have said this about four times now.)  It was all her kitchen/household/tools and such that we don't need because we have all of them already.  It went into the sale, and all of it sold!

Speaking of the banana boxes, when we loaded them in after Dixie closed, there were 50 of them.  Last week, it was down to 24.  I'm planning on taking 10 of them next week, which will have me down to 14.  I think by the end of the year, all those babies will be gone!  Woo hoo!

I also found about six boxes of old papers that need to be sorted and probably recycled.  That's this week's project.  Since I have treatment tomorrow, I want something I can work on while I sit down, and this will fit the bill nicely.

I also ended up making a couple of boxes of booth bound stuff from the shed, so pricing that is on this week's agenda as well.  

Keith came up with the bright idea of setting up a tent in the back yard, so I could just put stuff in it when I got it ready for the sale. That way I didn't have to re-clutter the shed and I could set up on Saturday without even having to open the shed.  It worked wonderfully.

Peeking in through the opening

Come Saturday, way too early in the morning, I threw it all on the sidewalk in back of the house, people came and bought it, they gave me money, and I got rid of it.  The end.

Crappy cell phone pic alert!

I was in serious "Get this shit out of here mode" so stuff was way cheap.  And it sold. And it sold.  And it sold. And it sold.

In the end, almost everything sold, except for the books, which were hardly touched.  They are probably off to Half Price Book this week.  I pulled a small stack for the booth, but I already have a bunch waiting to go in the booth, so I don't want to keep too many.  I have a couple of vintage leather jackets that didn't sell, so they're going to the second hand place down the street this week.  Purge, baby, purge!

The damn glass that was left went to the curb with a "Free" sign after the sale.  It was gone by Sunday morning.  That was my offering to the junk gods for success at next month's junk set out.  Ritual is important, you know.  All in all, I was a happy, if tired, camper Saturday evening.  I think I ran that steroid completely out!

As always, the fun part is the people.  There was the book scanner who showed up over an hour before opening time.  I ran him off, politely of course.  I didn't even have the books out and I was not about to let him dig through the boxes.  Scanners around here are pretty notorious for bad behavior and leaving messes.  I have no patience for that.  It occurs to me that I may have jinxed my book sales somehow by doing that, but I would do it again regardless.  Scanners never buy more than two or three books anyway.

Then there was the scrapper who pulled up in a truck full of junk--bed frames and the lot--and said:  "You selling that stuff or giving it away?"  I'm not kidding!  I said: "It's a yard sale."  He grunted (really!) at me and drove off.  I didn't even have any scrappable stuff.  Why me?  Sometimes, I feel like I must not be living right.

A younger, hippie type dude came up late in the afternoon and asked:  "Do you have any books on, like, shamanism and stuff?"  I was kind of tickled to tell him that I did!  And he bought them!  Pays to be a weirdo I guess.

After he paid, he saw the tent in the yard and got all excited.  "Dude!  I feel you!  I camp out in my back yard all the time.  I got my tent fixed up all cool inside."  I didn't have the heart to tell him that it was only up to hold yard sale stuff.

Then there was the construction worker who bought the daintiest glass stuff I had.  "I just love knick knacks."  And the mother/daughter duo who bought a ton of stuff. made everybody smile because they were so nice, gave me more money than I was asking for because they thought everything was too cheap, and rearranged my tables as they went to make things prettier so I would sell more.  I tried to get them to stay.

Overall, it was a lot of fun.  It sent much better than it had a right to, considering I half-assed the entire thing.  I had decided I wanted to do a sale, then kept losing enthusiasm bit by bit as it got closer.  You can see in the pics that I didn't even sweep the damn sidewalk. Half-assed, I tell you!  Hell, I didn't even put the Craigslist ad up until the morning of the sale.

Look what I found:

It's old, heavy as hell, and it needs a decent top and a new back panel, but I think some project minded person is going to love it.  It's the epitome of something with "great bones."  All the file drawer hardware is still inside.  I saw it on the curb from the bus on Tuesday, but obviously couldn't get to it then. It was still there on Wednesday, when we were headed to my scan.  Incredibly, it was still there Wednesday evening, so I nabbed it.

I get my scan results on Tuesday, so I'll let you know.  I'm going to tell the docs I'm tired of getting scanned and ask to be faxed next time.  Just to mix things up a bit.  Keith has to go out of town for a family thing that just came up, so me and Chiquito are solo for a few days.  I can't go because of my treatment.

Booth sales were crazy wild over the weekend!  I did super well selling nothing but smalls.  That makes for a long-ass email report, let me tell you!  In fact, I haven't moved a stick of furniture in a couple of weeks.  This is such a crazy business.  Earlier in the week, I had spent three days working the booth, so, of course, for those three days my sales were off quite bit.  That always seems to happen, for some reason.  My daily average was starting to lag a bit much for my taste, so the weekend upswing was welcome news.  I'll probably have a lot to tidy up today.

The Halloween stuff is really on fire now.  A lot has sold, but there's still plenty left to sell.  I'm going to have to remember to get it out earlier in the future.  The fall stuff seems to have stalled and it just sitting there.  I'm going to try to spruce it up today.

Speaking of today, I'd better get moving.  

Monday (Tuesday) Rambles

Well, hello there!  How was your Derby?  Did your horse win?  If so, will you take me to lunch?  My horse didn't win.  Well, sort of.  I didn't really have a horde, but I did draw one in the Peddlers Mall Derby pool. Still, I didn't win.

Horses aside, there are some recent other winners of a sort who need to be congratulated:

Good blog friend Roger just celebrated ten years of his blog!  It's even more amazing when you consider that he actually manages to blog every single day!

Linda at A La Carte recently became a grandma for the second time.

Shara just expanded her booth space at one of her flea markets.  Long may she sell!

Distressed Donna also recently had a blogiversary.  I'll have some more to say about that in a longer post.

I'd also like to recommend a really good recent read at Things I Find in the Garbage, probably the best trash-picking blog out there.  I have to admit, he's got me checking to see when move out day at the local colleges is.  Free stuff is free stuff, after all.  I like this post because he touches on the issues of consumption and its environmental impacts, which are topics that I roll around in my head from time to time as they relate to re-selling.   There's a post for me in all of this that has needed to be written for a while now.  Maybe I'll finally get around to it now.

The post at TIFITG reminds me of the time that Keith and I were moving out of the apartment we had been in for nine years and into the house.  Our apartment was close to the University of Louisville, so there were a lot of students living in our complex, as well as the surrounding apartment buildings.  When we had gotten down to the things we did not want to take with us, we took three or four carloads to Goodwill.  That left some large items that we didn't really have room to haul in the car.  I had some boards and cinder blocks I was using as bookshelves and an old desk that was too small for my needs.  Instead of tossing them, we left them sitting beside the dumpster.  I figured that one of the students in the area might want them.  They were gone before we pulled out of the parking lot of the last time.  I guess the relationship between students and the trash goes both ways!

There wasn't a Mazda shot this weekend because we simply didn't have time to do it.  Keith had an afternoon commitment that meant we had to unload stuff quickly and get moving.  Let me tease you just a bit with the finds in anticipation of the full reveal tomorrow:

Croquet mallets all in a row

Painted child's chair

Audaciously ugly lamp.

That's what the tag I made for the lamp says!

Despite being Derby, there were a lot of yard sales going on.  This was largely due to the rain last Saturday, which cancelled lots of sales.  We hit the annual Derby street sale which is held by several dealers and their friends not far from our house.  Stuff is always plentiful and prices are generally good.  I was a little disappointed that the one guy that always has fun smalls had nothing I was interested in.

One of the sales I wanted to hit did not seem to be happening, but that just made more time for what turned out to be one of the best sales I've been to in a while.  Tons of vintage toys and really good prices.  Despite the fact that I had to work around a couple of guys and their constant eBay searches (Arrgh!), I got a lot of good stuff at this one.  I'll have pics of the finds tomorrow.

It was also a fun walk down memory lane.  There were so many toys and books there that I had as a kid!  I love it when that happens.  I heard the seller talking to one of the shoppers, and it turns out that she had conducted her father's estate sale about six or so years ago, which I had attended.  He ran a print and bookbinding shop, and there were massive amounts of all kinds of printed material at the sale.  I got a nice sized stack of vintage romance comic books and a bunch of religious tracts a that sale, which is why I remembered it.

Of course, the real highlight of the day was Free Comic Book Day.  I had planned to visit four shops, but only made it to two.  The reason?

 
Well, there were big crowds, which meant long lines.  But the sales were worth it!  I'll have more on that in a few days.  I also managed to get a hefty stack of the FCBD books.

I missed out on a couple of the ones I wanted, but I had the chance to get a few other titles, so I did.  You know me and free.  I'll end up passing most of them on in some way or another.

I did see something disturbing at one store.

"The Dark Avenger of the Night is not sweet and fluffy!"

My brother is planning to come up for a visit next week.  I am really excited for that.  I can hardly wait!  We don't get to see each other often enough, so we really have a good time when we're together.  I've got a lot to do to get the house ready for his visit, though.

Booth sales were actually good for Derby Weekend.  I had strong days on both Oaks (Friday) and Derby (Saturday).  I'm hoping that this is a good sign for the rest of the month.  I was working the other day when another vendor gave me a dining table, an end table and some other stuff she didn't want to move out of her space.  You know me and free!  I took it all, even the broken down pressboard writing desk that was ready for the trash.  I put the desk in my booth with a "free" sign on it and it was gone by the weekend.  Never hurts to repay the "free karma."

On that note, I'll say "Bye-Bye!"


   

Prep Time!

So this is how I spent my Friday.

The armaments:

Everything needed for an afternoon of cleaning and pricing!

The battlefield:

Patio table big enough to spread things out on!

The stronghold:

My much talked about shed, which really needs repainting!

The mission:

Get this organized into a yard sale!

YES, INDEED!  

IT'S YARD SALE PREP TIME!

(I kind of wish I had a theme song for this kind of thing.!)

Part of a successful yard sale is putting time into preparation and organization.  I had already selected the items to put in the sale, so now is the time to clean everything up and price it and organize it for easy set up.  

I decided to sort a lot of things out by table instead of pricing every individual item, since I have a lot of smalls in this sale.  I'll have a 25 cent table, a 50 cent table and a dollar table.  I wanted to sort it all into boxes for each table.  Plus, there were larger items to price.

I've come to the point in my life where I don't feel the need to have everything that I own.  I'm not changing who I am as a big old nerd dude who reads comics, loves cartoons, and likes cool toys and such.  I simply don't have the completist collector vibe any more.  The thought of moving all this stuff again makes me kind of queasy.  So much of this has not been out of the boxes in so long that I had forgotten I owned half of it.  I felt like I was discovering treasure!

What I've done is made myself pare down things to my absolute most favorite pieces.  I've set those aside (which amounted to about 1/3 of the overall lot).  My goal is to find a way to display the down-sized collection in the house once this is all over.  I'll probably end up paring it all down again before that happened.

I took a bunch of what I culled for the booth, but there was too much to funnel that way, so the rest is in my yard sale.  I figure that whatever doesn't sell can still head to the booth.  This is kind of like an overstock deal.  I'm not so much worried about the money I'll make as I am getting rid of this stuff.  If I can get a hundred bucks or so, I'll be pretty happy.

Some highlights:

Batman will always rock, as far as I'm concerned.

A lot of my anime stuff is Japanese merch.

I'm putting a lot of anime stuff in the sale, mostly Sailor Moon, which was always my favorite.  When I got into anime, I became a huge fan of shoujo stuff, especially magical girls.  I've always kind of liked the sweetness of the genre and its tendency towards campiness and kitsch.  I'm going to craft my Craiglist ad to try and draw in the nerds and hipsters who would be interested in this sort of thing.

There are a few Pokemon items.  The original series came out when I was really getting into anime, but it wasn't really a favorite of mine.  There was too much of a forced completism thing going on for my tastes.  Don't tell me I gotta catch 'em all.  I'll decide that for myself, thank you.  Still, I always thought Pikachu was really cute, and I do have some small Pika stuff, but that is the extent of my Poke-madness.  Well, except for Jigglypuff.

Pikachu, I see you!

I do have some vintage in the sale, like this snowmobile jacket. Yes, I know that spring is the wrong time to try and sell a leather jacket.  I'm an optimist.

I'm also putting this old chest in the sale, too.  I figure it will attract some interest.  We have a cedar chest that Keith's grandfather made in the bedroom, so I have no need for this one that I bought in a yard sale ages ago.  It has a loose hinge on the lid, so I'm selling it "as is."

Ooooo look!  I'm making progress!  Yay!

Organized things!

More organized things!

Priced things!

 I'm also putting a lot of books in the sale, mainly my mother's.  I was going to add some of mine as well, but I have three good sized tubs of Mom's, and I figure that's enough.  I'll save mine and have a book sale later on.  I actually figure I have enough stuff to have two more sales this season, which is the most you can have in one year in Louisville.  I've only cleaned out a third of the shed so far.  The rest of it will give me enough for two sales, a good sized Goodwill donation and enough extra stuff for the booth to keep me rolling on smalls well into fall.

With the small stuff covered like that, I'll be able to specifically hunt for furniture and vintage when I go saling and thrifting.

Finally, we're done!  I know that looks like the first pic, but trust me, it's not.  For one thing the angle is different, silly.  The real difference is on the inside of the tubs and boxes.  It's all sorted and organized, guaranteed to make set up a breeze!

Done!  Yay!

Happy by-product!

Empty boxes for recycling mean downsizing has occurred!  Yay!  It all took a lot less time that I thought.  I was even able to pull a few more items out of the shed for the sale.  By the time you read this, I'll be in throes of running the sale, so wish me luck!

I'll have pics and a report either tomorrow or (more likely) Monday!

By the way, I know those photos make it look like the shed is still packed to the gills, but it's not.  One side of it is nearly empty.  I just put everything back right inside the door to make it easier to get to in the morning,

Monday Rambles

I am in the grips of a junking jones something fierce, folks!

Due to all the sales I was planning on participating in this month, plus one rainy weekend, I had not been to any sales in October.  Not one.  Now I did mange to get somethings from other sellers at the sales I was in, including a ton of free stuff at the YesterNook sale, and I have also managed a thrifting stop or two, plus a couple of runs through the Peddlers Mall (where I got a cover for my Nook for only ten bucks!), but that's only been enough to take the edge off of the need, not enough to totally sate it.

Thankfully, this coming weekend is the start of the Annual Eddie's Birthday Junking Extravaganza What's So Big It Actually Takes Two Weekends To Fit It All In!  I will tame this beast!  I swear it!

Insert manly junker roar here!

I did stop in a Goodwill on Saturday and was totally shocked to find it packed with people, until I took a look at what they were buying--mustard yellow pants, anyone?--and realized that everyone was hunting the pieces for Halloween costumes.  I over heard a debate about whether a white fuzzy sweater could be spray-painted pink.  It was all a bit much.

That's me selling my crap on the sidewalk behind our house.  It was cold here Saturday morning. I had to have a heater out there with me to stand it.  A couple of folks asked if it was for sale.  I told them they could have it for $3,000!  Seriously, it was cold and windy and overcast and just gloomy.

I knew the diehards would come out, but the casual shoppers sure didn't.  I had an early rush, but the usual mid-morning rush didn't happen.  Plus, the cold limited the foot traffic in our normally busy 'hood.  I finally threw in the towel at noon, which is way early for me.

Still, I got rid of a lot of stuff and made about a hundred dollars.  The bulk of what I was selling was box lot leftovers and stuff that I got for free, so every little sale was worth it.  There was only one item I really had any money in, a Willett mirror that I got for two bucks.  I bought it to go in YesterNook and have been worried about having to take it to the Peddlers Mall, where it's more likely to get broken.  I mentioned it in the CL ad, to hopefully draw some attention to it.  One of the first customers bought it for my asking price, so I was pretty pleased. He also bought an encyclopedia rack from me.  I had to explain to him what it was, which kind of tickled me, since it was pretty obvious he was a dealer.

The book scanner from the YesterNook sale came by.  For some reason, I think he thinks we're friends now, since he bought four books from me.  He practically admitted to me that without the scanner he's got no clue what he's doing.  It's also pretty obvious from watching him that he's not having any fun doing it.

This cute young couple came by with their puppy, who grabbed a stick from under one of my tables and carried it around with her like she was going to buy it. It was so cute!  Another guy saw all the books and told me that his sister had a lot of books too.  "She's got the complete Stephen King Library.  Collector's Editions!"  You meet the most interesting people doing this.

When it was all done, I pulled a couple of boxes of stuff to take to the booth post-holidays and then took four boxes to Goodwill.  Space in my shed, plus a little money now, and the promise of more to come.  Not bad for a bunch of mostly free stuff.  I took a couple of boxes of books to Half-Price Books and then spent what they gave me on some clearanced manga and games for the booth.  All in all, it was a pretty good (if cold) day.

Sunday, we got the last of my stuff out of YesterNook.  There still isn't anything else in that storage pod, which kind of makes my blood pressure rise.  I'm still a little sad to have left, but I also feel really peaceful at my decision to go.  Besides the fact that my sales at the Peddlers Mall are up, thanks to the extra attention I can give that booth, I've already sold some of the furniture that came over from the closed booth!  I feel like I've recovered a lot of the fun and enjoyment to junking again and lost a lot of things that were stressing me out.  Leaving was the right move to make.

Well, I got to start making my list for the weekend,  It takes a lot of planning to pull off a successful birthday weekend extravaganza!

On the run

Eddie-tor's Note:  I finished this post once, but Blogger seems to have eaten it.  Bad Blogger!  The original was witty and intelligent.  This one is going to be bare bones and frustrated.

Busy!  Busy!  Tomorrow is the Outdoor Sale at the Peddlers Mall.  It's supposed to rain, but we've got a covered parking lot. Ha!  Take that competing yard sales! I actually think tomorrow will be slow, but Saturday will be busy.  Should be a fun time.

I've already got most of my stuff to sell stashed at my booth, but I'll be bringing some boxes of comics tomorrow.  I've got my signs all printed and everything.  I'll also be doing a 20% off sale at the indoor booth.  These special days are the only time we can run sales like this, but it brings out the shoppers, because many vendors will do it.

I just have to get some change cash today and I'll be set!

I'll do a late post tomorrow with the day one deets, then finish up on Saturday or Sunday. 

Fun Finds: Salem Tray

I was stocking at the booth this week, when I pulled out something I had meant to photograph for the blog and forgot.  The lighting isn't always the best there, so you'll have to pardon that, but I couldn't let this one go without sharing it.

 

I got this from a sale we just happened to run across on our way to another sale.  It was all one dollar tables and quarter tables.  I got a lot of stuff there, including this vintage advertising tray.  

What are they advertising with this lovely, delicious-looking still life?  Is it the bread?  Or the fruit?  Maybe it's the lovely tulips in the back?  None of the above, I'm afraid.  Take a look at the lower right corner.

 

Yes, it's Salem cigarettes!  Can't forget our after dinner ciggy, one we've finished with all these delectable goodies!  Let's lay them out here on the, uhm, steak so we won't forget them.  It was a totally different time back then, huh?

I know I've seen a similar tray, only with all kinds of breakfast goodies surrounding the cigs, but I forget which retro-vintage blog I saw it on.  They really stand out and look odd on that one!

I owe the blog an extended post of finds from the past month or so.  I just haven't gotten around to finishing the pics.  It's been a slow summer with very few good hauls, but there has been some cool stuff popping up here and there.  I'll try to get that out next week.

Checklist!

Lots of change?

Plenty of small bills and quarters!

CHECK!

Sunscreen?

Broad Spectrum!

CHECK!

Floppy Hat?

Should have said "floppy, goofy hat."

CHECK!

Chair?

And a pair of folding tables too!

CHECK!

Stuff to sell?

And this doesn't include what's already at the store!

Please ignore the out of control grass and weeds.

DOUBLE CHECK!

It's time to have a sale!

 

If you're in town or around, please stop by.  I've got a ton of great stuff at greater prices to sell.  I've been talking to some of the other vendors, and they've got a bunch of great stuff, too!  I'm planning on getting both my shop and my sell on! 

I'm going to try and stay out of the sun and seated for as much as I can, but I still expect to be pretty tired after this is all done.  It's worn me out to get my stuff together.  I'll let you know how it goes.  Think happy thoughts of lots of sellers and sunshine!

God Bless You and Your New Undies Too!

Earlier this spring, I went to a yard sale at a church that's not too far from the house.  It was advertised as a "youth group benefit."  Based on what I saw there, the youth weren't really getting too much benefit from it.  A few tables of well-used toys.  Some books no one would want.  A couple of tables of clothes.

To give them credit, everything was neatly arranged and priced.  A lot of the clothing was new.  I don't normally spend a lot of time looking through clothes, but I saw a whole bunch of new men's underwear in my size (or rather the size I'm rapidly growing into).  It was really cheap, so I bought several pairs.  You can never have too much underwear, after all.

I pay for the underwear and throw it in my backpack.  As I'm leaving the church, a woman standing at the door asks if I found anything good.  I tell her I bought new underwear.  She looks at me, puts her hand on my shoulder, and says "Bless you."  (Uhm....okay?)

I go out the door and start unchaining my bike.  She's still standing there and says "You have to lock it up like that all the time?"  I tell her about the one I had stolen, and she again says:  "Bless you."

As I'm pedaling off, I take a look at the sign in their parking lot.  It's got a picture of their pastors on it, and I realize that I have been talking to one of them.  Then, I see the signs for the clothing closet and food pantry.  And something clicks in my head:

• I've got my big huge backpack with me, stuffed with everything, as it usually is.
• I carried on about buying new underwear.
• I'm riding my bike, which I keep very secure due to theft.
• It has a couple of bags from the thrift down the street tied to the handle bars.

She thinks I'm homeless!

I can see her giving that same reassuring pat and pastoral "Bless you" to everyone who comes in needing food or clothing.  I've just been ministered to while I was buying underwear!  I'm surprised I didn't get an invite to the clothing closet.  

I've always thought I must be a sight, making my thrift rounds on my bike, laden with purchases.  Now I know for sure.

That's me!  Eddie the vagabond junker!  I laughed about it all the way home.