Out of Season

I was talking to my friend Rhonda inside my car before going into the grocery store on a Friday night a few weeks ago, and she asked me off-the-cuff if I was planning on going to garage sales the next morning. As she asked this I was pulling my sleeve as far as possible over my exposed hand to keep it warm, noting how my breath was steaming up the inside of my car as the temperature clock outside the bank flashed 2 degrees. Fahrenheit.

"Garage sales?" I asked her. "It's.... not really the season."

Rhonda was fortunate enough to spend most of her adult life in the Pacific Northwest, where garage sales are a year-round event. But in the dead of Chicago winter, no one's even shoveling their sidewalk, let alone setting up a card table on top of it to sell their possessions. In fact, when it's this cold outside, no one much likes to leave their house. You'd think that this would be good in the way of diminished competition, but really, the lack of available outlets for bargain shopping tends to cramp the hundreds of bargain shoppers (like me) into the very few outlets open at this time of year: thrift stores and estate sales.

So like any good year-round Midwestern thrifter, I prepare my short list on Thursday evenings for a Friday morning cruise of the estate sale scene.

This Friday, I had just two sales on my list, neither of them that promising. But hey, in times of famine, tenacity pays off. Even if you have to drive around in this thing:



Is there a car under there?


The first sale was in Evanston. To my surprise there was no line, no wait at the starting time of 10 a.m.




As soon as I got in, I could see why. Slim pickin's. Nothing much in the way of collectibles or decent books. But these sales are always good for stocking up on staples, like office supplies.




I refuse to buy a legal pad at full price when I know I can get them at estate sales for 25 cents. Same goes for envelopes, felt-tipped pens, staple removers and cleaning products.

Awesome purse I didn't buy:




I was able to dig up 3 valuable reference books on pipe-fitting, each selling on Amazon for more than $12. (I paid $1.50 for all three.) So in the hopes that my day could only get better, I took a chance on the next sale in Park Ridge.

I was just starting to curse the dreary, salt-encrusted look of things on Touhy Avenue when what out of the corner of my eye should appear?




A thrift store I've NEVER seen or heard of! I've spent the last four years driving around the 234-square-mile area that is Chicago (not to mention the suburbs), and I thought I had seen it all. But here was a previously untouched thrift mecca just 10 miles from my apartment. I felt like Lord Carnarvon opening Tut's tomb!

Unfortunately the "treasures" inside my discovery weren't exactly priced to go.



Fifteen bucks for a jelly jar, thirty-five for a Fenton? (not) sherbet dish, twenty-five dollars for a Walter Peyton highlights VHS video, etc.




Dismayed, I was about to leave when I noticed a second entrance two doors down. THIS part of the store looked a bit more promising:




These are cool:



Five dollars!


Awesome wagon-themed ice cream dishes for 50 cents each:




And this card, which I couldn't quite figure out. Is it intended for a better-than-decent male sibling, or a very attractive black man?




Either way, Happy Easter to them, at just 25 cents.


I bought a Thomas Pynchon novel, an academic book on the South Asian diaspora and a hardcover cuckoo-clock making manual, all for 55 cents. The resale value of these items is considerably higher.

Satisfied, I continued on to the Diane Hudec (formerly Auction Bay -- do I smell a 'cease & desist'?) estate sale.

I usually save the Hudec sales for last, as they are significantly, ambiguously overpriced (you'll see what I mean in a second), so most of my competitors seem to stay away.

As expected, Hudec never fails to ambiguously overprice:




"So... is this basket 5 dollars, 50 cents, or 10 dollars?" (You won't find out until you reach the check-out counter, where the lines are always ridiculously long for this very reason.)

More ambiguous pricing from Hudec:



However, I must say Diane is always willing to bargain as a result of this ambiguousness, and there are always a few good deals to be found:






I found my childhood spice rack at this sale (although ours was in goldenrod):



Ten dollars.


Alas, there were no good bargains at AuctionBay for me this Friday morning, so I lifted a plant and a can of beans and ski-dooed.

I hear it's supposed to be 15 tomorrow. Yeay!