That's What She Said: #3 This Is What Hell Is Like

Last week The Snug Bungalow and I went to two different sales by two different companies. Both sales were what we call "digger" sales (there's lots of stuff, everywhere, and you need to dig to find some things because there's so. much. stuff.)

Despite their seeming similarities, these two sales could not have been more different. The first was run by our favorite company. They are efficient, consistent, and price things reasonably.

Please take a moment to appreciate my neon nails.

First thing, we hit the jewelry table. I found this beaut:

It's aurora borealis (my favorite) but the best part is that as soon as the lady at the checkout wrote it on my checkout slip for me, she insisted on putting it on me right away rather than putting it in a bag. So cute. We love this company!

This is just the porch area, and you can already see its digger-ness. Sarah isn't in elbows-deep yet, but she will be.

If you recall from the previous week's sale, I discovered that my husband has a thing for piggy banks. This was news to me. So when I saw this, I sent him this picture. His response was a smiley face. Soooo... is that a yes or just a haha? I asked and he texted back "Yes. Duh." Well. We now own this little copper piggy.

Turns out the previous owner of this house was a music fan. They obviously loved musical theater:

Good taste, too.

Then I went into a bedroom and a lady was going through a box of posters. When I saw what they are, I went "ooo" and shifted one. She immediately moved into defensive mode and said "I'm buying those!" I reassured her that I just wanted a picture, and we settled into a pattern of her sorting out which ones she wanted and me taking pictures as she went. These are all posters from music groups such as the Oratorio Society.  We have some outstanding community groups here in Rochester, largely thanks to the presence of the Eastman School of Music here in Rochester. If you haven't heard of it, it's a pretty big deal. It's one of the most renowned conservatories in the US, and one of the reasons Rochester is such a great place to teach music. The woman who was buying them all actually was part of these performances! She was buying them to donate to the conductor of the Oratorio Society! We had a nice little chat about the Rochester music scene in days of yore.

We went on to dig more in the basement. So far, all I had to my name was the bracelet and the copper pig, but here I found these for my husband:

I almost passed these by until I realized they included Pabst (a crappy beer my husband remembers fondly from his college days) and Miller High Life (the champagne of beers, which I think is hilarious/ridiculous and my husband loves). When I brought them home and cleaned them up, he immediately took advantage!

Sarah, meanwhile, as predicted, was elbow deep in a box in the basement, and had her due reward.

There were some other odd, fun things to be found in that digger basement.

Spinny! Wheee!

How's THAT for being from another time? Too soon?

Amusement Land? Is that a knockoff of Candy Land? Was this a thing?

For all your hamster's fine dining needs.

....I bet you probably shouldn't, either.

I was fairly tempted to take this home. Mighta done, if I could have figured out how to get it down. A fishing net with beachy things attached. I do love the beach!

For those of you who don't know, we're doing Will Rogers Follies at Marion HS next year! I was happy to see this book about him.

Sarah bought things. She bought a LOT of things.

We moved on to the next sale. We were going there purely because we'd seen a lot of jewelry in the pictures, and this was day 2. Day 2 means (if you're a good company, like the first one) that everything should be discounted. So when we got there and saw this sign:

It made us like:

"Some exceptions." That was vague and annoying. How were we to know which things were the exceptions? Is it just the jewelry and furs and "some crystal and furniture".... or other things? This did not bode well.

The first room was crammed full of jewelry, and it was priced high and it was impossible to move around. Literally we had to stand in one spot for a good while without moving because we couldn't get out.

You can see how there's only really room for 1 person in between each of those tables. When we were there, there were a lot more people crammed in there. We found a few things but were really picky due to the high prices. I did note that the previous owner and I had something in common.

That's all aurora borealis! My favorite. The box on the left is entirely clear aurora borealis earrings, and they're all almost identical. What did she do with them? How many ears did she have? Was it in case she lost one? Or  twenty?

We moved into the basement, which was dank, smelly, crowded, and had some other weird stuff.

A player piano, and the sign informs the potential buyer that there are more rolls included. That's kind of fun... but who actually wants a player piano, except maybe a theme restaurant or movie set?

A can opener serenading guy.

In case you want to start your own mariachi band!

In case you can't tell what this wooden carving is supposed to be, it's helpfully labeled for you.

As we tried to get out of the basement, a woman and her five children (oh yes, she brought FIVE children, ranging from approx. ages 2-13) were trying to leave the basement and climb the very narrow stairs into the main level of the house. The toddler with them sat down on the stairs. Apparently he just couldn't. I kind of was with him, and would have had greater sympathy for his plight if I hadn't been stuck in the smelly, dark, creepy crowded basement behind them. A line began to form. The mom was very laidback about it. Didn't seem in a rush, didn't really apologize. People started to get cranky. I am telling you, if there is a hell, this is what it would be like for me. Crowded, smelly, and with a baby crying.

Eventually we got out, and as we were trying to check out, I got to hear the woman having an argument with the woman running the estate sale as to whether her children were a problem and whether or not the company was being rude in asking her to take her children outside. Meanwhile, Sarah was getting smacked in the butt by one of the children who was running in and out and in and out with no regard for Sarah's generous backside.

The twelfth circle of hell.

At least we got out, and I got some really cool jewelry.

But I promise you we will never go to another sale run by that company. Barring some Kermit that Sarah has never seen before/just has to have for her Muppet collection, anyway.

Be sure to check out Sarah's version of events over at her partner blog!

And check out all the huge amounts of stuff I'm adding regularly to my Etsy shop! And Sarah's Etsy shop!