A Summer Punderland

Exploring the deer-infested wilds of New Jersey.

I was back in New Jersey this weekend to celebrate a few more family birthdays, and while our yardsale trip was cut short because 1) the sales weren’t biting much this morning, and 2) none of us were able to get out of bed before 9:30, we still managed to do our fair share of picking through other people’s garbage.

Some sales were a bit more garbagey than others.

Here are some of the highlights:

And you thought driving while texting was bad. A coffee maker for your car! Haven’t you ever wanted to brew some Joe on the Go?

…Man, that would’ve been a MUCH better slogan than the one they went with: “Just plug into your LIGHTER SOCKET!!!!!” And hey, if you decided to pick that up…

You could always grab some “genuine” second-hand coffee filters from 1984 to go with it.

At the same sale:

She Was Eaten to DEATH

*ahem* Let’s get doewn to business; we have a lot of madeerial to cover. (…I’m so sorry. Those are some of my worst puns yet. My Aunt Ler would be so ashamed.)

Today’s adventure started off with a “blue light”—which is, as described earlier, a term my mom coined for yardsales that sneak up on you, like that axe murderer that’s creeping up behind you right now. Although as it turned out, I did see this one listed on Craigslist the night before. The post just had one critical flaw:

They didn’t include an address. Which—as you might imagine—is a bit of a problem when you’re trying to visit someone’s house. My GPS is an older model; it doesn’t understand how to get me from Spring Street to “near Route 67, past where the old supermarket used to be.”

So how did I know it was the same sale? They mentioned in the post that they had a bunch of gravestones for sale, and, well…

They sure did!

My favorite, by far: “Here lies BETH. She was eaten to DEATH.” (Although “SALLY BASS got overcome by GAS” comes in at a close second.)

A whopping $50 for the whole lot though; they must’ve read my post about ridiculous Connecticut Prices, and took it as a challenge. “Oh, he thinks $4 for a scratched up CD is bad? Just wait until I charge half a hundo for these cardboard things I painted!”

Although that said, for only $5 I could’ve taken home this fantastic lobster rug:

…but it’s a good thing I didn’t get my claws into that; I ended up buying another awesome rug at a different sale, and I think if I brought them both home my wife might’ve boiled me alive. (Like a lobster.)

Later in the day, I came across…