A Bouquet of Black Roses and Spiders!

This was from a yardsale that appeared to be the entire contents of a Spirit Halloween store—except that they were selling everything for like, a dollar. Spooky holiday lights? A dollar. Masks so terrifying that I heard a little kid whispering “I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to be here…”? A dollar. The bouquet above?

TEN CENTS. TEN FRIGGIN’ CENTS. Skeletons the size of ME cost $5, and that was seriously the most expensive thing they had.  As someone who unironically lists “decorating for the holidays” as an interest on Facebook, I was SO into it.

A few other choice finds:

FIVE BOXES OF VIDEOGAMES!!

“Don’t worry, I won’t get anything too bulky—I know we’re moving in a month.” — me, this morning, like an idiot.

Guest Post: Antique Shopping

(This guest post was submitted by my GameCola co-collaborator and perhaps the world’s most famous Nancy Drew enthusiast, Michael Gray.)

Since Halloween is coming up, I thought it’d be a nice time to talk about yardsaling’s scary cousin: antique shopping.

You can see the family resemblance between antique shopping and yard sales. Both hobbies include sorting through piles of useless old junk that nobody wants anymore. But while yard sales are run by mostly normal people, antique malls are run by complete lunatics. In fact, if you’re ever at a yard sale where the sellers seem crazy, odds are that they’re just trying to impress the antique mall scouts.

You see, antique stores are just like the government. Everyone in charge is over fifty years old, and they have no idea how much things cost. For example, $50 for a Titanic VHS tape is a reasonable price at an antique store. On the other hand, something like an Xbox 360 game will go for two dollars, because the antiquers have no idea what to do with any products made in this century.

I recently visited an antique mall in Normal, Illinois. Conveniently located in a dead shopping center, this store contains proof that their town is poorly named.

This suit would either be a great Halloween costume, or the worst birthday present ever.

About $20 for the creepy salt and pepper shakers. I think the design for them was reused in Gnomeo and Juliet.