Hey kids, it’s the new “Elf on the Shelf”! Presenting:
ＳＡＮＴＡ＇Ｓ ＨＥＡＤ ＩＮ ＹＯＵＲ ＢＥＤ
ＷＩＴＨ ＨＡＮＤＳ
(BTW: Did I ever tell you guys about the time I saw Tim Allen’s severed head in a museum?)
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Pick your own joke for this one!
Option 1: “I wouldn’t climb on THIS Santa’s lap!”
Option 2: “Whatever you do, don’t unwrap his present.”
Option 3: “Or go see his North Pole.”
Option 4: “Or trim his tree.”
Option 5: “Or drink his eggnog.” (Wait, what?)
Option 6: …Basically any line from “Baby, it’s Cold Outside” will do it.
(But seriously, why is there so much creepy Christmas stuff out there?!)
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WHAT THEY WERE GOING FOR: “You get a puppy, you get a puppy; everyone gets a puppy!”
WHAT THEY ACTUALLY MADE: “Well, there was that one time a guy dressed as Santa Claus broke into my house and stole all my dogs. It ruined my childhood. Now I’m going to ruin yours.” — Michael Bay, on what inspires him as an artist.
HE KNOWS IF YOU’VE BEEN BAD OR GOOD
SO BE GOOD, FOR F*CK’S SAKE.
(Alternate joke: UP ON THE HOUSETOP, CLICK CLICK CLICK. It’s weird how many Christmas songs make Santa sound like a friggin’ axe murderer.)
(Alternate joke: Looks like someone’s taking the “War on Christmas” a little too literally, am I right guys?!)
(Alternate joke: oops sorry i’m covered in tomatoes now can’t make more jokes)
Today, we bring you a SPECIAL REPORT, from what is being hailed as “Connecticut’s Largest Yardsale”! When I saw the sign, I just had to go. I had no idea we even had one of those!
…
…Yeah, it turns out we don’t—if anything it was more like “Connecticut’s Most Moderately-Sized Flea Market.” (Which, granted, probably wouldn’t have fit on the sign.) And if I’m not funny today, you can blame that, because if you’re expecting a ginormous yardsale and all you get is a bunch of people selling pieces of garbage they glued together, you’re basically gonna be Grumpy Cat for the rest of the day.
Why? Allow me to explain in like a million words. Continue reading
(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. Continue reading
*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… Continue reading
This past weekend I was visiting my parents’ house for Birthdayfest—that traditional time of year when all the summer babies in my family gather together, and mourn the fact that we were all born so close to each other and therefore don’t get our own special celebrations. It’s a somber, subdued event where we play games like “Pin the Tear on Your Own Cheek,” and (later) “Ow, My Cheek!” I look forward to it every year.
Now, I’m not the only one in my family who enjoys going to yardsales—as I stated in my very first post here, I’ve been going to them ever since I was a little kid with my mom, and I was cute enough to get free things with just a sad pout and a “my mommy said it’s too expensive…” Practically any weekend we’re together at the ol’ homestead, the whole family (or at least, anyone who can wake up early enough) piles into Mom’s minivan for a fun-filled morning of stimulating the American economy, one quarter at a time.
…Even if it’s pouring rain. Which, as it turns out, it was this weekend. Most of the sales this past Saturday that weren’t outright canceled looked like a post-apocalyptic version of Hoarders, with junk hastily packed shoulder-deep into garages, scattered contents spilling onto the tables outside—tables that were circled over again and again by we intrepid yardsalers, in hopes that something worthwhile would finally reveal itself, if only we stared hard enough.
After about an hour of this, that orphaned plastic lid was looking mighty tempting.
But I did discover one benefit to rainy-day yardsales that I hadn’t previously realized: There’s almost no competition for the quality goods. Most of the regular salers stay home, because they assume that all the sales will just be canceled. And true—many of them were. But many of them weren’t, and we were able to find a lot of choice (and not-so-choice) merchandise. Continue reading
Let’s just open with this, the single greatest thing I’ve ever purchased at a yardsale (note that I say that about everything I purchase):
Oh my god, how horrifying is that? I don’t know what it’s supposed to be, but every time I look at it I see a sneaky Santa Clause giggling to himself and whispering “I have all the babies. I have all of them.” You just know he’s going to eat them afterwards. I can’t wait to serve people cookies on it, come Christmas-time. The look on their face as they take that last chocolate chip away, and they have that staring up at them. The true meaning of the holidays. Continue reading
Yardsaling to Adventure! 
