Yard sales and revenge presents

On Saturday I went to visit Marni. We wanted to go to a small town near Belleville to get some heritage plants. Both of us tend to select plants based on their names: Cosmonaut Volkov, Bloody Butcher, Purple Kalabash. So we were drawn by the alliterative allure of Minnesota midget melons. We're going to meet in the fall to see who has the biggest midget melon.

Marni then wanted to wander over to the yard sale across the street. I don't like yard sales. I don't like to bargain since I have a mortal fear of appearing cheap. And I don't like to have lots of clutter cluttering up the house. So why would I put myself in the situation of having to bargain for clutter? But I didn't want to be churlish, so I went over without a struggle. Most of the things looked junky to me, although I was somewhat tempted by a waffle iron that would produce waffles in the shapes of flowers, and a large cobalt-blue glass bowl. But my anti-packrat tendencies held me in check. Then we noticed another yard sale a couple of houses down. Some kids had set up a lemonade stand there, a rare sight these days. So we headed over. We got waylaid by a parent though, who mentioned that there were more items for sale in the garage. So we headed up that way. The first thing we spotted were the videos. Friday the 13th! Nightmare on Elm Street! Perfect viewing for a dark and stormy night at the cottage. And I also pounced on The Way we Were, which caused Marni to roll her eyes and spout a pithy dismissal of the movie: sappy. I tried to reason with her but she's a stubborn, narrow-minded critic. Then I spotted a box of Barbie dolls. These were no ordinary well-groomed Barbies though. Masses of long tangled hair. Naked. Pouty lips. Crazed eyes. Legs that ended in removable feet sporting platform shoes, so that you could pull off one foot and make them appear even more disturbing. “Look at these” I shouted at Marni. I thought maybe she would want them for an art installation, but although she agreed they were creepy, she was less taken with them than I was. I bought four for $1.00. I may put them in my fig tree, which already houses a wooden articulated snake, a papier maché apple and pomegranate, and two wood figures I got from somewhere in Indonesia that are supposed to act as bouncers at heaven's door. They are scowling - possibly because they both appear to be having a bad hair day - and are anatomically incorrect, unless the pearly gates are guarded by male porn stars.

The pièce de résistance though was a Disney princess lamp. A blonde vision wearing an off-the-shoulder dress with a wide pink skirt that sparkles luminously when the lamp is turned on. As a joke, a few years ago a friend gave me a spa piggybank since I was always saying that one day when I have a lot of money I'd like to go to a spa for a week. The bank was hideous. But not the kind of hideous that demands to be put on display and exclaimed over. (Which one of the chandeliers that my brother and his partner brought down for a yard sale last month does. They moved into a house where most of the wall surfaces were mirrored, there were gold bits embedded in the ceiling, and the light fixtures were hideous in the way the spa bank was. Except one. It has pink cherubs pole dancing around electric candle tapers. It is fabulously hideous, and I immediately claimed it. I'm going to hang it in the garage.) After hiding the bank in my closet for a couple of years and amassing less than five dollars towards my spa holiday I re-gifted it to my older nephew Liam, since he used to find it difficult to save money. There were exclamations of disgust when the present was opened. “What the hell is that?” asked Pat, his mother. Then last Christmas, I was opening a gift from Pat, Liam and Kiernan. “It's a revenge present” they gleefully informed me. I thought for a bit. Revenge for what? Then I remembered the spa bank (which had suffered a fatal “accident” shortly after I gave it to Liam). I unwrapped the gift. It was a yellow glass pig with blue ears and eyes and a little blue squiggly tail, and a gaping misshapen orange mouth. “I love this” I gasped. I really did. I had been looking for something to put my toothbrush in, and the pig's colour scheme would fit in fabulously with the olive chartreuse walls and lemon yellow trim of my recently renovated bathroom. They looked disappointed. (When Kiernan's birthday arrived I had to tell him that his gift was not a revenge present, because it certainly looked like one. He had wanted a plaque with the family coat of arms on it, so I ordered one from somewhere in Ireland. The coat of arms was OK, but the plaque was pretty awful and whoever had done the lettering must have spent several hours at the pub beforehand.) I am going to give the Disney princess lamp to Liam for his next birthday. “It's a present to incite a revenge present” I'll tell him. Based on their previous feeble attempt to exact revenge, I may end up with another fabulous gift.

I love yard sales.