Non-Serious Finds

Woo Hoo, The gift of a 65 degree day in the middle of winter has been granted to us. It is one of my favorite things about winter around here. Somewhere in the midst of the misery, they give us a sandals and shorts day. Yeah, in Colorado 65 degrees totally qualifies. Will we be slammed this weekend, you betcha. Will I whine about it, you betcha, but for now I will sneak outside and eat my lunch in the sunshine, and soak up that vitamin D.

It was a sort of weird day at the thrift store when all of this showed up at once. We always worry that it might have been purged from just one house. While we applaud the clear out, we still have some reservations about the sanity of the purger.

For instance, these items:

While being pretty sure we know why they are still in their packages, we have questions as to why they even exist. We spent far too long trying to figure out what they were made of, and then we spent some more time trying to figure out what you do with them, and if they could ever have been classified as decorative. None of our pondering got us any decent answers, so, we just took some photos and moved on. We did notice that no one else could come up with any sort of excuse for these things, as they have been there for weeks.

We spotted the old woman in the shoe first:

And we have to say, she really has so many children she didn’t know what to do. Needless to say the whole fiasco has caused her to lose her head! This actually was a better ceramic piece than you might think, but still not really the sort of thing you want around, unless you feel the need to remind your child that corporal punishment is only a blink away. I’ve seen some kids that maybe this is a good idea for, so I will retract my earlier statement. While double-checking the rhyme for this, I came across this site. Who knew this was worth so much analysis?

We managed to walk a foot or so down the line and this lady showed up:

We will admit that we moved her a little closer to the old woman, just for reference, as there seemed to be some sort of mass murderer involved in decapitating porcelain. We decided it was just a bit too gruesome to leave the head around where junior could get a good look at it, but maybe he loves his mommy’s head. Then we noticed the paper tag stuck to the figure, and we both spent a good amount of time giggling. They were just about to come and ask us to leave before they got a reputation of entertaining insane women, when we managed to settle down. We have no idea how or why that tag is there. I don’t even want to think how something like that is possible with this, but it was worth the best belly laugh we have had in ages.

Next up Avonitopia:

My mother sold Avon about the time many of these bottles came out, so I am pretty sure at least the peacock and the duck are still in boxes somewhere. I have seen folks insist that old Avon bottles are worth something and that they are amazing collectibles, but the only people I have ever seen buy them are dealers, so I think there is a finite amount of them that just move around from one flea market to another in groups, sort of like old lady smelling gangs.

Forking clock:

Come on, you know you were thinking that too. We wanted to like this. It was Betty Crocker meets Mid Century Modern, but it was so chintzy and flimsy that it just didn’t make the cut. We were glad these were not real forks and spoons, as had they been, they would have bent while eating soup. So much unrealized potential. Sigh …

Plastic fruit salad anyone?

Wow, that is a lot of polymer. These were Grandma’s plastic fruit too, not the kind that actually might look like fruit. For the love of Pete, someone needed to stop buying it. We didn’t notice a large collection of really gaudy gold plastic urns and baskets hanging around, so where did they keep it? Think of the havoc you could cause with this collection. Run around to all your friends and stick some in everyone’s fruit bowl. Have a million bananas to add to photos for “scale” or confound the local squirrels with fake apples. Heck, maybe we should have bought it. Nah, that’s just the plastic fumes talking.

We couldn’t decide whether we wanted to see this working or not:

After turning it around and looking at it from as many angles as possible, we decided it was a wall fountain. It would have about a teaspoon of water in it, as it was pretty small, so you would have to go water the bears at least four times a day. Everyone needs a hobby, but really? Add to that resin, ugly bears, and would someone explain what those two brown upright things are? Looks like some sort of poopy trees, but I just don’t know. All things considered, this seemed like a really good candidate for the rubbish pile.

Thought we would end with something good:

We are firm believers in this! If you grow up, you just grow old. You gotta play or what good is living? I don’t care if you play with dolls, trains, make mud pies, cook outrageous desserts, build castles in the air, even play sports, or tell jokes, it’s all good. Laugh. On the other hand, do you really need a three-foot long sign sitting on your desk to tell you it’s OK? It’s official, you have our permission, you don’t need another sign. Have some fun this week, and we will see you next time.