What is a monkeybox?

When I was a little girl, we had a pet monkey named Amanda. My Dad worked in the produce business, so each night he brought home that days culls in a big box - spotty cucumbers, pithy apples, limp celery, moldy oranges and the like. We called it a monkeybox. It was really just trash, but my Mom would take each piece of fruit and trim it, pare it and cut it up to make a beautiful fruit platter for Amanda. Even though it was deemed trash by one, it still had life left in it and was good for the purpose we needed it. That's how I live my life - thrifting, yard saling, looking for another's trash to be my treasure.

Saturday, September 03, 2011

So Many Signs, So Little Stuff

When I set out yesterday, I knew there would be a LOT of sales. It is the biggest weekend for yard sales in my area due to the Annual Clothesline Fair.  The Clothesline fair used to be where ladies put their quilts on clotheslines to be judged and later sold to the highest bidder.  But, over the years, it has evolved to  a huge Arts and Crafts fair on one side of the highway and odds and ends on the other side of the highway.  It is held on the Prairie Grove Battlefield, so there are rules that everything on that side of the highway must be arts and crafts and handmade.  On the other side, anything goes - repurposed junk, tie dye t-shirts, fudge, produce,  jewelry, etc. 
Because of all of the traffic of the Clothesline Fair, people have garage sales all the way out there and throughout town too.  The sales are plentiful, but a lot of it is just junk and not the sort of things that I want or it is stuff that I want but they have antique store prices on it.  I guess they think that the out of towners will come antique and junk hunting and buy it up.  And, maybe they do, but I don't.  Some years I have had good luck - last year I bought a two foot tall stack of vintage tablecloths and linens for $10.00 and some years I have zero luck.  This was one of those years. 
I did find a few things here and there, but with the price of gas and the heat added to the mix - it probably wasn't worth it.  But, I had a little bit of fun, so then again, maybe it was.
 
I go yard saling in this town often enough that I recognize signs and know where the sale is even without reading the address.  When I spotted one sign I knew immediately it was at "The Grouchiest Lady in the World's" house.   She has the sourest look on her face.  I think she was just born with that face, but the attitude she carries along with it makes her just the most terrible lady.  She stares at everyone - especially teenaged boys - like they are going to steal everything.  Recently I have avoided her sales, but the sales yesterday were so bad, that TGLITW's sale seemed like a treat.  I only bought these two vintage-y suitcases for $2.00.  I scrubbed them up after I took the photo and they are shiny and blue now.  To the Flea Market they go.

Inside the larger suitcase, I found two of these Personal Bat Mats from a hotel.  I like the woodsy lodge feel to it.  They might end up being the money maker of the trip.

Inside the suitcase - a Robert Raikes wooden faced bunny, a Dakin Dream Pet "Bobo the Elephant", a small spaghetti Poodle with rhinestone eyes, three old potholders, a set of teeny tiny molds and a pair of Klackers.  Do you remember Klackers?  Two acrylic balls on either end of a string - clack them together until they whack each other and bounce off each other.  They were popular in the 1970's for a short time, until they were deemed dangerous and pulled from the shelves.  This was right about the time when our teenaged neighbor got a pair of Klackers and swung them over his head like a Banshee and swung them into my face, resulting in my first black eye at the tender age of three.  Ahhh, memories. 

Tomorrow we will be going to the Clothesline Fair, so maybe there will be more junk set up along the roads.  If there is, hold on boys, we are pullin' in!

Until then, have a safe and happy Labor Day.  Sixteen years ago on a Labor day I was in Labor.....:)

7 comments:

  1. I remember clackers you would get them going so fast that pieces of the plastic would come flying off. Ahh the joys of child hood.
    happpy hunting
    Cathy

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  2. Oh I love the bunny! We have a grouchy one here too. I call her "bitter beer face" after the commercials.

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  3. I like those suitcases always a good find, but the bathmat is my fav for sure!!!

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  4. i covet the clackers. if you sell them on ebay, let me know. i plan on using them to keep my husband in line!

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  5. I remember wanting clackers sooooooo very bad. I guess I was about 10. But my aunt said I'd kill myself, so I was forbidden to even look at them. I want them!

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  6. Clackers and Jarts! Oh the dangerous toys of the 70's! And we had them all...remember making worms and insect where you had to pour the liquid into a firing hot plate mold thingee? Why can't I remember the name of that? We used to get burned on it all the time.

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  7. I LOVED those clackers. A family friend had them, and we all fought over who would get to play with them. Love the bathmat, too. And I can picture the small, family-owned hotel nestled in the trees that held it. Fun stuff!

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