Peaches and I have this thing about Big Lots. We can't ever go to that deep-discount clearinghouse in search of anything in particular; to do so, we believe, is to be guaranteed to not find it. A dozen tins of tiny smelt fillets pickled in fjord brine, a metric socket set made out of plastic, Halloween-themed boxer shorts that emit an evil laugh from a little hidden speaker – they're all there when you're not looking for them.
Hit any one of the several Bay area Big Lots with a particular objective, however, and you're screwed. That pack of four rolls of duct tape you saw for 99 cents the last time you were in the store is no longer anywhere to be found now that you actually need it, so sorry, but perhaps you might be interested in a string of chili-pepper Christmas lights, or an electric tabletop water fountain in the shape of an old-fashioned river mill?
Going to Big Lots is the bargain-hunting equivalent of an Eastern meditation exercise. It's all about letting go of the distractions and desires of the self. You just have to clear your mind, and wait for the universe to reveal an insightful truth about itself to you.
(Only in this case, said truths usually involve tuna-flavored Mexican potato chips and amazingly affordable bulk-packs of off-brand, off-white athletic socks.)
It's the same thing with garage sales. You can't leave the house at an ungodly Saturday-morning hour more appropriate for fishing or golf than shopping, armed only with the classifieds and your caffeinated beverage of choice, and expect to find a copy of Gravity's Rainbow or a hose clamp from a 1953 International Harvester pickup truck. You might as well get up at the crack of dawn, dig a hammer out of your toolbox, hit the back of your hand with it a couple of times, and spend the remainder of the day taking aspirin and wondering how you could've thought doing something like that might be a good idea.
Like the cliché goes, garage sales aren't about the destination, they're about the journey. The goal is to venture forth expecting nothing, and be rewarded for it with a magical revelation, or at least an interesting new knickknack for the home, office or body.
But meditation is difficult. That's why there aren't more people who do it. Clearing the mind is like digging a hole in beach sand well below the high-tide line; stuff keeps wanting to fill the empty space you're wanting to create. And as Peaches and I climbed into the Jeep last Saturday morning, try as I might, I couldn't stop thinking about well-thumbed horror novels, light-duty power sanders, coffee tables and beat-up guitars whose owners had no idea what they were really worth.
I suspect that Pinellas County may be the garage/estate/yard-sale capital of the world. Nearly every weekend of the year finds more crap in more front yards than any but the most motivated shopper could possibly pick over in a day. In the spring and fall, you don't even really need the newspaper. Just get in your car and cruise the busier roads bordering residential neighborhoods, and the hand-lettered signs will shortly begin vying for your attention.
Our first stop was a funky enclave I'd never entered in northern Gulfport. The neighborhood, a labyrinth of serpentine lanes and homes of wildly varying age and design between Gulfport Boulevard and Fifth Avenue North, was hosting a loosely organized sale-a-thon; we browsed five or six outposts, all within a couple of blocks of one another, from a walk-through at a mostly empty apartment where the only labeled items – beds and dressers – were the few furnishings not for sale, to a sun-drenched front yard on the main thoroughfare presided over by two friendly middle-aged women.
"Everybody on the street was supposed to [be involved]," said one, as Peaches selected a brooch lying on a blanket, perilously close to a large pair of peach-colored women's underpants. "But I guess some of them decided it wasn't worth getting up so early."
I splurged on some glassware for what used to be my collection of shot glasses, but has become Peaches' assortment of makeup-brush reservoirs. No F. Paul Wilson novels. No '68 Fender Telecasters. No coffee tables (end tables aplenty, though).
That's what I get for thinking.
After failing to find an advertised estate sale further west in Pasadena, we headed for the south St. Pete neighborhood called the Pink Streets, an area known among habitual yard-sale lurkers as a hot spot. It was getting to be 10 o'clock, pretty late in the game for serious perusal, but neither the buyers nor the sellers were giving up yet – we were sidetracked by arrows affixed to street signs long before we reached the first sale advertised in the paper, and cars continued to line the curb in front of every yard displaying a box full of old children's toys or an impromptu outdoor clothing rack.
At one stop just off of Pinellas Point Drive, I lingered in the truck over an interesting segment of the NPR program Car Talk while Peaches went ahead. I didn't even have a chance to turn off the engine before she was back, carrying a little pink-and-white cushioned chair that perfectly matched the desk in her home office.
Revelation. Obviously, she'd managed to get her tabla more rasa than I had, and the universe had responded by way of impossibly cute furniture.
I tried again to find my center. It didn't work; visions of barely used fishing equipment and antique liquor decanters kept polluting my aura.
Ten more sales, one offensively overpriced old fainting couch and a bumper pool table we didn't have room for (but that I almost bought anyway) later, and we were nearly shopped out. The universe had refused to yield any of its secrets – or even one lousy used copy of a Carl Hiaasen book I didn't already own – and I was getting pissy.
Heading back up Pinellas Point Drive, we saw an arrow we hadn't noticed before, and followed it to a driveway where a young couple was politely haggling with another family over the price of a nice handmade wooden bench. We hopped out of the truck, and looked over the merchandise with the restless disinterest of kids who've followed their mother around the clothing store for a half-hour too long.
I nearly didn't bother with the box of CDs sitting alone on the concrete, but Peaches bent to it, so I joined her in a quick flip-through. Inside, I found seemingly every big-deal alternative rock album from the late '80s and early '90s that I'd sold, lost, ruined or lent out and never gotten back. The Cult. Jane's Addiction. Faith No More. Beastie Boys. Smashing Pumpkins. Sisters of Mercy.
It was like freakin' Lollapalooza in a box, with an old live Hendrix release as a bonus.
We bought most of them – in the end, their original owner couldn't bear to part with Gish and a few others – and called it a day. It wasn't exactly a revelation, but then, I'd never really let go of my expectations, so I was willing to call it a draw, take my consolation prize, and go home.
Hey, sometimes the universe rewards you just for playing.
SCOTT.HARRELL@WEEKLYPLANET.COM
This article appears in May 4-10, 2005.