ACORNS AND PUSHY STRANGERS

I managed to go by a handful of yard sales on my way to work Saturday, and after I spent fifty cents I felt much better. None of the sales were very interesting, but I was willing to plunk down two quarters for this little guy.
Brand new, still in his Crate & Barrel box. Probably a gift. Let’s all say it together, children: If there were no gifts, there would be no garage sales!

It wasn’t actually the squirrel I fell for, it's the acorn.
What is it about an object that compels us to want it? I have always considered the acorn both beautiful and completely cool. Several months ago I took the acorn pin I found at a yard sale, plus some real acorns I picked up in Oregon and an old glasses case, and made this little construction.
I still need to line the case with better fabric, maybe brown velvet?

While waiting for my Saturday morning work event to begin I was chatting with an acquaintance about blogging. Told her how much I've enjoyed writing about yard sales.

“Ooooh, yard sales,” she said. “They are so much work.” I agreed. Way more fun to go to them than to have them. She told me about the time she moved from Birmingham, Alabama to New York, and had to sell pretty much the entire contents of her house. “People were so pushy,” she said. “They showed up the night before, they showed up at six in the morning. I even found a woman in my kitchen making herself some breakfast.”

I was agog. This was extreme, even for pushy thrifters. “Making breakfast?”

“Yeah, she said she’d been out going to sales all morning and really needed something to keep her going.”

I’ve heard lots of stories about pushy people, but I think I'm going to officially award this unknown person the crown of pushiest of them all…and devoutly hope she never shows up at any sale I might hold.