The Countdown Begins...

What's Playing in my Head: "My Doorbell", by The White Stripes

Quote of the Day: "Technology frightens me to death. It's designed by engineers to impress other engineers, and they always come with instruction booklets that are written by engineers for other engineers - which is why almost no technology ever works." - John Cleese

Da-da-da-da...Da-da-da-da-da...Da-da-da-da...Da-da-da-da-da-da...

(I know this is a God-awful Europe technoshit reference. I'm sorry.)

I'm like a kid on Christmas eve tonight. Why? Because tomorrow is the day that me and The Dazzling Brunette have been waiting for for almost a year, a day that holds almost as much importance in my mind as the Super Bowl, or any Game Seven in hockey or baseball (basketball doesn't count, because it sucks).

I'm talking about the one-and-only Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA Annual Rummage Sale, the 2006 edition of which opens to the public tomorrow.

Like yesterday, let me explain.

I find that in this world, there are two kinds of people - those who will turn their noses up at buying other people's hand-me-down old crap, and those who will gladly knock over old ladies and small children for the chance to buy other people's old crap at a fraction of the price if you bought it new. Me and The Dazzling Brunette are the later. (Well, maybe not so much the knocking over old ladies and kids part)

When I was a kid, I watched a lot of Nickelodeon, like every other good kid in the 80s. Every year, they'd have this contest called the Nick Super Toy Run, where some lucky kid got the chance to run screaming through a toy store and get whatever he/she/it wanted in some ridiculously short amount of time, like 10-15 minutes. (My memory has fogged out unimportant details like this, or like whether I left the stove on, turning my house into a flaming inferno) I always wanted to win that contest and run around getting whatever free toys I wanted.

Later in life, I wound up doing basically the exact same thing at my high school all-night graduation party, where the parents association wound up throwing a bunch of free junk food and prizes out amidst the hoard of we-don't-care-no-more seniors roaming the school building. That night, amidst all the partying and pseudo-clean fun, I managed to hoard a ton of candy bars, pizza, a Poloroid camera, a Nerf football, and a bunch of other junk that's probably still buried in my parents' basement (hopefully not the pizzas).

I think the same thing's at work here - stuff like this, and used book sales and dollar stores let me go on an uncharacteristically gayish-feminine shopping streak, grabbing stuff left and right without flushing money down the crapper (in traditional gayish-feminine fashion). I can get a lot of stuff, which can be pretty cool a lot of the time, especially since a lot of the stuff you get at these places is the kind that you can't buy new because they either don't make it anymore, or it's so ass-backwardly expensive that you wouldn't buy it new in the first place.

Last year was the first year I went to the rummage sale, and it kicked ass. Except for the lines, which went out the door. But The Dazzling Brunette and I got a bunch of books, DVD's, a case for my laptop, toys for her daughter and niece, and a brand-new torch lamp, among other things, all for cheap. There's furniture and clothes there, too, but we didn't get any. We did, however, go twice (the thing lasts over a week).

Anyway...The sale starts at 11 at the old Grand furniture warehouse in town, off 5th Street Extended. The directions are here. The money from the sale goes to a good cause, too (the SPCA of Charlottesville-Albemarle), if that matters to you. I can't wait.

Maybe I'll go camp out overnight.