I Think I Saw a Flying Couch!

Wake up: 6:30 am... On a Saturday morning! To be honest, this is quite normal for me, and it's not because of work. Saturday mornings are the one day of the week where I do not drag myself out of bed but rather wake up excited and wanting to go. To where? GARAGE SALE-ING!!!! I've gone every Saturday since the beginning of May it seems, and yes, I always spend too much money and then wonder what I'm ever going to ACTUALLY do with some of the items I bought, but it's a rush none the less. :-D So, today's... adventure!

We (Melissa, "the room-mate", Rossam, her fiance, and myself) started out around 7am, close to normal. Leaving around then means we have enough time to indulge in starbucks if we want, stop for cash (since our convienent credit cards and debit cards are no good at people's personal homes), or get any directions we might need (for some insanely far out whim we might have) to visit an "interesting" garage sale. The first sale we hit was at an apartment complex, something I've never seen before. Nothing's there that catches any of our attention so we start heading towards the freeway to drive about 30 miles looking for a sale we found in a penny saver ad. Rossam wanted a bike, and that was mentioned in the ad, the ONLY reason we would drive so far when there are ALOT of garge sales right by us! Lo and behold, the bikes were sold before we even got there and we got there at 8:09 am. That particular garage sale started at 8:00am... Yeah, apparently we were slow... Well, the next garage sale we went to told us about this REALLY big garage sale that was held in a field, it's that big! So we follow his directions and find it very easily, less than two minutes from where we were. Apparently this sale didn't start till 9:00am and we got there around 8:27am... But it looked very promising so we decided to wait.

Have you ever seen the Day after Thanksgiving at a garage sale? Seriously, have you? Well, I have, after today that is... When we got there we were probably the 8th or 9th in line. By the time it opened, and they let us in at 8:50am, my count of waiting bodies was up to 87... OMGoodness!!! For a Garage Sale!!! By the time we had been browsing around for 15min, the field was full of parked cars and even more people! I had to take a picture:

Amidst this seemingly large sea of people I found something fantastic! Something I could only have dreamed of finding so perfectly! Something I... Ok, you get the picture!

Let me give you a quick side story. When "the room-mate" told me she was getting married, I realized all our furniture in our apartment was hers, minus my bedroom and the kitchen... Thus the reason I started going to garage sales in the first place. I can't afford to furnish a two bedroom apartment with brand new furniture, but I don't have a problem with second-hand stuff (I grew up in a family of 6, I never had a new outfit till I asked for one on my 12th birthday... :-D). I decided, tho, that I didn't want just mis-match pieces. I actually wanted to carry out a theme, on a garage sale budget none the less! I'm going for a victorian motif with slight modernistic touches. I've found two wing back chairs and an iron coffee table and beautiful frames, some with mirrors attached! I've done pretty well, but I hadn't found a couch yet... Can you tell where this is going?

YES!! I found a couch!!! Not any couch, but one that fits PERFECTLY with my wanted theme!! It's tufted on the backrest and arms and the wood carved legs are so period. The fabric is an ivory background with embroidered floral clusters in a goldish thread that's way elegant and not even tacky! There's bronze/gold tacks all along the top of the back, to put it simply, it's beautiful! Best part? It was only $30!

Ok, so now I have this fantastic couch and absolutely NO WAY to transport it the 30 miles to home... So, I had a fantastic idea! We go to the local dollar store and buy some bungees with full intention to strap the couch to the roof of the car and drive it home. I'd done this before with my wingback chairs when I went out with my friend Michelle and we had no problem... It never occured to me that the chairs were way smaller or that we were all of 5 minutes away from my apartment... I totally thought this was going to work... Melissa was so amused by Rossam's and mine efforts that she took a pic for us!

Now, this was really tall on the top of the car, but I was still confident!! We were actually stopped by someone and asked which direction we were heading. When we answered he breathed a sigh of relief and said something along the lines of "thank goodness I'm going the other way!" LOL! We started driving and I thought all was well, but something was worrying me... I rolled the window all the way down, unbuckled my seatbelt and leaned out the window to see how my couch was faring only to see it FLYING!! Ok, not quite flying, but the wind was picking it up from underneath and lifting it up and down ontop of the car, almost as if it were one half of a pair of wings. We pulled over...

After readjusting for a good 20 minutes, we finally felt satisfied enough with our efforts and went back on the road. I still got scared out of my wits watching it slip down the back windshield but it never fell! We stopped once more to push it back up toward the front, more for my peace of mind than actual necessity, only to have it slip back down again before safely reaching home. It was quite and adventure! My heart was constantly racing because of excitement, delight, fear and anxiety and relief! :-D We (more accurately Melissa and Rossam) decided next time I wanted to buy a couch at a garge sale I needed to make sure I'm closer to home and have a friend with a truck come help me. LOL, I think I made their day!