Saturday, April 28, 2007

West Plano yard sale: shreddin’ like Karl Rove

By Claire Hoffman

PLANO — Mission: Find a shredder.

I looked at yard sales on Thursday night. It got me inspired to go on Friday. I was looking for -- and this sounds stupid, but it ended up working out –- a paper shredder. I had all this stuff I wanted to shred, and I hadn’t been able to get rid of it. Old bank accounts and papers and mail with my name on it.

When I worked at Countrywide, I used to bring it into the office and throw it into the shred bucket there. They have huge shred buckets. They print out a lot of confidential information and you can’t just throw it away. I was fascinated by that story in the news about the guy who found all the stuff in a dumpster behind an investment firm. He found a whole bunch of documents with confidential information, and he didn’t go to police, he went to the press. He claimed he was trying to contact all the people, but he got arrested for not turning it over.

I had been looking for a shredder. Sometimes you’ll see them. When people buy a shredder, the first one they buy does just 3 or 4 pages. They think that’ll be OK. But then they want one that handles more, because it’s time-consuming. So you always see those "starter" shredders at yard sales.

Three throw pillows, occupying their rightful spot on the couch. They're plum, but they looked brown out in the sun.

The first place I went to had a bunch of linens and sheets. It looked like she had worked at Linens N Things and had stolen a bunch of stuff. It was all stuff that had never been taken out of the package, in big boxes: Sheets, pillowcases, comforters, and sets with the bed skirts, never unzipped or opened.

I got pillowcases. I also got some decorator pillows you throw on the couch. The tags said "Macy’s -- originally $40 now $14.99." It looks like it was all clearance stuff. She had, I would say, 60 sets of sheets. At the same time I was there, there was this other woman who was trying to make a deal to buy all of them. The friend of the woman having the yard sale was saying, "Bettyyyyy, a bird in the hand...." But the woman said, "Well, what are you going to do with them all?" She goes, "I’m going to take them to Mexico." She was obviously going to take them down to her family. But this woman didn’t want to sell all of her special sheets. At least, that’s what it felt like.

I could have looked for sheets but I didn’t want to hear the rest of the conversation. I didn’t want to hear her being a b*tch to the woman. I’m not sure what her deal was. Maybe she didn’t think she was going to get enough for them. But like her friend was saying, who knows how many you’re going to sell today. So I bought my pillowcases and pillows and high-tailed it out of there.

"Shred guitar" refers to a guitar playing style where technical proficiency is used to maximize (and sometimes specifically demonstrate) speed, often in a neoclassical framework. So sez Wiki.

The pillows were a surprise when I got them home. They looked brown on the driveway but when I got them home and looked at the color, it was plum, with beige wheat branches strewn across, and little beads around the edge. They’re not the nicest but she only wanted $4 each for them.

The next sale I went to was a woman who was my size, and she had a lot of clothes. That got me looking, and then I noticed she had a shredder. It was $3, and came with the bucket that goes underneath.

I came home and shredded all my stuff.

Today's take: Set of pillowcases $3, three pillows $12, one shredder $3.

Total: $18.

This story was submitted by a member of the Pegasus News community.

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• Antiques and Collectibles

Comments

twisteddog Anonymous

The best of the best

1 year, 5 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Teresa Gubbins Staff

hm. that karl rove pic sure looks a lot like dick cheney

1 year, 5 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

twisteddog Anonymous

Yeah, well I'm not doing it over. What's the diff really?

1 year, 5 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )