I don’t collect furniture for the same reason that I don’t collect elephants or car tires. I don’t know what to feed either one once I’ve got ‘em home. Also, all of these things are typically really big.

Regardless of my ‘the smaller the better’ rule of collecting, I can’t help but be attracted to various items of practical home decor during my tag sale adventures. We got an early start this year, as April had a few warm weekends and my town was itching to get rid of a winter’s worth of stuff. With the sudden influx of inside-stuff being cluttered into outside-driveways, we set out to buy more stuff that other people didn’t need anymore, but neither did we. Anytime it looks like a house puked all over its own driveway, we’re there wading through it.

I didn’t think that any item of furniture could really beat last year’s collapsible table. While compact and narrow, the table’s lid opened up to reveal a nice bit of inside storage, and then telescoped out in two directions to expose three more areas that would be perfect for paintbrushes, sketches, pencils, and all manner of creativeness. For about ten bucks, I carted it home, glued back on a broken handle, and added it to the growing mess of studio furniture. At that point, the studio was comprised of a stack of metal film cabinets that the library was throwing out, and a set of miniature drawers that I found on the side of the road one day, and had very obviously been painted for a little girl’s bedroom. I didn’t change a thing. Give me anything with a lot of little compartments or drawers or sectionalized storage and I’m in heaven.

This year’s first tag sale was near the end of my own street. Unlike the rest, it wasn’t listed in the Pennysaver, which I usually use to plan the weekend’s hunt. Not only was it unlisted, but it bore a sign saying ‘OPEN EVERY DAY 9-4’, which was an unusual (and slightly unnerving) schedule for the typical tag sale, which is sadly relegated to weekends. We arrived at the end of a long dirt road and found an open garage, but no one around to inquire about prices. After about 5 minutes of delicately walking around tables of old Christmas decorations and about two dozen plush Garfields and Grimms, I had a handful of Batman pins and a nesting doll in the likeness of Santa Claus. An old German man emerged from the door adjoining the house to the garage, greeting us.

He seemed as perplexed by his wares as we were, quietly poking through things and explaining to us ‘I don’t don’t vhat the hell ees this’, or grabbing something dusty from a box and trying to charm us with it. He would give me the handful of eight Batman pins for free with a purchase of anything else. He was one of those tag-salesmen that really wants you to buy something, buy somehow, he wasn’t bothering me with his subtle enthusiasm. That’s when we spotted the Game Table.

It’s a short, cubical thing with four drawers, and inside each drawer is a game board for a different game : tic tac toe, chinese checkers, backgammon and chess, cleanly painted into the bottom of the wood. In the case of the chinese checkers, divots were carved for marbles to rest. Baggies of game pieces were there, and the thing was made of a solid, heavy wood. I didn’t know if I’d use it for games (it almost seemed like a travesty not to), but I did know that it had four flat drawers, and I painted a lot of flat things that had nowhere to live.

It’s dangerous when I start imagining purposes for things, because that’s when my judgment disappears and I’ll pay almost any price to give the object of my desire the ability to live out its destiny with me. As far as I was concerned, the game table and I had already grown old together. I’d already carelessly left rings on it from ill-placed cans of Dr. Pepper, and stubbed my toe on it at least three times.

The price, aside from three injured future-toes, was five bucks. After it was hefted out of the driveway and loaded into the car, we realized that this season’s tag sale bar had been set way too high. Where do you go after a game table and a handful of Batman pins?

We’re not too sure, but it’s going to be fun to find out.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, May 10th, 2008 at 2:00 am and is filed under flea market finds. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.