Nostalgiathon 2009 #1: Thrift Store Finds

I’ve mentioned before that here in Norman, finding cool 80s stuff is kind of difficult. Today, I went and hit a couple of thrift stores, not really expecting to find anything, but I did!

First, I went to the local Salvation Army store. Toys rarely turn up here; I don’t know if they even accept them anymore. They mostly have a lot of clothes, random knick-knacks and especially 1970s furniture, which is kind of neat in its own way, but it’s difficult to collect furniture. (However, I did buy my dinette set there!)

A while back, I did find something cool here, but I couldn’t buy it because I didn’t have 20 bucks at the time– a Betamax machine! It was huge and hefty, a real relic. I wanted it just for the novelty of owning one, but even if I’d had the 20 dollars, I doubt that I actually would have purchased it, since I have become something of a practical person. I only have so much space, and I only have one Beta tape anyway (which I also bought simply for the novelty factor). Still, it’s kind of sad that I couldn’t get it.

Anyway. After leaving there empty-handed, I decided to go hit another store on the other side of town: Outreach Thrift Store. I used to go there frequently to look for clothes, dishes, sheet sets, stuff like that, but I hadn’t gone there for quite some time. It’s a nice place and things are generally pretty clean and organized. Until today, I had never scored any old stuff there except for maybe a couple of children’s books.

I went through some clothes, didn’t really find anything that caught my eye, so I went over to the books, and didn’t see anything there either. Then I spied a big pile of plushies and stuffed animals. I didn’t expect to find anything, so I was only halfway looking at them. I found a cute stuffed rabbit, so I picked it up to look it over and in doing so, unearthed a treasure: ANOTHER VINTAGE CARE BEAR!

It’s Cheer Bear, which I also own a non-vintage version of. She’s in very nice shape and cost me two dollars– a teensy bit pricey for this sort of thing but definitely not unreasonable. I tucked her under my arm and went over to the little room near the back of the store where they keep the housewares.

I don’t really remember what I was looking for in here; I think I was just browsing for the sake of browsing and enjoying the air conditioning. Then it jumped out at me: a glass Garfield mug!

McDonald’s sold these in the 80s, and I found one a few years back, but the shop wanted too much money for it. I wasn’t going to pass up this sucker, because they were selling it for 29 fucking cents! 29 cents barely gets you anything of value anymore, but today, it got me a damned Garfield mug! I looked to see if there were any more; sadly, there were not. But still, what a great find!

I also bought an old blender. Yeah, I know, not my usual fare. It’s an Osterizer Galaxie, one of those things that used to be in everyone’s kitchen back in the 70s and 80s.

I needed a blender, and they said this one works fine, so I figured, what the hell?

After killing about an hour searching the web for info about these babies, I decided to try it out by tossing in some ice cubes and water. The results? Not bad for an appliance that’s probably older than I am. The thing certainly isn’t quiet, but it blends, and it even kinda smashed up the ice cubes. Plus, it has vintage charm, and best of all, it only cost me six dollars. I call it a win.

Blurb: In My Dreams…

Last night, I had a dream that I went garage sale-ing and I found some rare toys/promotional items from McDonald’s. They were Christmas-themed Garfield figurines and big plastic cookie jars (what?). I was like “FUCK YEAAAAH” so I was about to buy them but ran into two problems: I had forgotten my wallet, and the lady wanted like a zillion dollars for them.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am a LOSER.

The NJ Variety Pak.

…Also known as “I kinda feel like writing a post but I don’t have enough material on any one topic that I am currently inspired to write about”. Also also known as, “damn, since the end of the Nostalgiathon my hits have gone way down and I want more pageviews.”

Ahem. Yes. I have a few things to say, so I’m gonna say ’em.