Well, I don’t know what it means to you, but to me, it’s late night bargain hunting. Type in $5 clearance to Walmart’s app and see what you find.
Among the peanut butter flavored ferret treats (for real!) and the letter U wedding-cake topper there’s some eye popping lingerie for all kinds of interests. Holy cow. Walmart. I’m surprised at you. (Not only that, it’s five bucks!)
(If anyone with the last name starting with U is getting married, does Walmart have a bargain for you…)
Then there’s shopgoodwill.com, the eBay for cheapskates. Of course I use it. We have an amazing, enormous set of heavy plate silver cutlery (circa 1937) with fruit forks, butter knives and 312 (I think) teaspoons on which I’ve spent about $70 total including shipping for the backhoe to drive them over from points various around the states.
I don’t know about you, but teaspoons have a half life of about 15 minutes in this house before they disappear into the void. I figured buying a shitton of teaspoons was one of the smartest things I could do.
Until they arrived. They’re beautiful. They’re heavy silver plate. If I actually paid money for them in a shop, they’d be screamingly expensive.
The hell they’re going in the dishwasher with those harsh chemicals. They are, I instructed the family, to be lovingly hand washed and rinsed with clear water.
But… but… said Beloved. They’re…
I know you’re not about to say cheap.
Defeated sigh. The fact I couldn’t’ve bought a plastic set of this size at Costco for that sum is irrelevant. These antiques are to be cherished, thank you very much, especially since my sister is going to inherit my mother’s silver.
If you don’t inherit, you go out and get your own. After being informed I would get the gold plate set (which my mother loves but I think looks like dinnerware at a high class whorehouse)… well, pffft. I decided to go searching for silverware I liked. After all, it’s silverware, right? Whoever heard of gold ware?
The only problem, of course, is the damn things tarnish. While they were… cost effective, a number of them hadn’t seen silver polish since the blushing bride, long since eulogized, gasped as she unwrapped them.
Actually, I think it was a combination of three of four brides, but whatever. It all matches, who cares if prior to WWII bits were purchased in Chicago, New York or Yonkers?
So I now have a large, heavy drawer of some beautiful, sparkly fish forks with an uncomfortably large number of knives, spoons and other serve wear that would send the butler in Downton Abby into hysterics.
Yeah, I would get polishing, but do you know how freaking long that takes? Unnngh. And smelly. Yes, I have polished some, and yes, it’s quite satisfying, but when you finally polish off nearly a century of chemical aging, then you have to wash the damn things.
And I’d never hear the end of it if I snuck them in the dishwasher.
ExaminingMisadventures 