Bungalow Betty

It's Estate sale Thursday which usually means that I'm getting ready to brave a mob of fierce competitors on the hunt for lost treasure and vintage bliss. Well not today nothing peaked my interest enough to brave the elements (it's cold here in Michigan again) and the seasoned hunters who will do almost anything for a good buy. 

So I sit in my cozy house with a warm cuppa looking out my window to a meadow of heavy wet grasses and chilly raindrops and remember a few weeks ago when we were having unseasonably warm weather and I dressed in my usual estate hunting garb to attend a funky little sale of retro treasures and provocative art. Luckily I wasn't alone. I was accompanied by a very stealthy and sometimes ruthless hunter who unlike myself wears sensible shoes that allow her to run thru the premesis and score the coolest find of the day. Unlike my stealthy friend, that I will call Dee Dee for this article, I have a ritual or obsession with getting dressed in just the right attire for a day of treasure hunting. I say right attire but honestly there's nothing right about it. I don't know why or what it is about sale day that makes me gravitate to my chunky old  ( more like clunky) pair of clogs with 3 inch thick wooden soles and what was once cream colored suede uppers but now resembles a paint splotched mess. They look like something right out of the eighties and they're not far off I think I've had them for 15 years or more. Crazy I know but I  think it's something like carrying a lucky rabbits foot or wearing a lucky fishing hat. I don't feel ready for the sale unless I'm wearing them. 

Well now that you've witnessed one of my many quirks, or eccentricities which a little sounds better,  let me tell you why the shoes are a bad idea. It has to do with my pushy competitors and the fact that many of these sales take place in old houses with very steep stairways and rickety floors that have you walking or usually running down hill. I have been pushed down the stairs and almost trampled at some of the heavily attended sales. The shoes of course survived. 

So by now you may be asking "what does Bungalow Betty and the picture above have to do with this story?" Well, you know how I mentioned Dee Dee and her sensible shoes? She was my saving grace at the funky retro sale and the very reason Betty now has a prominent place in my "Studio Pink" office. 

Here's the story that I've been trying to tell, I am easily side tracked; Dee Dee and I arrived at the sale early and put our names on the number sheet that one of the other veteran hunters had created. We waited in line patiently, I think we were about fifth or sixth in line, when an unfamiliar competitor showed up wearing her lucky hat with a logo I can't mention for fear of being banned from a certain well loved vintage store that I haunt from time to time.  This lucky hat wearing woman that I will call #47 showed up with attitude. She was late which put her at the end of the list but after signing her name and taking a look around she placed herself in front of me in line and started complaining about how unprofessional some estate sales were run. All the while #47 rambled on I was thinking "how dare she cut me in line and act like her hat made her entitled to go first."  I was stemmed and trying to come up with something clever to say about her place in line when it hit me. She is after the very same thing that I got up extremely early for and skipped my morning shower to simply drag a comb thru my what was now a bit on the wild side hair from all the unseasonable humidity in the air. She would be headed to the basement to snag my Betty from the vintage dress form pictures I drooled over in the estate sale ad. I knew it had to be so because Betty would have fit in beautifully with all the other kitschy cool merchandise in her shop. 

I whispered to my friend who unlike me tends to speak her mind and was just about ready to blast #47 with an earful when I suggested that we not let on about our interest in Betty but instead stealthily beat her to the basement. I thought for a moment as I looked down at my shoes and realized that there was no way that I would be able to outrun even an 80 year old woman to the basement wearing these shoes let alone this forty something woman with shall I say I strong stature and a kill or be killed attitude. 

That's when I turned to my friend and said " I'm counting on you to beat her to the punch and pull Betty's tag." Dee Dee loves a challenge and because by this time she was pretty annoyed by # 47 and her audacity to cut the line. Dee Dee was ready to put #47 in her place and win the hunt. 

Well since you know that Bungalow Betty is mine you know that Dee Dee managed to throw a block in the stairway and dive in for the kill (I mean tag). It was all over in a matter of minutes and I was quite pleased to be able to stand in the check out line with Betty at my side flashing a grin over to #47 who looked rather disappointed with a measly gold frame in one hand and chunky beaded necklace in the other. 

Dee Dee and I happily pushed Betty down the sidewalk to the car and then drove off to a little diner for lunch, on me, of course!

Happy hunting,

Kelly