Garage Sale Scores v.7.16.05

Remember these? They had a ton of them at McCurdy Park in Corunna when I was growing up. They are officially called “spring riders” and the ones I played on weren’t these cheap plastic things, either. They were made out of heavy duty fiberglass and were built to last a lifetime. Well……..

A number of years ago the city tore up the old playground to build a Playscape. They auctioned off all of the old playground equipment and I desperately wanted one of those spring riders. I don’t know why, I just did. At the time it wasn’t feasible- I had recently graduated from college and was back home and had nowhere to store it and yadda, yadda, yadda so I never got one. Until this past weekend.

My garage sale partner for the day was my dad and we were scouring a neighborhood sale north of town when I saw it- a spring rider in someone’s yard with a tag on it. I gasped. I freaked. I went straight to it and said I wanted it. My dad just laughed at me and walked away. I was letting common sense get the better of me so I followed him. As he was asking me what the hell I would do with such a thing he starts to tell me that he was looking for one, too, when my brothers and I were little. WHA??? And you’re thinking I’m weird for wanting one?? I immediately turned around and offered the guy $15 dollars for it. He accepted the offer and as I was lifting it into my dad’s truck (it’s fiberglass), the garage sale guy started to tell me how he bought at the McCurdy Park auction years ago.

What kind of animal is it you might ask? Well, my dad and my husband say it’s a porpoise but I think it may have been a dolphin. It’s a weird, general shape that could have been a multitude of animals really, it just needs a really good paint job to define it more. I know, I know, we don’t even have kids so what are we doing with this thing? Someday we will and when we do, we will be the coolest, hippest parents around.

Some day I’ll get my digital camera working and I’ll be able to post all of my garage sale finds or projects I’m doing. I can’t even remember what else I found garage saling because the spring rider outshined everything else I found. Oh and I have to tell you, my brothers are sooooo jealous. Who’d have thought they wanted one too!