The Lucky Find Salvage Company has a junk dungeon, and in it lurk the mustiest items of our collection. This month when we entered to unchain our stock of mushroom cookie jars, we realized that it had multiplied into a stockpile! We attribute this phenomenon to perfect fungal growing conditions: dark, dank, and dirty, the air itself cloudy with sneeze-inducing spores.

 

 

The place is run by retiree South County do-gooders to whom the term “priceless” means “failed to sell at the garage sale.” These people seem endlessly amused by the nuts who come in to purchase all the stuff their kids didn't want.

 

While I waited in line one icy day to buy this cookie jar, some guy in flip-flops and cut-off cargo pants, which clanked with all sorts of unidentifiable metal bits hanging off the belt loops, butted in front of me. He then raved to the two well-groomed old folks behind the counter, "I've been looking for this 3 amp power source for months and months! 9 and 12 amps are easy to find, but not this baby." I let the would-be Wichita Lineman go right on ahead, without a peep of indignation. The gentleman behind the cash register rolled his eyes, then winked at me. Nobody wanted to know what Cuckoo Bananas needed the electrical geegaw for. Then we would all have to be grilled by the FBI after "someone" blew up nearby Jefferson Barracks.

 

When it was my turn to pay, the woman in charge of bagging couldn’t help herself, she had to comment on my find: "This is the ugliest thing I have ever seen in my life." I laughed, then agreed, "Yep. Who would want to eat a cookie taken out of a rotten log encrusted with toadstools?" She replied, "Are you sure you want to pay 50¢ for it?”

 

You all know the answer to that!