9 Bizarre, Upsetting, and/or Nostalgic Things I Saw at the Thrift Shop on Memorial Day

We’ll just pretend I’m not a big old blog slacker, okay, because it feels weird getting back in the habit and like maybe I should post a tender Renewed Commitment to Blogging Manifesto when all I really want to write about is our Memorial Day trip to Savers, where I squeezed past an old lady asking her husband Do I look like Roy Orbison? as she tried on sunglasses with key-lime plastic frames.

Here’s what we saw, the seven-year-old and I. (Kicking this off with the horrorshow food photography first, because we’re friends and I KNOW WHAT YOU LIKE.)
1. “Savory” Ham “Spread”

Remember that brief cultural moment in the early 1970s when we all adorned potluck tables with bike helmets made from potted meat and predigested veggie shreds?

No?

This genteel frightmare came from the Woman’s Day Encyclopedia of Cookery, which I dropped once in terror and then managed to thumb through with one eyelid shut and the other twitching defensively. The above photo was uncaptioned, but after some stomach-contorting detective work, I matched it up with the following recipe.

I don’t believe I’ve ever seen 7 cups of canned ham in the same place all at once; it’s rather like the hour of my future death: I know it exists, but I’m just as happy pretending it doesn’t.

2. The Campbell’s Big Book of Lies

“We need a cover photo.”
“What’s the name of the book?”
“100 Best Recipes.”
“What’s the theme?”
“Meatstumps in Fatsleeves.”
“Got it.”

Some say that if you take the other 99 recipes and read them backwards, it opens a direct portal to the fourteenth circle of hell (the Spamthrifts and Virtuous Abusers of Aspic).

3. Bratz Twister

Something may have been missing from old-school Twister, but a midriff-baring young miss with a full bladder and a FLIRT belt was probably not it.

The target audience weighs in:

4. Kiss Trivia

I showed my husband this photo when I got home. His response: “And you didn’t buy it?”

(That, in case anyone wonders, is a five-word summation of Why I Married Him.)

5. Apple-Cheeked Murder Child Figurines

Fact: Throwing puppies down a well was once culturally acceptable, as long as the perp was a gray-haired six-year-old in a yellow mushroom hat.

(Also acceptable: hurling bunnies into huge copper urns.)

6. …Or Both Together

With no judgment or comment, I will say only that I wish to meet the man (singular) who can pull these off:

…as well as the woman who can work these workout shorts:

7. No-Frills Fun, c.1981

As the stark box art reminds us, those were simpler times: the days when we’d flip Pac-Man monsters upside down, impale them with small poles, and hurl them at yellow hula hoops for sport. (We totally had these. Did you? As soon as I saw them I smelled citronella candles and fresh-cut grass.)

8. OMG THEY KILLED PERRY

The orange sticker confirms what I suspected: this album cover was commissioned as a nasty joke on “Drug Fair” patrons who showed up to buy more peyote before their current peyote had worn off.

9. Keep Your Blank to Yourself

See how they tried to disguise PROBE as a “game of words”? Notice the clean-cut, well-dressed suburban types; the subtle emphasis on Mr. Striped Tie’s wedding band?

We’re not dumb, Parker Brothers. We know exactly what kind of games people used to play in the 70s. You can use as many euphemisms as you want on your gamecards…

…but we know what really went down when a cul-de-sac’s four most attractive parentals sat down for a PROBE session. AND WE APPROVE.

ALL THAT PLUS BONUS ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK HAIR YAHHHHHHHHHHH

Forgive me for this. All the other YA authors are at BEA this week and I have to amuse myself somehow as I sit amongst the cinders. Amuse me! Tweet me dirty knock-knock jokes! Find me on Pinterest and send me grody pictures of jello molds and prom gowns!

(No, really.)