On Saturdays, we typically go out “garage sale’ing”, and this week was in many respects no different than any other. We usually stay to our own end of town, not straying too far from our typical ‘route’. This week however, we ended up in an area of town to which I haven’t been in some time -and deliberately so I might add. But there we were, all the way across town at 8:00am at a garage sale advertised to open at 9:00am. The woman hosting the sale had only just begun to set up, and in typical Winnipeg fashion, she had a number of people lurking around just waiting to dive in (We weren’t the only nutters out there at 8:00am!). Boxes lay strewn, unopened on the front lawn with empty tables on the side waiting for someone to populate them. We nosed around a bit, trying to be polite and not simply rip into any and every box we saw - and it hit me (yeah, again). I called my 5 year old son over and said “why don’t you go ask that lady over there if she has any old HP bottles?”. Sure enough, bold as brass he walked straight up to her and said “Do you have old HP bottles?”. I didn’t even get a moment to stifle a giggle when she looked straight at me from across the lawn and said “Old HP bottles??” as others garage sale goers look up from their digging (not everyone is as polite as we it seems). “Why would you want old HP bottles?” she said as she walked across the lawn to where I was standing. I was halfway embarrased and halfway to bursting into hysterics “I….I..” was all I could manage, yet there she was, actually waiting for an answer. “It’s a hobby.” I finally said. “Old HP Bottles?” she said again with hands on her hips. I was still at a loss for words - which surprised even me. It’s not every day people question me about my “hobby” like that in such a direct, and public manner. I didn’t need anymore of a scene there already was so I added “Yeah, I’m looking for old glass HP bottles. The kind with the HP etched into the glass”. I really didn’t know if such things actually existed, but hey it seemed like a good time to test out my ‘doesn’t hurt to ask’ approach again. Still, this was carrying on longer than I liked, afterall it was pretty obvious by now that such items didn’t make it to into her yard sale! “Well” she said, shaking her head. “I guess people will collect just about anything won’t they!” she excaimed as she finally left to tend to someone else. “You’re darned right!” I muttered to myself as we went back to the car.

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