Cariyay!

Since it was a nice day and I needed the exercise, on Saturday I decided to walk to my favourite cafe for breakfast. On the way I wandered into a couple of garage sales.


While I appreciate garage sales in principle, in practice I'm rarely awake early enough to get anything decent out of them. The good stuff goes quickly, as any experienced garage sale follower will tell you.


But I'd woken early on this particular morning, so I was walking to the cafe at around 8am. I came across one garage sale on Chapman Road, and bought a pretty patchwork bag made from scraps of old saris as a Christmas present for my niece. Not bad for a dollar. A few minutes later I stumbled across a different garage sale, and encountered this, laid across the bonnet of the seller's car:





It was love at first sight. I stroked it, feeling the warmth and softness, and wondered how I could make it mine. What would they want for it? $300? $400? Maybe I could bargain a bit. I asked the woman for the price.


"I'll check with my husband," she said. "I think it was $45."


Happily she didn't notice my mouth hanging open. She went inside and I heard her calling out to confirm the price.


"How much did you want for the rug? Was it $45?"


"Yeah, $45."


"Okay." She came back out, looked at me, looked at the rug, grimaced slightly and said, "$40."


"Sold," I said, trying not to sound too gleeful.


The skin is caribou. The husband shot and skinned it himself in Alaska, and then moved heaven and earth to get it all the way to Australia. But apparently the wife hated it. So now it's on the floor on my living room, making me happy and warming my toes.