On Thursday, en route to Lake Padden Mountain, Nicki and i stopped off at REI to pick up some small squeeze bottles i can’t find anywhere else. REI is a PNW based, west coast camping, trekking, skiing, biking, kayaking, air ballooning store. It's kind of like the Whole Foods of wholesome wholistic athletic activity.
While there, we overheard a “camping advisor” telling a young man, who was weighing in his hand and mind a light-steel multi-purpose pot, that there would be a members only garage sale this coming Saturday.
I confess to having signed up with REI years ago when buying an emegency-evakpak tent that has never been used.
“Garage sale?” i asked? “Yes,” came the reply, “everything will be fifty percent off.” “When” “Ten to Five.”
So come Saturday, we toodle on down to REI. Having got my squeezable bottles, i really did not need anything; but who knows, maybe they’d have a kayak for sale for $200.00... You never know.
So i walk in there... and the place is filled with exactly the same type of narcissistic assholes that go to Whole Foods.... :) — pouty-preppy athlo-geeks and pursed lipped tight lipped women and mid age doods still convinced they are pouty preppy athlo-geeks. Arrrgh!
But aside from hating the pouty preppies for being so (ever so rightly) stuck up on themselves what really got to me was that the "sale" prices made me realize how fucking insanely overpriced REI is.
This is the sort of thing that gives green-sustainibility a bad name. In fact the “simple-sustainable” life is just a brand-veneer. Hype for The Comfortable to make them feel politically-purposed in their consumerism.
Basically, REI is high end outdoors junk in the same category as a Land Rover, the West Coast answer to Abercrombie & Fitch.
So i high-tailed out of there and decided to take Nicki to the bay before returning home.
The route we take passes the camera store and since I have been needing a small (non-REI) sack for a lens, I decided I might as well go through the trouble of parking to see if the store had anything in their toss-sale bin.
They did.
As I took the $1.00 pouchlette to the counter, i absent-mindedly asked Jeff, one of the co-owners, if they had gotten any medium format cameras on consignment. “No, I don’t think so....” he said, “....oh wait! Did you see the Rolleiflex in the display case?”
THE ROLLEIFLEX????
Yes, it’s over here. I followed like a dog at heel over to the counter as Jeff took it out. “Looks like it’s in pretty good shape, he said.” “Sure does...” I added
Jeff had not taken the consignment and did not have much information on it. So we went back to the counter and checked the Camera Encyclopedia.
MX-EVS KB4 1956
IWANNIT
It was going for $250.00 which i figured was probably one hundred or two hundred under market; but the important thing in any case is that no defects were noted in the consignment book.
“Little Roski is going to love this,” I said. “Who’s Roski?” Jeff asked. “Oh ... just a fuzzy photographer I know.”
“Ah... well this format produces sharp pictures.”
That’s what he’s hoping.
While there, we overheard a “camping advisor” telling a young man, who was weighing in his hand and mind a light-steel multi-purpose pot, that there would be a members only garage sale this coming Saturday.
I confess to having signed up with REI years ago when buying an emegency-evakpak tent that has never been used.
“Garage sale?” i asked? “Yes,” came the reply, “everything will be fifty percent off.” “When” “Ten to Five.”
So come Saturday, we toodle on down to REI. Having got my squeezable bottles, i really did not need anything; but who knows, maybe they’d have a kayak for sale for $200.00... You never know.
So i walk in there... and the place is filled with exactly the same type of narcissistic assholes that go to Whole Foods.... :) — pouty-preppy athlo-geeks and pursed lipped tight lipped women and mid age doods still convinced they are pouty preppy athlo-geeks. Arrrgh!
But aside from hating the pouty preppies for being so (ever so rightly) stuck up on themselves what really got to me was that the "sale" prices made me realize how fucking insanely overpriced REI is.
This is the sort of thing that gives green-sustainibility a bad name. In fact the “simple-sustainable” life is just a brand-veneer. Hype for The Comfortable to make them feel politically-purposed in their consumerism.
Basically, REI is high end outdoors junk in the same category as a Land Rover, the West Coast answer to Abercrombie & Fitch.
So i high-tailed out of there and decided to take Nicki to the bay before returning home.
The route we take passes the camera store and since I have been needing a small (non-REI) sack for a lens, I decided I might as well go through the trouble of parking to see if the store had anything in their toss-sale bin.
They did.
As I took the $1.00 pouchlette to the counter, i absent-mindedly asked Jeff, one of the co-owners, if they had gotten any medium format cameras on consignment. “No, I don’t think so....” he said, “....oh wait! Did you see the Rolleiflex in the display case?”
THE ROLLEIFLEX????
Yes, it’s over here. I followed like a dog at heel over to the counter as Jeff took it out. “Looks like it’s in pretty good shape, he said.” “Sure does...” I added
Jeff had not taken the consignment and did not have much information on it. So we went back to the counter and checked the Camera Encyclopedia.
MX-EVS KB4 1956
IWANNIT
It was going for $250.00 which i figured was probably one hundred or two hundred under market; but the important thing in any case is that no defects were noted in the consignment book.
“Little Roski is going to love this,” I said. “Who’s Roski?” Jeff asked. “Oh ... just a fuzzy photographer I know.”
“Ah... well this format produces sharp pictures.”
That’s what he’s hoping.
