Going on a Snipe Hunt

If you are from a small town, you most likely know what a snipe hunt is, and if you had older siblings, you probably accompanied them on the hunt with their buddies, not realizing the joke was on you.

On Wednesday I spent the day exploring Twin Falls and was looking forward to hitting up some antique stores. I had my list, addresses and a route so that I could stop along the way to the Post Office. 

Before I go into great detail about my recent excursion, I should mention that last week when I did a PO Box run, I stopped at the Twin Falls number 1 antique store. I could not drive right to the store because of road closures due to adding sidewalks and repaving the road. I parked, walked through construction and rain puddles to find the vintage store to be closed due to a big remodel. Well shoot. Right next door was another “vintage” place that was also a guitar shop. So, I moseyed on through this place of utter fucking chaos and heaps of trash and junk. I am not exaggerating. They had dusty guitars and amps agains the wall and, what they call antiques, which was in reality junkyard items, was scattered all over the aisles and against the music paraphernalia. Okay then. On to the Post Office I went. What a weird place, but whatever. 

Before I went on a full day of exploratory efforts, I looked into the rest of the antique stores. This was not just a five minute research, I went to websites and read reviews. 

The first place had three locations, one being near the remodeled store and since I knew about where I needed to park and walk, I chose to stop there first. I walked a block, then another block, then into a “mall area” with local store fronts. No antique store. I walked another block. Nothing. Back in the car I looked up their second location and it was on the way to the PO and near 2 other stores. 

I found the strip mall without any trouble, but finding this location also proved to be fruitless because the space where they are listed is empty. No furniture. No open sign. Nothing. There was not one item in the designated address, except for dust. WTF?

I promptly called them. I promptly got the operator to inform me that the number is no longer in service and to fuck off. 

Seriously? You have got to be fucking kidding me. 

I was not going to give up yet. Nope. That would have been smart and a gut instinct, but no, I had come this far and had a goddamn plan and I was going to fucking see it through. 

After the Post Office, I stopped by a “Trading Co.”, which was listed in every antique search I did. Thankfully, the old house still had a business and yes, they were open. It sits in a 2-story house that has room, after room full of stuff. It was a huge house, and not one corner was wasted. There was everything from sofa’s, to end tables to figurines. It was all junk. I did not see one piece that could be considered an antique, or even vintage. The furniture were pieces that you might find sitting on a neighbors curb, waiting for trash pick up. There was a FOR SALE sign in the front of the house; I thought I lucked out before someone bought the place and it became vacant, much to my dismay. Boy, would that have been a gift. 

One last stop. This one was going to be the mother-fucking-jackpot. The business name actually had “Antiques” listed, with excellent reviews. Granted, so did all of the other stops, but I chose to overlook that.

It was not far from the junkyard that I just left, so why not check it out? It took me into a residential neighborhood, but I was hoping that was just part of this journey. I was wrong. I pulled up to a home, with no sign of a business, or anything that appeared to be antiques for sale. I called just to get an old fashioned answering machine, with a sweet old lady telling me that no one was home but to please leave a message after the beep. She even thanked me for calling! She sounded too sweet for me to leave a bleeping message of frustration, so I hung up and found a local place to grab some dinner. 

The restaurant is a whole other blog post. Twin is not my friend. lol.