It was yet another day and yet another antique store. I know we’ve been hitting a lot of those lately but it’s hot outside at this time of year so I tend to run for the shade. This time it was at the Cambridge Antique Market which was 5 whole floors of weirdness.

I wasn’t in the most receptive of moods knowing that Cambridge is basically parking purgatory filled with empty parallel parking spots because there’s signs with super conflicting information wafting above each space confusing the ever-loving shit out of even the locals. You’ll see cars driving around and around the block for hours because there’s also not enough spaces to go around. It’s a nightmare. The antique mall was fortunate in that it had a parking lot but it was tiny, shoved between the building and some fences, big enough for maybe 10-15 cars. The front part was full so I had to go to the even tinier back bit which had parking so tight and bizarrely shaped it’d take me a 300 point turn to eventually get out. But parking drama aside this was another delightful adventure.

We had chosen this local for it’s size. It was in another mill building and sprawled out for five whole floors with who knows how many different vendors, each a new chance to find something crazy or wonderful. We’d been in a car a long time though and I had to pee so I tried to find the bathroom right off and it was… a whole separate adventure. They had an old one stall bathroom that felt like the light should be flickering. The lock on the door was this tiny antiquated dead bolt that barely aligned with the door and I was more than a little amused that they had tried to add a little class by using toilet paper with frills. I’ve never seen anything like it! It was like using a doyly! I washed my hands with their fittingly super fragrant soap and hopped out as quick as I could. This adventure was followed by getting into an elevator that could be the whole set for a horror movie any day.

But all the endearing architecture aside this place was packed full and there was a lot to find. There were the usual assortment of haunted dolls (this time featuring an old lady marionette!) deranged Buddhas, terrifying paper mâché masks, weird novelty postcards showing a woman riding a giant grasshopper, boxes and boxes of instant ancestor photos, cannibalistic looking horses, likely serial killer clowns, a smoking bunny, a boot with Chewbacca’s face on the heel, and sooo many freaky cookie jars! I mean just hundreds of them scattered about like tinker tape. We must have been in there a couple hours – time having completely evaporated.

Yes – this was a win. A really wonderful find and I would completely suggest it to all my eccentric friends.