Just Passiní Thru by Natson

A couple of weeks ago Linda and I took a day and a half and traveled to the upstate area of South Carolina. It was 350 miles round trip. Usually we take the big old gas guzzling SUV with 100 cubic feet of area to load up with stuff we bought, but have you seen the price of gas lately? “It’s really high!”
Needless to say we took the more fuel efficient little sporty Mitsubishi that has about 3 cubic feet of area. It doesn’t take long to fill with stuff. It seamed to fill up with just a few rolling pins, flour sifter and odds and ends- just some items we thought we could turn over to offset the price of gas for our trip.
Then, as fate would have it, we pulled into an antique shop in ???? There it was, right in the middle of the room, filled with all kinds of small items that almost filled it top. I could see an edge and on the edge was a dove tail design of a retro Lane coffee table. My first thought was I could get that in my car even if I had to leave the flour sifter behind.
There, as I was measuring in my mind I looked at the price tag and it was $30. The shop owner said “I will make you a good deal on the table. Again, thinking to myself this is already a good deal - I could turn this over, pay for my gas and maybe dinner.
I have been known for being able to pack lots of “stuff” into small spaces. I went to the car o get my tape measure. I looked at my trunk and looked at my tape measure, then looked back at my trunk. I went inside the shop, measured the table, went out to the trunk, measured every way I could. I missed it by four inches! It would not fit. Then it came to me. Linda was more flexible than a wooden table and with the front in the reclining position the table could be coming home with us. Then Linda reminded me that it was about a three hour drive home. Needless to say Linda drove home in the front seat and the table stayed behind.
Well back to “it’s really high”. We stopped at a second hand shop and after wandering around a bit I noticed a “Just Passin’ Thru” pinback from the 60s. It did remind me a little of being a teenager in the sixties. So, you might want to stop once in a while to see what you might find and the interesting people you meet along the way.