Treasure Hunt Bin Megastore shopping experience

There’s a store called Treasure Hunt Bin Megastore that buys “truckloads of overstock & returns from big box retailers such as Amazon, Target, Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe’s & Costco.” All items are put out in bins and sold for a set price, which changes each day:

$10 on Fri, $8 on Sat, $6 on Sun, $4 on Mon, $2 on Tue, $1 on Wed, and closed on Thu to restock with new truckload arrivals

We decided to check out the place today, which is $2 day. I don’t know how you’re picturing this experience, but what I saw was not at all what I was expecting.

I don’t think I was expecting the bins to be super-organized, really, and in their defense I guess, it is Tuesday, which means these items were put out last Friday and today’s the penultimate and second-cheapest day of their lifecycle.

Treasure Hunt store floor view Treasure Hunt store floor view 1
I picked up something from this bin:

Treasure Hunt store bin 1

that looked like it might be a telescope, and I turned it in such a way to see if I could look through the one end, when a younger person walked by and did one of those stage whisper asides to me, “It’s a lightsaber.” Mercifully, she left off the “bless your heart, old man” part.

In retrospect, it’s clearly a lightsaber.

Treasure Hunt store lightsaber
Here are glimpses of a couple of other bins, if you haven’t already sussed the ambience of the place:

Treasure Hunt store bin 2 Treasure Hunt store bin 3

In case you’re wondering, there were several bin-searching techniques on display, two of which are captured in this short visit—and one I call the “oar” method and the other the “toss” method.

Girl, she used that stick like it was an oar—paddling stuff out of her way.

And she just tossed the stuff she dared touch with her hands. The “toss” method was, by far, the most used technique in the place.


One item caught my eye about which my first thought was, “Vanna, I need to buy a vowel.”

Treasure Hunt store home sign

Maybe I should come back tomorrow to see if I can find the O loose in the bin, when it will be half price.

Just kidding, I doubt I will ever return to this store, although I am curious as to what kind of stuff is in there on Fridays.

After about 20 minutes, I was starting to feel a little—I don’t know what to call it—because I don’t get panic or anxiety attacks, but I found Bob and said, “I’m going to have to step out of this place. I’ll meet you outside.”


Bob came out with 5 items:

Treasure Hunt store purchases

Although the cashier apparently only saw 2:

Treasure Hunt store receipt

And don’t get me started on the “service fee.” Maybe the service was stopping to count our items at 2.


In a complete aside, but you know I can’t let it alone, the “Store rules” page on their website desperately needs some editing.

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Our month on Cape Cod—day 26

~Wednesday~ With more reading after visiting that cemetery on Sunday, I realized that that’s not the cemetery where those 3 Mayflower passengers were buried. To that end, Vivian and I went looking for the “real” Cove Burying Ground, which was a couple of miles away from the one we went to on Sunday.

Cove Burying Ground: “This is the oldest cemetery in Eastham, MA (Cape Cod) and very historical. Most of the people buried there are related to Mayflower families and were instrumental in the founding of the area.”

Giles Hopkins
Born: 30 Jan 1607 | Hursley, City of Winchester, Hampshire, England
Died: 26 Apr 1690 (aged 83) | Eastham, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, USA
Buried: Cove Burying Ground | Eastham, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, USA

Constance Hopkins Snow
Born: 11 May 1606 | Hampshire, England
Died: Oct 1677 (aged 71) | Eastham, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, USA
Buried: Cove Burying Ground | Eastham, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, USA

Lt. Joseph Rogers
Born: 23 Jan 1602 | Watford, Daventry District, Northamptonshire, England
Died: 15 Jan 1678 (aged 75) | Eastham, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, USA
Buried: Cove Burying Ground | Eastham, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, USA

Other interesting graves we saw there included:

Here lies the body of Mrs. Hannah Snow the wife of Mr. Silvenus Snow, died August 1750 in the 37th year of her age.
Here lies buried the body of Mrs. Mary Knowls wife to Col. John Knowls, died Nov. 7, 1745 in the 73rd year of her age.
John Doane—deacon of the church, deputy to the general court, and one of the assistants to the governor.

While Vivian and I were out, we stopped at The General Store to see if they had any tchotchkes and for Vivian to check out the “penny candy.” She bought a refrigerator magnet and a Charleston Chew.

Our next stop was at the liquor store attached to The Superette, where Vivian was in hot pursuit of a bottle of red wine and some Narragansett beer, which is to say we hit the jackpot!

A quintessential “Fall River beer,” and one my dad drank all the time
Narragansett 12-pack
Narragansett can

Mid-afternoon, Bob and Vivian went for a 2-mile walk and reported back with some pictures:


For dinner, we cooked chicken, zucchini, and chouriço on the grill, having the chicken and zucchini for dinner tonight (with a few bites of chouriço) and some green beans for Jeff.


We ended the evening with a game of Scrabble followed by a game of Catch Phrase.


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Our month on Cape Cod—day 19

~Wednesday~ Bob made a grocery shopping run to the Stop & Shop this morning.


We took separate walks again today, with Bob doing his during the work day, and me doing mine after work, which felt a little bit rushed because sunset was at 4:28 today. Thanks, Daylight Saving Time.

Bob walked 3.84 miles to and back from the Cape Cod Bay coast, where he passed this (closed) thrift store and peered into its windows:

Thrift Store Thrift store window 1
Thrift store window 2 Thrift store window close-up

and spent a little time on the shore, where he saw various and sundry things.

A rocky shoreline
Sunset on the bay
A horseshoe crab
And its innards
Horseshoe crab under
Some seaweed
Some seaweed
A crab
A crab

My walk was 1.34 miles, and I captured the signs of several of the little “shopping centers” that are within walking distance of our place.

Seatoller Eastham Common Main Street Mercantile Village Green

I also came upon this strange looking building, which really stood out due to its color. Almost all of the other houses here are that classic Cape Cod gray color that the top part of this one is.

The place was all closed up, with a cinderblock standing in front of the side door. And through the window, you could see stairs, which seemed to be right in front of the window, leading to a second floor.

And two final things—one from my walk and one from Bob’s.

A roadside ghost bike
A sign of kindness

Tomorrow is my last day of work here, and I plan to start early and finish early, as my high school friend is arriving in the late afternoon.


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Our month on Cape Cod—day 14

~Friday~ I took a vacation day today, like I’m doing every Friday while we’re here.

We drove to Sandwich, MA to check out the Sandwich Glass Museum. We arrived right on the (11:00) hour, which is when the glass-blowing demonstrations start, so we joined one just a couple of minutes into it.

The gentleman made 2 pieces while we watched, the first was a small vase, and the second was a small pitcher.

After his demonstration, we walked around the museum, which was much bigger than it looked like from the outside.

I dream of Jeannie houses
Festive glass

I really liked these fish-themed pieces:

And 2 other favorites of mine:

Crucifix candlesticks
Blown trick tumbler

If you’re interested, you can see lots more in this public Facebook photo album.


After the museum, but before we left Sandwich to head back to Eastham, we stopped at the Bob O’Malley’s Whaleback Restaurant, and oh what a treat it was. The place looked much smaller than it did in the pictures on the web, and there were only 2 cars in the lot when we arrived, which we didn’t take as a good sign.

But inside, it was a quaint little place, and Beth invited us to eat in, since there was no one else in there. And she was so nice, and of course, very mask-cautious putting it on whenever she came to our table.

We ordered one seafood platter to share and each a stuffed quahog. It was all so delicious!


Once back in Eastham, we stopped at the Stop & Shop grocery store to pick up just a few things in anticipation of guests we’re having tomorrow and Sunday. Bob’s niece, Maggie and her partner Phil, who live just outside Boston are going to visit us for the weekend.


At home we played a game of IRL Scrabble, with which enjoyed some hot tea to take off the chill. It was pretty cold, windy, and rainy out there today.

We finished off the eggnog with some eggnog martinis for happy hour tonight, and had a light dinner, since we had such a filling lunch.

I’m declaring my second Friday vacation day here a success.


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Our month on Cape Cod—day 10

~Monday~ Our Red Hat marketing organization had a “virtual offsite” today, even though we’re all offsite all the time now. When we’re in the office, this is a meeting that we have away from the office in a local establishment, which includes a catered breakfast, lunch, and an open bar “happy (2-3) hour(s)” at the end of the day.

Obviously, we can’t replicate all that virtually, and even though there’s, proverbially, “no free lunch,” we were authorized to expense our lunch today in the spirit of the meeting. Bob and I ordered takeout from a local restaurant that we’ve had our eye on since arriving.

John’s order
California Chicken Sandwich: sprouts, avocado, queso fresco, 1000 island on wheat
Bob’s order
Cape Cod Reuben: fried cod filet, coleslaw, swiss, 1000 island on marble rye

Bob had a busy day today—doing our grocery shopping for this week and doing our first load of laundry here in the quaint little laundry (and small library!) area that’s part of the deal here. He also cleared away our bar that we’d set up on the countertop over the dishwasher, because the owner had a new dishwasher installed today. (See what it looked like prior to being cleared.)


To top off Bob’s busy day, he cooked homemade hamburgers for dinner on one of the two Weber charcoal grills that are here for our use.

That’s it for today.


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Our month on Cape Cod—day 2

~Sunday~ Since we fell asleep so early last night, we got up at 5 a.m.

I checked out the upstairs, which I hadn’t done yesterday, and I was delighted to find that there was another “desk” (which I put in quotes, because it was the same as the one downstairs and is really just a hard plastic table), and I decided to set up my “office” up there. It’s the room with the bunk beds in it.

At just before 10 a.m., we headed out to the nearest “big city” (Orleans, MA), to shop at a TJ Maxx for a couple of non-grocery items (e.g., an ice bin to put in the freezer to hold ice cubes, some measuring spoons, and a kitchen sink stopper) and the Stop & Shop grocery store, which turned out to be right next door to the TJ Maxx.

Back at the house, I put together my workstation to be ready to use first thing in the morning. Success:

Bob put the groceries away and did a hundred other things to make this house our own, such as re-organizing the kitchen to have things where he wants them and to store away things we’re not going to use (like a Keurig coffee machine), sweeping the deck, organizing a messy storage area under the stairs, and figuring out how the electric fireplace works.

We actually had a visitor this afternoon, David, who lives here—nearby and year-round—and is a business partner of the owner, and who was so nice! He wanted to let us know that there is a water main issue with the next-door laundry facility that’s supposed to be available to us while we’re here and that we are welcome to use his washer and dryer at any time.

Bob followed him over to his place, where he showed him how to access his laundry area, which is accessible without entering his home, and how the machines work. Bob got to know him a little bit during their time together, and it turns out he’s gay (and used to live in San Francisco with his now-deceased partner), and he told us that there’s a Lesbian couple staying nearby. We’re everywhere.

We tried to figure out, to no avail, the TV/DVD player set-up, and we’ll text the owner about that tomorrow.

Bob brought fresh jalapeños from our yard with us and made “poppers” with them as our dinner appetizer tonight, and they were most delicious—as always.

Hopes and dreams for tomorrow

  1. Me: Work my first day from here.
  2. Bob: Take a walk around the area.

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A 73% off kind of shopping spree, dinner@Two Guys, and some lame dancing…

I thought about riding out to the outlet mall in Smithfield today, but decided to hit Kohl’s at Crossroads to see if I could get what I wanted there first, which would also help keep my gas usage down. I’m still above a half tank, and it’s coming up on two weeks, tomorrow, since I’ve filled up.

I only clothes shop a few times a year, and this is probably about the third time that I’ve been to Kohl’s. I love that store. Of course they were having sales, otherwise I wouldn’t be shopping now would I? With that said, it seems there’s always some kind of sale going on there.

 Item
Regular Price 
Sale Price 
 Apt. 9 Dress Shirt $40.00  $12.00
 Chaps Dress Shirt $42.50  $8.50 
 Chaps Dress Shirt $42.50  $8.50 
 Sonoma Dress Shirt $36.00  $3.80 
 Men’s Shorts $28.00  $8.40 
 Dress Shoes $70.00  $39.99 
 Watch $50.00  $35.00 
 Total $309.00 $116.19 


And if those aren’t just about thrift store prices to begin with, I opened a Kohl’s credit card (which I will promptly pay off when the bill for this purchase arrives, and after it sitting in a drawer for a year, I’ll cancel it), and that took another 15% off everything, and then they gave me this scratch card, on which I “won” another 15% discount.

So, in the end, I saved $227.67 on $309 worth of clothes for a grand total of 73% off. My final total, with tax, was $86.82. That’s my kind of shopping.


After that little frenzy, I stopped at Panera Breads, where I had a cinnamon bagel with some lite honey walnut cream cheese (freakin’ delicious!), and a cup of coffee. And, of course, I used their free wi-fi while I was there.


Robert arrived around five, and we went to Two Guys for dinner. I was all set to order their vegetable lasagna, as I was quite sure that that’s where it was catered from for our work picnic a couple of weeks ago. However, the waitress acted like I was speaking Chinese (I wish!) when I asked where it was on their menu.

With no luck I settled on my standard there—their pepperoni stromboli, which comes with a salad. Robert had their mushroom burger, which came with fries. It was all good.


Dancing was kind of lame tonight. We had very few dancers: me, Robert, Ernie, and Rick. And Chris joined us on the few dances that he knows.

It was “blackout night” there tonight, and when we stopped dancing, the lights went (mostly) out, and the glow sticks took over. We stayed for just a little while, during which I mostly spoke to Patrick, whose birthday is Monday, one week before mine. We bought each other a birthday drink.


At home, <TMI>incredible sex ensued</TMI> before eventually reading the backs of our eyelids.