Whore-der, Part 2

So, where we last left off...  (if you haven't read Whore-der Part 1, click here)... Brian had just brought me lunch (McDonalds McRib = awesome), and we were getting ready to resume the dig.  He started bringing my piles of "good" or "bad"  to the van, and I resumed digging.

The first box I opened was full of... you guessed it... random stuff.

More random stuff.

Fortunately, this box had a wallet that contained some gift cards.  No idea what's on them yet, going to call all of them tonight or tomorrow so I'll let you guys know what the final balance is.  Also, interesting, is that to remember some of her repeat "Johns"  she kept their expired drivers licenses and tags from their magazine subscriptions. Not saying this particular dude here is a john, he might be someone else-- but she did it with almost everyone she knew! Pretty clever, I guess.  Here are a few samples of those!

A box of purses will ALWAYS make me a Happy Camper:

This box has tools, Mardi Gras beads, Qtips, cell phone pieces, and more... random stuff!

It doesn't even look like I've made a dent in this room, but I swear, at this point I've been working solidly for about  5 hours... Brian's been there about an hour.

We still have to get to this corner, which contains 2 mattresses, a boxspring, and some more bins.

We also have this corner, which has about 12 packed Community coffee boxes.

But there are a few loose bags on top of the boxes, so I'll start with those.   This bag contains all of ONE particular item.   It's something we find pretty often in storage units and it was no shock that we found it in this dancer's unit.  Any guesses?

Hair! The entire bag had fake hair, wigs, track, etc, etc, etc.  There are probably at least 40 pieces of hair in here.

Another box yields some cardboard, a planter, and another box lid filled of randomness.

In keeping with the "flower power" theme, the planter is also hand decorated as well.  It's amazing how classy your home can look when you have a red marker! ;)

Another random box:  More cardboard, cards, lightbulbs, pieces of chair, chess pieces, fabric, and something wrapped in bubble-wrap.

The bubble wrapped item was actually an Easter pot, filled with... ???  pieces of styrofoam and trash.

Another glass jar filled with army men and bouncy balls and tacks:

My "box of nature"  is actually coming along quite nicely.  Everytime I found something mineral (not animal or vegetable), I added it to this box.  Although I guess feathers count as animal?  Whatever.  It's here.

I'm VERY adventurous in storage units.  You all know this already.  I wear open toed shoes, I don't wear gloves, I climb over furniture like a monkey, I smell things, I touch things, I open things I shouldn't.  I try to be safe whenever I can be-- but I do things that most people won't.  I'm well aware of this.   I was NOT opening this bottle though, under any circumstances.  I don't know what it used to be, but she took off the label and filled it with something else.  It was not solid, it was liquid, and there was something inside, but it was heavier than water, if that makes any sense.  Not perfume,  more like syrup or lotion.  I was NOT about to find out.  So, we threw it away.  Here's what the bottle looked like:

More Christmas decorations!   This is good because we have an entire room (that's the size of a 10X10 storage locker almost) filled top to bottom with Christmas stuff.  We're having a blowout Christmas garage sale in a few weeks.   So the more Christmas stuff the better (we usually don't want anything to do with it, but right now it means $$$ and that's okay with us!)    There's also these plastic containers EVERYWHERE.  It looks like she is buying cell phones and re-selling them.  We found about 35 phone chargers throughout the course of the unit and about 25-30 old phones, batteries, etc.

Another box full of empty plastic packaging:

I thought the packaging was for phones, given all of the phones we were finding.  Some of them might very well have been.  But upon further examination of the shape of THIS particular box.... I don't think there's a phone shaped like THAT!

Our girl obviously had a very vivacious, bubbly, enthusiastic personality.  It's why all of her friends tried so hard to help her out and why she was able to have the profession she had.  She was also very child-like though.  I'm not sure if it was the drugs, or just how she was, or a little bit of both-- but there were stickers and crayons and things like this EVERYWHERE.  I can't tell you how many things were covered in Barbie, Tinkerbell, Sponge Bob, or My Little Pony stickers.

Additionally, she used the left-over sticker wrappers to decorate things as well!

We appreciate the comments so far about what certain things may have been used for.  I'm not a habitual drug user by any means (I'm not a drug user really at all), and Brian knows a lot more than me about certain things just because of age and wisdom (appreciate this now why you can, Bri- because I won't say this THAT often where you can see it)---  but I think we were both a little mystified by this stuff.  Aquarium tubing-- EVERYWHERE.   I doubt seriously they had that many aquariums.  Also faucet pieces, shower head pieces,  pieces to make a bong?   glorified hookah?  something else?   Chime in if you know!   This blog is educational for all!

More aquarium tubing & pieces.

There were also pieces of foil everywhere.... in envelopes, in bank envelopes, in canisters, in socks--  all cut up into strips one inch thick and five inches long.  Someone want to explain this to me while you're at it?

More "cell phone" containers

This box is labelled "Books" -- so far (in the front half of the unit), every box is marked, but contains not even close to what it says is in it.  We'll see about this one.

Wow, it's actually books.  Who would have thought?

I've already mentioned that our girl was a lesbian (she may have been bi-sexual, but she definitely had a preference for women)-- and there were torn out magazine pictures EVERYWHERE- anytime there was a model who was semi-nude or a famous beautiful woman (ie, Angelina Jolie),  you were sure to find the pictures stuffed in between pages of another book or in an envelope to be saved.  So far it's a thing with all hoarders we've encountered-- every single one of them saves magazines and newspapers.  Not sure what it is about that-- saving pieces of a certain time, I guess.

Speaking of a certain time-- this printer cartridge is actually new and still in the original box.  Any ideas how old it is?   We'll have to look up if it's worth anything.

Another picture of the printing cartridge:

Uh oh, another wrapped sock.  This one was hidden behind an air duct inside the unit.  After what was inside the last sock, I'm expecting the worst.  I get my hand sanitizer ready, and my scissors (so that I can cut it out because it is TIGHTLY packaged)...

Wanna guess what I found?  I should have had a contest because there is no way anyone would ever guess....     

It contained....

Pieces of jean short... that had been tie-dyed,  and then cut up into little strips.  They were all stuffed really tightly into the sock.  Yep, I can't make this stuff up if I tried.  This is how you know our blog is real folks!   We're creative, but not THIS creative!


Phone books, file folders, Hurricane evacuation guides from 3 years ago (I guess SOME of the information is still relevant!), and empty Patron boxes.

A closeup of everything that was in this box.  I saved the Saints newspapers and Playboys for Brian!

There were lots of these sheets that contained what she would make a night, where she should report to, what her locker number would be, etc.   Very interesting look into the world of exotic dancing!

I had to go through a box of 150 newspapers to find 7 or 8 good ones (most were just... random.  Not saved for any particular reason, I don't think, or at least not reasons that were evident to me), but I did find some good Saints ones.  We have about 8 copies of this particular one-- it's a shame I didn't get it before we met Tracey Porter the other night!   In case you've been under a rock for the past 3 years, Tracey Porter (#22) is the Saint to the left who virtually won us the Superbowl by intercepting Peyton Manning for a touchdown.   It was the moment we knew we had won the game.   Super cool that we have more of these!   The AMEN (we've mentioned before) was the cover of the entire newspaper the day after we won the Superbowl (the 2-8-10 edition of the paper), and this page is the cover of the Sports section.  Yeah, we're definitely Saints fans.

More table place settings, Christmas goodies, and an empty Singer sewing machine box.

Easter decorations... and random other stuff.

One shoe, one belt.    Oh, and if you're wondering why the table place mats continue to be in every picture, it's because she had a homemade reed diffuser at the front of the unit.  It was basically a HUGE bottle (1 Liter sized), glass, and filled with OIL of some kind, and instead of having a cap with reeds in it (like it's supposed to), it had just a piece of streamer coming out the top.  So, of course I accidentally knocked it over (it was just placed on the floor of the unit, in the front corner), and of course it reeked and because it was oil based couldn't be picked up properly.  I scrubbed for awhile and eventually just left it.  It reeked so badly though (think jasmine combined with clove cigarettes)  that I had to mask the smell to avoid passing out.   So... I put the mats down!   I ended up throwing away the one shoe, FYI-- and I didn't find the other one until about 22 boxes later.  Whoops.   How was I supposed to know?  She could have smoked it for all I knew at that moment!    Mental note to stop being less like Brian and go back to being the meticulous person who does not throw anything away until she knows exactly what it is.  On the bright side, the shoes looked like something my grandma wore.... in the 80s.  So I don't think it matters THAT much that I threw them away.

This looks promising--- it's shrink wrapped, bubble wrapped, and duct taped.... what could it be?

It's an assortment of ashtrays!   Of course!  The blue one is actually really pretty, and at least they are clean this time (unlike the makeshift doggie bowl ashtray), so I'm happy for that.

Another drawer full of stuff....  I think it's pieces to more fish tank stuff.... some computer motherboards and memory cards and things... electronics broken up..... things I guess someone was trying to use to build or thought looked cool.  Who knows.

At last!  Stripper shoes!!!

There are some f--- me dominatrix boots!

And some "What if Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz was a bad girl who didn't want to go home?"  shoes...

and some 60s go go boots...

Of  COURSE I had to try them on.   If you thought I didn't, you don't know me very well by now.   Sadly, most of them were not my size... you could really see her fluctuations in weight which I can only assume is from the drug problem.  Some of her clothes were size 0, others were size 8-- that's a huge difference.  Same with the shoes-- some are 6 1/2-7 and others are 9 1/2.   This appears to be the only pair that fits me, and I think I'm missing a shoe.  So sad.  I guess I'll never be a stripper.  Oh-- and the best part... I actually found a note of hers way later (after I spent 10 minutes looking for the matching shoe as this one was the ONLY one I couldn't find a match to) that read "To do:   Find Missing Black Stripper Shoe.  Is it in Storage?"     I kid you not.  Yes, it was in storage.  Sad stripper panda.

Another view of "the shoe" -- look at those heels!

NOW this is getting interesting.  We're onto some of her... uniforms!    I'm so tempted to keep some of these clothes for myself-- they are all cute and so very pretty.  Some of them would make some excellent costumes.  Here's the first pile:

Here's some more:

And some more:

Here's a hot little number:

I ended up having to abandon the clothes because Brian pointed out that while the other boxes were taking me about 10-15 minutes per box to process, the clothing box was taking me 55 minutes and I wasn't even 1/3 of the way through it yet.  So, I agreed, packed it all back up, and put it in the van.  We have about 4 of these boxes, and a lot of my exotic dancer / burlesque / adult toy store owner friends are going to come over and look at a bunch of the things.  Hopefully they find some stuff they can use.  If anyone wants to buy anything, let me know.... seriously, we only keep the stuff that is in great condition.  I'm not kidding when I say I may keep some of it for myself.  So if anyone wants to purchase some of this, visit my facebook page-- I should have individual pictures up as soon as I go through it all.  There are seriously thousands and thousands of dollars of clothes, shoes, and wigs here--- this is where most of the value of our locker is going to come from.  It's actually a blessing we have this stuff because with the rest of the cracked out goods in this locker, I'm not sure we would have made our money back.  With the  exotic items and the gift cards and the bunk beds, I have no doubt we'll double, even triple, our money.

More magazines, more stickers!   There are also CDs of pictures from her "portfolio" -- I have a lot of these to look through!

She loved sunglasses, so I keep finding them, but I also keep finding lots of broken glasses-- in the exact same way.  Who does this?  Is it accidental or on purpose?

This black file box is interesting--- I can't wait to see what's in here... I almost think it will be papers, that's usually what's in these types of boxes, but we've had papers everywhere else.  It seems heavy and I hear things clunking around.   And...

Here are the contents:  some makeup bags, a boom box, and ziplock bags.  Not sure why anything surprises me anymore in this unit!

Oh, and an empty box of kleenex.  Here's a close-up of the items:

If you follow Brian on facebook, or our conversations back and forth via status update, you've already seen this.  If you haven't, go get some popcorn or something, because you are in for a real treat.  When I saw this in the unit I jumped up and down for joy.  Brian of course thought I had gold or silver or money or something, but no,  I had something better.  He didn't understand until he started reading for himself, and now he agrees.

You see folks... this is the Stripper's Bible.  It's not called that, it's my name for it-- but that's essentially what it is.   This dancer/escort in London wrote the book and it's available on the internet, but our girl printed it out and highlighted the important bits (just like she was studying for a class in school) and made notes.  It's amazing.  It covers stripping from A to Z, starting at "Why should you do it"  and "How to explain it to your friends and family"  and going all the way to "How to adjust your body language to make the guy spend even more time in the Champagne Room."  -- it's amazing.   I've only read part of it, but I will read it cover to cover before I'm done.  I've included a few pages for you here-- if you blow them up you should be able to read all of it.   I'll also try to find a link where you can read the entire thing online.  It's titled "7 Step Strip Success:  How to Make $1000 per night"  -- oh, I actually just looked up the link and found that you actually have to pay $95 for this!    Here's the link if you're interested, and for now you'll just have to deal with the pages I've posted.  Jessica (the author) should not be mad at me for posting them as I am helping advertise her book :)     Maybe in the future we'll have a contest and someone can win the copy I have... after I'm finished reading it!

The book:

An introductory page:

Another page:

Another page:

A few more pages:

Back to digging... next up is this bag...

Which contains sofa cushions... for a sofa we do not have!

Into the trash pile!

A pink WHO DAT hat!   I'm sold!   And PS - no comments about me looking rough here, at this point I've been in this storage unit for 7 1/2 hours STRAIGHT.

Another crack-pipe.  Or meth-pipe, which someone said it was in comments.  I thought it could be used for either, but maybe I'm wrong.  I'm kind of glad I'm wrong on this one...  I don't think "recreational drug use" is what I want to be an expert on.   But if someone knows more about this and wants to chime in, feel free!  And hopefully our commenter from before will know what the foils and fish tubes are for also!

There were about 12 boxes FULL of makeup, and it almost made me cry as a woman to throw them away-- some of it was cheap (Wet N Wild), some of it was expensive (M.A.C., for example), but it was makeup just the same.  And there were lots of glittery and sparkly things.  But, it's hard enough for me to sell used makeup (people buy it, I just don't feel comfortable selling it), especially when I know it's from such a high-risk person as this one.  I'd feel terrible if someone got a disease because they bought a $1 eyeshadow from our garage sale.  

There were a few boxes of nail polish too, on the bright side-- and we kept those!

More clothes and pillowcases:  (Trash)

Budgeting!

ANOTHER elastic black belt.  If you're an avid reader of this blog, you'll know that this is my 2,414th one of these.  Or so it seems.

Brian leaves at this point because he has to go back to the store and do some more errands, and the facility is about to close soon anyway.  I've taken a separate car there (I was there in the morning, remember?)  so I decide to stay, button up the unit, finish as much as I can, and then go home.  I end up staying until about 6:30, which means that I spent about ELEVEN consecutive hours in the same storage unit. This has NEVER happened before.   No other units are interesting enough to keep my attention for this long, this is true-- but I'm still pretty bored regardless at this point and I'm VERY tired.  So I make an executive decision just to throw everything back in and leave.

The next morning, Brian gets there about 2 hours before me, so obviously when I show up, everything is just about done... we had already decided we were just going to pack it into the van and not dig it until we got it back to the warehouse, so that was a pretty good decision.  By the time I got there all I had to do was take care of a few loose ends and help move some furniture (bunk beds and mattresses).

First I spot the  "Box O' Nature" -- and am getting ready to pack it, but before I do I give it to Brian to see if there's "anything valuable" inside.  He says no, and promptly throws the entire box into the garbage bag.  But no, he doesn't just place the rock box into the garbage, he turns it upside down first, making sure everything is scattered throughout.  I already knew I wanted to give the feathers to my friend Robin who makes headbands, and I was going to sell the rocks for cheap or give them to Trish's son if all else failed-- it's educational, right?  And he likes rocks...  so now I have to dig through the bag.   And I just HAVE to point this out...

Inside this massive trash bag... I find all of my rocks, finally (I have WAY better things to do at this point)... but still, I'm looking... something tells me to keep looking (I get that feeling a lot)

and I find this... a rock that from one side looks like plain quartz, but on the other side (that Brian didn't see) is BEAUTIFUL.   I show him the "sparkly gold thing"  and we both realize at the same time that it's Citrine, a semi-precious stone.  Nice.  I have tons of Citrine jewelry and it's my gem of choice... so I was pretty excited about this.  We can probably sell it for a pretty good price, but if we don't, I claim it to have made into a piece of jewelry or just to use as a very gorgeous paperweight.

You better believe Captain Trashbag got a lecture about throwing away too hastily!

We proceeded to pack up the rest of the bins, the garbage, the bunk bed materials, another chair  that i had just found in between the bunk beds (yellow colored.. just like the citrine... I'm also wearing purple and gold for LSU because it was Saturday, so it's a yellow/gold kind of day!) and get the unit cleared out.

My purple and gold attire.. ironically enough I was wearing my citrine necklace at this point, too!  see the star?

A picture of the found chair.


And of course, once we had a completely clear, pristine looking unit, we decided to get a few more pictures:

Our Empty Unit!

Captain Trashbag!

The Gold Digger!

This isn't actually from the unit... it's just to show how gross Brian can be.  We were at the VIP tent at the Superdome, and he put the eggs and sausage from the breakfast buffet into his jambalaya!  Gross!

And as much as I was trying to finish this blog in 2 parts, there's no way that's going to happen.  Remember all of the boxes of papers and papers and more papers that I was too lazy to process earlier?  Well, I ended up doing them the other night while watching the LSU game (Trish helped me) and we found some stuff that you definitely have to see.  We're talking Little Black Books, (more) pornography, and love letters, people!   Additionally,  there's still about 10 bags and boxes that we haven't even looked inside yet!   Who knows what we may find.  So... the game plan is to dig them tomorrow, and hopefully I'll have something here for you soon!     Stay tuned for Part 3!