Party Animal

Life, Liberty and the Right to Rummage

The champagne is on ice. The 14-seat black stretch limo in the driveway is rumbling and ready to go. The party garb -- tiaras, feather boas -- is on. And the guests?

Still rubbing the sleep from their eyes, it being 7 a.m. and all.

Instead of choosing to celebrate her 40th birthday with traditional late-night party hopping (so typical!), Olney resident Vicky Aceto decided to do something different this year.

An inveterate bargain hunter, she'd been saying for years that if she ever won the lottery, she'd go to yard sales in a limousine. This year, she made good on at least part of that pledge, renting a stretch limo -- at a discount, natch -- and persuading nine of her closest friends and family members to go for an early morning cruise through the subdivisions of Montgomery County, on a yard sale scavenger hunt for charity.

"Let's get this party started!" Vicky crows, waving her feather boa in the air as the group settles in and they sail off down the road.

Vicky, who calls herself a "domestic goddess," has been hitting yard sales since she was a youngster growing up in the Midwest, says her mother, Betty Skumatz, of Nashotah, Wis., who flew in just for the event. Someone pops a cork. Doughnuts are passed around.

"I have the right to rummage above all else!" says Vicky, who is married to a D.C. firefighter and is the mother of Grace, age 5. "I told my husband before we got married that every Saturday from April to October, I'll be out rummaging, and if he can't abide by that, don't marry me. He's been really good about it."

A brief history of past yard sale glory follows: The Time Grace Bought a Tiffany Bracelet for a Dollar. The Time Betty Bought a Royal Doulton Figurine for Two Dollars and Sold It on eBay for $700.

Now, the limo pulls into a flea market near the Germantown train station. The group disembarks, attracting stares. One onlooker snaps a picture with his cellphone camera.

Vicky hands out lists with the scavenger hunt rules. The objective, she explains, is to find as many of the listed items as possible for local charities, including Happy Meal toys for a mom's club that makes dinners for sick kids, games, DVDs and portable fans for U.S. troops overseas, shoes for Iraqi children and supplies for a homeless shelter.

Vicky scores right away, grabbing a set of new, in-the-package sheets for $10 -- perfect for the shelter. "My first bargain of the day!" she hollers. She makes her way up the row of tables in the bright sunlight, looking for more. As she browses, she recalls "the weirdest object ever found at a yard sale" -- an urn for the ashes of her friend's mother.

The friend, Eve Anderson, who lives in Laytonsville, is a party guest and a frequent yard sale buddy of Vicky's. "We saw this beautiful white urn with dogwoods on it," Vicky remembers. "I asked the man, 'How much?' He said, 'Two dollars.' I said, 'Would you take a buck?' "

Hearing the story, Eve bursts out laughing and comes over for a hug. "She's in my dining room!" Eve reports.

"At the funeral, she looked so beautiful in that urn," Vicky says.

A short time later, the women climb back aboard the limo toting bags of goodies that they will later donate. They motor on to their next stop -- a sale at a community center in Potomac. Someone turns the radio up. The party is really rolling now.

Vicky is mixing a mimosa when one of her friends asks her how she can possibly top this. What, the friend wants to know, does she have planned for her 50th?

"We're going to have to think of something really good now!" Vicky declares. Maybe a girls' weekend next time. In a Winnebago.