Tasha Does Tulsa.

Forget Home Depot, the wall paper and the flooring. Don’t even dare waste your Saturday at Bed, Bath and Beyond. There’s something much more interesting to do in Tulsa with your Saturdays: a stroll through Tulsa Flea Market at Expo Square.

Tulsa Flea Market, where a person can find odds and ends ranging from vintage firearms to antique furniture to purebred puppies (yes, puppies), is held each Saturday from 8am-4pm in the lower level of the 448,400-square-foot QuikTrip Center.

Did you know that the QuikTrip Center is one of the largest clearspan buildings in the world? It’s true. It’s provides 354,000 square feet of space, unadulterated and column-free.

Which is exactly how I like my flea markets – unadulterated and column-free.

And Tulsa shoppers and treasure hunters sure know how to make use of that kind of room.

I’m not going to try to show you everything we saw on our most recent trip to Tulsa Flea Market, but I will walk you through so that you can get a taste of what to expect.

Bar sets and ice buckets of days gone by.

I’m still kicking myself for not snagging these two things, by the way. Most of the time being frugal is a wonderful thing, but sometimes I’m too cheap for my own good.

Old padlocks.

Vintage malt mixers!

Oh, my heart.

Lots…

and lots…

and lots of tables and shelves full of random knick knacks.

And delicate vintage lady things. At 50 percent off.

Can I just say it again? Oh, my heart.

And jewelry.

Lots of it.

It’s hard to make a trip to Tulsa Flea Market and not get inspired.

Pretty much anything that’s aqua and yellow inspires me. That’s just how I am.

Pretty much anything that’s quilted inspires me, too.

I love looking at the tiny little stitches on old quilts and trying to imagine the life of the person whose hands labored over such minute, skillful work.

I love quilts. Honest, I do. I studied them for two years in college. I wrote my undergraduate thesis about them. I want to own many, many, many of them.

And so you’ve just learned something about me today that you probably didn’t know before. Lucky you!

I think.

Boots! Old ones.

Old tobacco canisters sporting designs that I want to blow up and hang on my dining room walls.

One day I want to start an ashtray collection. I don’t smoke, but I like ashtrays. And I don’t know why.

My son had no interest in this whatsoever. And I cried a little inside about that.

If I’m gonna continue to be an Oklahoma housewife, I’m gonna have to take up collecting rooster-themed things. It’s practically a requirement of the occupation.

At least now I know where to start my search for the rooster-themed things that are right for me.

A Gray Wolf stein. ULTIMATENESS.

I want this.

And…I just had a heart attack. Goodbye, world.

Because if someone grabs this 1927 set of eight place settings of Paul Revere silver before I do, then this life just ain’t gonna be worth livin’.

And then there’s this. Sexy, right?

Ahem.

Cabbage Patch Kids! Naked ones. Which were of less trading value than naked Barbie dolls when I was a kid, but still.

Would you like fries with that wake-up call?

Look! Someone snagged an old unicycle.

Lucky.

Old pin-up calendars from the 1950s. How cool are those?

I need this phone. It could be like the TDT def-con phone. Anytime someone has the nerve to utter that they’re bored in Tulsa, Mayor Bartlett could call it. And then he could raise the TDT signal into the night sky.

Wait. If TDT had a signal, what would it look like? A slice of pizza from Joe Momma’s? A burger from Claud’s? A 20-ounce bottle of Marshall IPA? Hmm…something to ponder.

I now own this. It’s made a fine addition to my collection of reference and advice books from the ’50s and ’60s.

There’s even something for the kids at Tulsa Flea Market. Many things, actually.

Toys and books and candies…

…and innocent, blurry puppies, all ripe for the terrorizing.

Have you ever shopped Tulsa Flea Market? What’s your all-time favorite flea market find? What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever found at a flea market? I’d love to hear all about it in the comments.

Tulsa Flea Market
When: 8am-12pm every Saturday
Where: QuikTrip Center at Expo Square, on 21st Street between Harvard and Yale Avenues