El Dorado Vintage Shop

By Nayeon Park & Tingting Wei

Accompanied with the nostalgic pictures of our childhoods are a series of short stories.

brother vx-1435 vintage sewing machine, mint condition, lifetime warranty, refurbished with stickers

hamsters in heaven

there must have been something in the water because all three died young, the Tumor One, the One Called Hammie the Hamster, and then there’s the One I Can’t Really Remember but my mother cried over, or at least i think she cried over because that day she was in the shower for two hours or three, so long that I thought she might have fainted or slipped and banged her head against the tub

I remember checking the doorknob (locked) I remember pressing my ear against the white door (cold) and I remember trying to hear something (running water)

When she finally comes out of the shower all pruny her pores still weeping, she says, I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t do it again, no more hamsters ever again

So these are it, these hamsters in heaven.
Condition is “Used.” Shipped with USPS First Class.

– Tingting Wei

OLD ONE-OF-KIND PAINTING

Made in the early 2000s, Watercolor on Paper “Snowy Night” Made with Love
$14.98

Watercolor Piece, perfect gift for young children or baby showers. Bundled in red, he peeks through the thick wool scarf at his very own creation. The other kids in class sang about someone named “Frosty”—a snowman. There is a faint stinging sensation on the tips of his fingers, the snow seeping inside the wool mittens Mother gave him. This piece features a young boy and a snowman. He looks at the tips of the snowman’s fingers, made up of twigs and branches. “Much colder than I am, probably.” He was taught never to be the only one complaining. The crisp air filters through the chartreuse scarf that is perforated enough for licks of snowflakes and icicles. A sort of candy—sugar-free and refreshing. Buy now and get the painting framed for free! He wishes that he was a little boy in a painting, framed for all to see and never having to go home. Springtime brings bunnies and tulips, but he will in exchange have to say goodbye to his chilly friend.

Toys in my grandma’s drawer

$29.66666666666666

gently used condition, preserved by my grandma for a decade, a green stuffed pepper and a purple dinosaur and a weird-ugly Barbie doll with her head twisted in a way that maybe can’t be fixed. Ronald McDonald because KFC was the luxe thing to eat back then

Comes with a wave of embarrassment, like yes, of course, these are childhood toys, toddler’s toys, expensive toys stowed away in drawers, toys too precious to play with. Anyway, I’ll double the wave of embarrassment, so it’ll come with my mother’s embarrassment for free—Grandma how could you be so silly! She’s a teenager now, she doesn’t play with those toys anymore!—and the sentimentality of the whole thing will grow on you, will age well like wine and be even more valuable in the future, so here I offer you these toys for $29 (and 2/3) for the whole bundle, vintage & authentic!

Performance

Process

This multimedia piece was a collaboration between Tingting and myself. We thought about precious childhood items and expressed our feelings about them through a spontaneous, experimental writing style that felt like a mix of an eBay listing and a diary entry. We both had a lot of fun rifting off of each other’s old memories and interpretations of childhood souvenirs. —Nayeon