CAN THIS FRIDGIE BE SAVED?!? (plus, a bonus tale of Pyrex woe)

I'm going to tell this story in backwards order. The second thing that happened was that I found a yellow fridgie from the primary set ($4.29 at St. Vincent de Paul). I think it's an older one, but I'm not that familiar with fridgies. And behold--it was well loved:

I was reading on www.pyrexlove.com about cleaning methods for Pyrex, so I'm hoping that Magic Eraser will work on this (the soapy soakings haven't yielded much). Has anyone used Magic Eraser on primaries with good results? I'm worried about taking off the color.

The first half of my story is sort of whiny. As I've complained several times over on this site, Pyrex is disappearing from the thrift stores around here (in Seattle and Shoreline). So I did something I've never done before: I looked up "Pyrex" on Craigslist and found a sale. None of the prices were listed but the seller was shutting down his booth at an antique mall, and he took a picture of a huge glass case filled top to toe with Pyrex and Fire King.

Excited at the thought of seeing that much Pyrex at once, I kissed my family good-bye and hit the road around 8:35am (the sale started at 9am and it was about 27 minutes away). Between stopping for cash and (oops--empty tank) stopping for gas, I got to the sale about 9:30ish. There was still a ton of Pyrex and only one other person there. The sole customer and the seller were talking near a shelf full of gorgeous pieces--pink daisy divided dishes with lids, charcoal snowflake divided dish, Butterprint fridgies, a set of salt and pepper shakers, and a ton of other stuff that I was itching to touch. I knelt down and picked one up. Then--DUN DUN DUN--the seller gave an embarrassed laugh and said, "Oh, [the other customer] is buying all of that--that bottom shelf-full." In other words, ALL THE GOOD STUFF. BOO. The customer showed up at 8am (an hour before the sale started) and snagged it all.

I walked around the rest of the sale for a while, trying to cool down. I was (and am) kind of embarrassed by how irritated I was. I mean, it's just Pyrex! But the fun of the sale sort of disappeared along with all the really cute pieces. Eventually, I pulled myself out of my funk and bought these four little items:

The Autumn Harvest and Spring Blossom 401s were $2 each. The Spring Blossom is a little worse for the wear but I'm planning on using them for cereal or ice cream bowls as the kids get older.

The Shenandoah 472-B and the orange mug were $2 apiece as well. A bit too much for a mug, in my opinion, but I get kind of shy about bargaining.

Thus ends the tale of whiny Pyrex woe. That's a lot of complaining from someone who ended up with five pieces of Pyrex at the end of the day, so I'm sort of worried that my priorities are slightly out of whack.

Margaret Ann