Goodwilling

I had a yen to go Goodwill shopping yesterday. I love Goodwill and thrift stores in general and I take this as being driven by my god-given gathering gene and since it's thrift stores and not the mall, I only feel guilty about the time I'm wasting, not the money.

Lately, however, I've felt as if I honestly have everything in the world that I need. From yard implements to clothing to kitchen utensils to funky artwork- I'm pretty well stocked and my gathering needs are generally satisfied between Publix and my garden and a local U-Pick blueberry patch.

Still, though, every now and then I get the urge to go treasure hunting. Who doesn't? Don't we all dream of finding treasure in unlikely places? The mall is no good for this. When I go to the mall, it's with a specific item in mind to buy and I hope to find it quick and get the hell out of there. And if you go to Gap, you're only going to find Gap brand. If you go to a department store, you're still only going to have so many labels to chose from, but honey, thrift stores have ALL the brands.
Of course, you have to look to find the good ones, but there's just a real thrill in finding a dress that you know sold originally for $120, nestled in there with the Walmart crap, all of it going for the same low price. "Come to Mama!" is what a friend of mine says when she finds something like that and I tend to scream a silent SCORE myself.

There's a certain meditative peacefulness that comes with thrift store shopping. Goodwill employees never ask you if you need any help and the day I'm at the cash register with my goods and the girl behind the counter asks me if I've found everything I need is the day I quit going to Goodwill.

I always start out on the outlying areas of the store, breezing through the furniture and books and kitchen goods because you don't have to be in the zone to go through those things. But that's where I start getting concentrated, focused. And then, I move on into the clothing. I like Goodwill because they arrange the clothing by color. This makes things a lot easier. If you're not ever in your lifetime going to wear a hot-pink shirt, no matter how fine the fabric, no matter how high-faluting the label, you can just skip right over that color and get on into the crimsons. Frequently though, I find myself getting into a zone with it and go through the beige (life is too short for beige, folks) and hot-pink too.

I love getting into that zone. It's the meditative part of the process. It takes a few minutes to get there, but once you do, you can zip right through an entire rack of clothes, pausing only when you find something that might be interesting. I have to touch every garment. I know in this day and time of having to disinfect our poor skin every time we touch something that another human might have touched, this sounds nasty but I've not gotten sick yet and I won't buy any garment that doesn't feel good, so touch them all I must. Sometimes I'll stop and examine a garment because it's just so damn ugly I can't believe it and I shudder with shame for the human race. There are certain labels I see in every thrift store I shop in, although I'm not sure where they're originally sold, making me suspect you can only buy them in thrift stores. Here's another mystery: you will always find something that has an owl on it in thrift stores. It could be a macramed owl, it could be a laminated-on-a-board owl, or a plate, pillow or mug with an owl on it. You can bet your bottom dollar on this, which I find strange since I don't see that many owl-related items in real life.

So anyway, yesterday I went to that big Goodwill on Pensacola, which is way out of my way, but it's the biggest and I have found some tasty items there in the past. I found some nice cloth napkins, I found a great apron, I found a terrific cigar box still smelling of tobacco, wood and shellac. All of these went into the cart. Then I hit the clothing. It was sort of disappointing, although I did overhear a few interesting conversations, and this is another thing I love about thrift store shopping- eavesdropping. I heard a woman tell another woman that she was a "dead-on size six." I raised my eyes from the rack of dresses I was going through to look at her and I truly wanted to say, "On what planet would that be, lady?" but I did not as that would have been impolite and I try my hardest to be polite in most situations. I've heard some great conversations at Goodwill. Far, far better than anything you'll ever hear at Banana Republic, believe me. In fact, I think one of the things I like about thrift store shopping the most is that it's a great place to be around people without having to actually interact with them.

So I ended up yesterday with the napkins, the apron, the cigar box and a dress that I may have actually donated in the first place. I don't really think so but God, it seems so familiar and with my memory, it's quite possible. I was a bit depressed, not having found any real treasure, but then ducked into the Good Cents portion of that Goodwill where they sell things by the pound. Seriously. And what did I find? A pair of brand new men's cargo pants, exactly my size, and in a style that I know for certain is still in the Gap store. Ha! I love men's cargo pants. They're the ultimate pants for me, comfy and with lots of interesting buttons and fastenings and all those pockets on them. And I love how men's pants come in sizes determined by inches, not that fake women's sizing where one label's size six might actually have fit that self-deceiving woman I overheard and another label's size six that would be too small for Kate Moss. Okay, maybe not Kate Moss, but you know what I mean. No, a 28-inch waist is a 28-inch waist and that's reassuring somehow.

So I was happy with my pants and my other booty, too. It wasn't a great day at Goodwill, but it was a good one and it got my gathering ya-yas taken care of for probably another month, at least, leaving me free to stay at home and waste my time here, with the added benefit of spending absolutely nothing.