Oddities of Thrifts

[Thrifty1]

Sometimes the surreality of the thrift experience is pretty funky.
A 60 year old man walks past you and at first you don't notice anything "odd". Then you look up and you see that besides his typical old man shorts, shirt, sleavless undershirt, and garters for his sox, he's got full face makeup on. Fake eyelashes, lipstick, rouge, eye shadow, the whole nine yards.
What do you do but smile. The interesting part is when he strikes up a conversation. I guess he's trying to see if I'll react. The best thing to do is not react at all. Now that really throws him off. So what does he do, he starts asking me what color lipstick looks best on me with my coloring, so I give him the Lancome speach that I've heard a million times getting a free makeover. He eats it up but is still mad that I didn't react the way he wanted.
Why be mad I didn't treat him like a freak? Doesn't he want to be thought of as normal?



Veronica

[lacono]

I love crazy experiences!

[secondhandnation]

Lately, I've been noticing a lot of food items in thrift stores.  Not freebie baked goods - actually bits of food that shoppers leave on shelves!  Half an apple, or a chicken nugget, or a big melting milkshake.  It's so sloppy and gross - make yourself at home, shoppers!

Yucky things happen to me a lot if I go thrifting when a store is having a sale event.  The last two times I went to my local thrift store on a Customer Appreciation Tuesday, grossness prevailed. 

The first time, as I got out of my car, I noticed I'd driven over a poopy diaper in the parking lot.  Nice.  The most recent visit found me looking at tablecloths and this whole family turned the corner and started jabbering.  The daughter kept screaming "It wasn't me!  It wasn't me!" while the Mom said, "God, what did you eat?!!  It's enough to gag a maggot!" and the other kids were laughing, while the screaming, protesting girl approached and I was engulfed in her fart cloud.  At that point, I admit I bailed.  Thrifting isn't about ambience, I know, but some times the yuck factor breaks me. 

[SecondhandSophisticate]

You are TOTALLY cracking me up...YES! I've encountered the poppy diaper not only in the parking lot (after a steamy Florida rain,no less with 105% humidity--yum) but caacaa left in the fitting room???!!!! What's up with that?'

I am a former social worker in a city that once had the highest murder rate in the US...my office was in the "inner city" as we quaintly used to say 'back in the day". I'd park my car in the AM, come out for lunch, only to have my car surrounded by used condoms and used hypos...and the occasional diaper (rule of thumb--watch where you are walking ESPECIALLY if you are wearing sandals)  I mention this only because it was as a social worker that I learned about the dirty unwashed body smell, which apparently is universal. Whether it's 20 below or 95, in an office or a thrift store or the library, that smell is the same.

I have found that I need to stay alert and aware at all times in a thrift store because, by their nature of what they are, the stores will attract folk who tend to be "under the radar" and I need to stay disengaged from their dramas.

Thanks for giving me the biggest laugh of my day!

Ciao, and Welcome,
SeSo

[Cookie]

I am SO over the fart cloud scenario.  Good Buddy is usually on top of things and will alert me to fart clouds in my vicinity if he's nearby.  "Run!" is all has to say and I know what I'm running from.  I bet nobody's farting up a storm in Neiman Marcus.  They'd probably arrest you or at least charge you $100 for their inconvenience.  I'm sure nobody's leaving poopy diapers in their parking lot either.  I just can't imagine taking a diaper off my child and laying it on the ground in a parking lot.  Why not walk the couple of extra steps to the garbage can?  You know there's one there!  I will also leave a thrift store if the dirty unwashed body smell is permeating everything and I just can't take it anymore.  I need an off switch for my nose, like a vent that I can close when I feel like I'm going to pass out from some horrible stench.  Then I could go on happily thrifting and me and el stinko supremo could have the whole store to ourselves.

[secondhandnation]

My sister was working in the store one night and someone crapped in the dressing room, too!  I couldn't get over it!  How do people just do that?

And smells!  One night I went out onto the sales floor to give a price check and I could have swore someone pooped.  That foul, raw turd smell was floating around - I'm a mother to a 4 -year-old and you know how just *know* there's poop in that diaper?  That was how I felt.  So I kept looking around for it and not finding it.  It turns out another employee was thinking the same thing and we determined that someone was just walking around in the store with a load of crap in their pants.  

It's good to avoid the drama at the thrift store, because it seems to run high there!  Even just standing in line, people will get all involved with other people, in a way that never seems to happen in a regular store.  

I remember once when I was ringing out during a busy sales event, this totally annoying customer was standing in line and making all her purchase decisions right at the checkout, while a line of a dozen people stood waiting and totally pissed off.  This woman was trying on shoes, holding up shirts and asking me what I thought, that kind of thing.  Finally, the line of people rose up against her and started hollering at her:  "Ma'am, you better just step out!  Can't you see all of us waiting here!?" that kind of thing.  Inwardly, I was thrilled, but then the whole thing started going back and forth and the annoying lady was trying to get me to support her when I really wanted to smack her in the face with her dumb shoes she was buying.  

I've seen people praying in the book department and people who've become friends because they're regulars who never leave the store it seems and get friendly with each other, kids peeing in the trash can of the customer restroom, a woman asking if she can buy some Depends 'cause she needs them right now, two women fighting over a pendant lamp and the other lady breaking down in tears, that kinda thing.   Crazy.  

[Big Daddy Audio]

All these same exact things used to happen to me all the time - then I stopped riding the subway and moved to Phoenix.

Actually, I love the weirdness myself. 

There's one GW on my regular sweep where the same guys hang out by the door where they wheel the carts with goods onto the sales floor.  I kid you not - they hang out all day, and scarf up all the good(?) stuff.  I saw it again today.  I guess this is their regular job.  I guess it's not so much odd as annoying.

That is all.

 

[Jay2TheRescue]

You are TOTALLY cracking me up...YES! I've encountered the poppy diaper not only in the parking lot (after a steamy Florida rain,no less with 105% humidity--yum) but caacaa left in the fitting room???!!!! What's up with that?'

I am a former social worker in a city that once had the highest murder rate in the US...my office was in the "inner city" as we quaintly used to say 'back in the day". I'd park my car in the AM, come out for lunch, only to have my car surrounded by used condoms and used hypos...and the occasional diaper (rule of thumb--watch where you are walking ESPECIALLY if you are wearing sandals)  I mention this only because it was as a social worker that I learned about the dirty unwashed body smell, which apparently is universal. Whether it's 20 below or 95, in an office or a thrift store or the library, that smell is the same.
I have found that I need to stay alert and aware at all times in a thrift store because, by their nature of what they are, the stores will attract folk who tend to be "under the radar" and I need to stay disengaged from their dramas.

Thanks for giving me the biggest laugh of my day!

Ciao, and Welcome,
SeSo

That reminds me of a time where I kept smelling strong B.O. when I was shopping, and the closest person to me was about 20 feet away, so at first I thought it was me.  I kept shopping then I realized I only smelled it when a certain lady was within about 30 feet of me.  I almost told her "In this country we take showers every day, whether we think we need it or not."  She had 2 toddlers with her as well.  I don't know how her husband can go to bed with that.  Every time she walked near me I was ready to blow chunks.

-Jay

[Scott]

The first time, as I got out of my car, I noticed I'd driven over a poopy diaper in the parking lot.

I've run across poop in the middle of a thrift shop aisle once. That was highly unpleasant, I have to say. And it wasn't a baby-sized turd either. It was full on adult sized pooping right there in the middle of the aisle. Gross. I feel bad for the thrift employees ... but at least they had linoleum floors instead of carpet.

And with this story, my dignified veneer has all-too-quickly disappeared. Sorry about that.

[secondhandnation]

It is hard to maintain dignity when you're a patron of place that has poop sitting out in the open!  That's one thing I try hard to maintain when shopping - some thrift customers are very rude to staff and treat the store like an open trash pit and constantly badger and bargain with staff.  I try to be that invisible, no-demands customer to try to counteract the weirdos who give the staff a lot of shit (sometimes literally, as we've seen!)

Today my husband, daughter, sister and I went to a wonderful garage sale - you know the kind when you drive up, you can just tell it's going to have wonderful, old good stuff?  This was one of those - a multi-family sale, jam-packed with everything under the sun.

My daughter lit on some little crappy meal toy and the woman let her have it for free, which is my favorite - knowing I'm doing her a favor by taking on the junk she doesn't need, and she's doing me a favor, by keeping my 4-year-old occupied while I look around.  We were all absorbed in the different item and then this one man, a very disheveled, dirty-looking fellow asks the owners "Can I use your bathroom?"

I wanted to punch him!  I don't know why I got so mad.  It's hard enough putting on a sale and setting everything out and dealing with strange people all day - find your  own bathroom already! 

Perhaps it's blowback from my thrift store employment.  It seemed like the whole world saved up all their cumulative waste for when they went to our store.  So I get annoyed when people take a good thing, a cheap, frugal situation, and try to suck up more from it than they are already getting. 

[Jay2TheRescue]

It is hard to maintain dignity when you're a patron of place that has poop sitting out in the open!  That's one thing I try hard to maintain when shopping - some thrift customers are very rude to staff and treat the store like an open trash pit and constantly badger and bargain with staff.  I try to be that invisible, no-demands customer to try to counteract the weirdos who give the staff a lot of shit (sometimes literally, as we've seen!)

Today my husband, daughter, sister and I went to a wonderful garage sale - you know the kind when you drive up, you can just tell it's going to have wonderful, old good stuff?  This was one of those - a multi-family sale, jam-packed with everything under the sun.

My daughter lit on some little crappy meal toy and the woman let her have it for free, which is my favorite - knowing I'm doing her a favor by taking on the junk she doesn't need, and she's doing me a favor, by keeping my 4-year-old occupied while I look around.  We were all absorbed in the different item and then this one man, a very disheveled, dirty-looking fellow asks the owners "Can I use your bathroom?"

I wanted to punch him!  I don't know why I got so mad.  It's hard enough putting on a sale and setting everything out and dealing with strange people all day - find your  own bathroom already! 

Perhaps it's blowback from my thrift store employment.  It seemed like the whole world saved up all their cumulative waste for when they went to our store.   So I get annoyed when people take a good thing, a cheap, frugal situation, and try to suck up more from it than they are already getting. 

What gets me is the amount of stuff in thrift stores that still has the yard sale tags on it.  People have their yard sale, and the stuff they couldn't sell for $0.10 after 2 days is donated to the thrift store.  How is that helping the thrift?  The thrift in turn has to spend $ to throw out all that unsellable junk.

-Jay

[ChrisMiss]

I don't remember where I heard it or read it but your story reminded me of it.  Someone was having a yard sale and a nicely dressed couple were shopping at the yard sale when one of them asked if they could use the bathroom.  Well the seller said okay after seeing that they looked nice.  After the couple left she'd gone back in her house and said the bathroom was a total disaster.  The stranger who was so nicely dressed had smeared poop around, towels on the floor, etc.  Some people are just sick and get their kicks in the most disgusting ways.

[ChrisMiss]

I get tickled at a thrift store where they will put a tag on an item that also has a tag on it from a yard sale.  If it didn't sell at a yard sale for a dime what makes them think they'll get a dollar for it?  I have to admit though I am one of those that does buy the stuff.

[Other People s Junk]

What gets me is the amount of stuff in thrift stores that still has the yard sale tags on it.  People have their yard sale, and the stuff they couldn't sell for $0.10 after 2 days is donated to the thrift store.  How is that helping the thrift?  The thrift in turn has to spend $ to throw out all that unsellable junk.

I understand what you are saying if it was stuff that should have been thrown out to begin with, but alot of the time the stuff is usable stuff.  There have been many times were I have found things with the yard sale sticker on it, and I end up paying more than the yard sale price and wishing I could have been to that yard sale!  Not everyone who goes thrift shopping goes yard saleing, so it's reaching a different audience. 

[secondhandnation]

Summertime is indeed a time of high donations for thrift stores.  The store I used to work at kept track of big local sales so we could be ready when they dumped all their junk on us. 

It often resulted in a lot of trash, as our store couldn't sell some of the merchandise, but when you depend on donations for your inventory, what can you do?  We always tried to get the garage sale sticker off items, though, as customers would get confused and dispute prices with us if they were left on.  Also, it cracked me up to see someone else's estimation of what their items were worth, especially when it was something our store would toss without a second look.

What really infuriated me were the donors who donated actual trash to us, including hazardous materials like TVs and computers, thus hiking our trash bill and lowering the amount of money we could provide to the nonprofit mission.  In addition to hazardous materials, we'd receive broken glass, things that had clearly sat in garages for ages, with mildew and spiderwebs on them, and once even a donation of dirty diapers...(what is it with me and poop?)  It's upsetting to think that these people used the tax receipt we provided them for their own advantage - I mean, who has time to truck their junk all over town?  Why not just save yourself time and leave it at the end of your own driveway?