Thrift Store Madness

Sometimes friends or people I don't know send me fun e-mail questionaires. You know the type. What song do you sing in the shower? If you had three wishes, what would they be? and my favorite: When are you going to pay off your student loans? (Side note: probably when I get my three wishes.) Anyways, the point of this intro is to segue seamlessly into the question that I always find it a cinch to answer: What are your favorite things? And right at the top of the list would have to be Thrift Stores. Yeah, you heard me right. Thrift Stores.

The winning concept behind thrift stores is so simple and endlessly rewarding. They sell anything. For next to nothing. You can't go into a thrift store expecting to get a specific item. This isn't like going into Target. It's shopping as a Zen experience. The merchandise is what it is and you never know what it is until you find it. (There are exceptions to this as there are certain perennial thrift store favorites. For example, I'm betting if you want a copy of Gail Sheeney's Passages, any thrift store in America could accomodate you. Plus, if you're not picky about specific titles, I know that there are at least 4 or 5 different John Grisham thrillers at any given thrift store. There also seems to be an abundance of Susan Powter merchandise.)

I go in mostly for books, being the shameless bibliophile that I am. It thrills me, makes me giddy even, when I go into a thrift store and find classic titles by my favorite authors. Steinbeck, Hemingway, Angelou, Marquez, all to be had for pocket change! It's a beautiful thing to think that the greatest books ever written are this accessible. A truly wonderful find is a book that has been endlessly careworn with notes and scribbles and underlined favorite passages. Some people hate this as they like to make their own notes. While I understand this, I believe that this is why they made different colored highlighters. I love not only taking the journey that reading affords, but to take it parallel to someone else, to have a fellow traveller to share insights with. It's incredibly intimate to read Walden through someone else's eyes, discovering what passages moved them, what lines deserved an empathetic double-underline.

Sometimes I get the bonus of finding old pieces of paper with writing on them, tucked inside as bookmarks, or even the original reciepts. Reciepts are precious because, if they're not too faded, they reveal the time and place it was purchased. Who was this person who bought this old paperback of The Mayor of Castorbridge at a place called Book Sellers in Redding, California on Oct. 19, 1996 at 14:56?

And therein lies the germ of the thrift store experience... The experience is a shared one, between you and the person that, for whatever reason, has parted with their stuff. It's not just the books that fascinate me, either. I love the idea of a store devoted to stuff that nobody wants anymore. One of my most prized possessions is a mug that says "I Shot J.R." There's something kitschy about it now, so anachronistic. I get a thrill drinking coffee out of it, knowing it's weird and rare and interesting, and that no one else could probably appreciate it as much as I do.

One of my favorite parts of the store are the aisles with the discarded trophies. Every kind of trophy litters the shelves: Baseball, golf, billiards, and, of course, bowling. I imagine each one at some point being the utter focus of pride and well-being... now abandonded. People move on, it's true, which makes me ponder an even greater mystery. Who would buy someone else's icon of accomplishment? Well, who else, besides me? I've often thought of buying a whole series and trying to convince people of my sporting prowess. "Why yes, I was on the 1973 Scranton Women's Bowling League. We came in third that year. But that was just a warm-up for my softball success in 1979..."

When I travel to a new city, the first thing I do is scout out the thrift stores. (Utah thrift stores kick ass, especially for their selection of hideous Mormon mommy clothes. Ye gods, they should charge admission.) The more run-down the better... you get a flavor for the community by taking in their thrift stores. And really, to me, that's the whole point of travel... to experience something other than what you are used to... and what better place than a thrift store... In one specific, intentional space, you absorb experience, history, culture, art, society, and adventure. Because each trip is a loosely arranged contract... Your tour guide is incredibly hands-off... It's up to you to discover what's out there.