So being called a "snob" is a word that is very foreign to my lexicon. Now I admit that when it comes to beer, OK, I'm a snob (I only drink micro brews) and yes, I suppose cars too, although I don't know why as I only drive Land Rovers?
For everything else I usually buy what I like, I don't care if it's from Nordstrom or Walmart. I don't wear the latest and greatest...I just want something that will last and is a good value, but it has to be new.
When it comes to value, my wife is the epitome of the thrifty shopper and she doesn't care if it's new or not, she just want's to save money...which is a good thing and probably why we live in a house instead of an apartment!!
As you all know, clothes are expensive and when you have growing kids it can be a budget buster, so from an early age she started to shop at our local thrift stores. I never minded thrift stores for the kids, or anyone else, but you could never get me near one. My perception was who wants someone else's hand me downs, they might be gross!
She would always come home with new clothes for the kids and treasures for herself, usually some glassware that she just had to have! (Most of which are now in a cabinet in our garage where they have been since the day they came home!!)
I would always be invited, but my response was always the same, "No" as I stuck my nose in the air, which would bring the rhetorical "You're a snob" to which I would reply with pride, "while yes.... yes, I am!!"
As the years past, my indignation towards thrift-store's never faltered, but, my kids became infected with their mother's thrift-store virus. When my oldest son went off to college he carried on Mom's tradition, whenever he was home on break it was off to the local Goodwill, an hour later he'd come home with a huge bag of goodies...."Josh, how much did you spend...?"....."$30.00!"..."you got all that for 30 bucks...WOW!"...he must have had $400.00 worth of clothes and gear. I began to think maybe you can find cool things at thrift-stores.
Every year we travel over to Lake Chelan for a family vacation/reunion with my parents and sisters family. Chelan is a beautiful place, it's great for relaxing and visiting wineries, but in October there isn't a lot to do on the lake itself...so you have to find other things to keep your sanity.
One of the things we do as a family is hit the Church bazaar in Manson and the local thrift stores in Chelan. Most of the stuff is a collection old books, tools and cast off clothes ( I can usually find a gawd awful sweatshirt as a gag gift for Christmas), but occasionally you find a rare treasure...one time we found a newspaper from Man's first walk on the moon...for free in a box of papers they were throwing out!
But, the coupe d tat was a few years ago when my parents told us about the Lake Chelan Senior Center thrift shop in Chelan Falls. We hadn't been there before so we thought we'd give it a try. This thrift shop was not your typical collection of hand-me down clothes, no siree, it was a collection of hand-me down Christmas ornaments and coffee makers...but at least no clothes!
With low expectations, I begin to look through their haphazard collection of dinnerware when something caught my eye. I instantly recognized the iridescent glow and supple contours emerging from a knife block...I picked up the block and started to examine the contents...hummm, these look like...no they couldn't be.... Cutco knives? I look at the price, 3 bucks, no way...these must be imitation for that price and I put them back. I start to look at more junk and then this little voice inside says "you better go look again!".
So I listen to my little voice (Yes, I hear voices) and decide to take a closer look, I remove the tape holding them in and pull one out and low and behold it's a genuine Cutco dinner knife, my jaw drops as I examine them and see they are all indeed Cutco dinner knives and they're brand new (these retail for $37.00 each and there are 8 of them!!)
I instantly recognize the handcrafted paddles and beautifully carved figurines. Somehow, buried in this sea of plastic...is a handcrafted German made Manger Pyramid, I pick it up marvel at the quality and then look at the price....it's $8.00 (retails for at least $125.00!), thank you Lake Chelan Senior Center!!
Suffice it to say that after leaving the Lake Chelan Senior Center thrift-store with $421.00 worth of treasure for $11.00 I felt pretty good and my opinion of thrift-stores rose dramatically. Even after all that, I still stuck my nose in the air when it came to buying clothes. However, that all changed last year when I was in a meeting with my boss.
I was admiring his shirt and asked..."John, nice shirt, where did you get it?"..."Goodwill!"..."are you serious?"..."yeah, I go there all the time on my way home from work"...I was impressed!
It was at that moment I finally had my thrift-store epiphany, I figured if my GQ/ Mercedes driving boss can shop for clothes at a thrift-store I suppose I can give it a try too...and I did...and I liked it...a lot! I found so many good deals on clothes I started bragging to everyone as if I had invented the wheel or something. Most people just looked at me with indignation as if to say "duh...you're fifty years old and you just figured out thrift-stores are a good place to shop?"
So now I can say I'm infected with the virus and usually try to buy all my clothes at the thrift-store before I shop anywhere else. I've gone from being a thrift-store snob to someone who even buys thrift-store shoes (two pairs of almost brand new Nike Free's ($100.00 ea retail!) at the Bellevue Goodwill for $10.00 ea). Scoring Nike's is great, but there are perils associated with thrift-store shopping, if your in too big a hurry, sometimes things can fall through the cracks...literally.
One day as summer approached, I was looking for some shorts and found what I thought were brand new swim trunks, I quickly paid for them and when I got home, decided I better try them on (should have done that at the store!). So I try them on (without looking in them first) and they fit fine, so taking them off I look down and am horrified to see that the previous owner must have worn them pretty high and didn't use any toilet paper!!
(Thankful I was still wearing underwear) I quickly toss the trunks into the washing machine hoping that the "skid marks" are just stains, but, they weren't as they washed out just fine, which grosses me out even more knowing nobody washed them before donating them!
It's the kind of incident that could shake my new found fondness for thrift-store's to it's core, but like water off a ducks back I shrugged it off! (But, I admit I don't buy swim trunks anymore!)
My affinity for thrift-stores is still strong, so strong that while Dixie and I were on vacation in San Diego we spent half a day visiting San Diego's finest thrift-stores. I can hardly wait to show off what I found to the chagrin of the many Seahawk's fans I know...I'll give you a hint it's scarlet and gold!
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