just a little further up the austin peay (why does that name make my skin crawl a little every time i have to write it?) highway there's a pretty nice goodwill in a shopping plaza, that, like almost all of the goodwills i have ever been to, looks like it was originally something else that goodwill just moved into and occupied. as i mentioned in the last post, salvation army does this too, but whereas salvos usually leave the local flavor of the previous occupant more or less intact, goodwills have this weird way of making their stores oddly homogenous by blocking off most of the floor space into a sort of false warehouse in the back where they process most of their incoming donations - i have better pictures from the next one we visited so i'll touch on this again soon, i was just reminded of it again when we visited this one
three steps in the door and it's already silly hat time for taylor. undeterred, i proceeded to the back of the store, where i found
one of the things that i simultaneously love and hate about living in the south. there are god damned jimmy swaggart records EVERYWHERE. cracks me up to think that hypocritical asshole had such a prolific recording career, and the cover pictures are universally pimptacular and hilarious to look at, but eventually always saddens me to think about the fact that he sold that many damn records in the first place, and that the people who bought all the damn things and attended his churches and sermons and whatever are still out there walking around, or at least produced and raised kids who are like my age now, some of whom i'm sure haven't realized that their parents were borderline insane and you know what i'm going to stop talking about this now because i will probably offend someone and anyway what could i say about jimmy swaggart that hasn't already been said?
also saw a decent sized collection of eight tracks, which you don't really see that much any more, partially because they never sold all THAT well in the first place, also because the tape material they used to record onto is like one molecule thick and breaks with almost no encouragement (as i found out when i went to raid my parents' old eight track collection in the early nineties) so they just don't hold up all that well. still tempting, especially when you think about getting bobby bland tapes, bb king, muddy waters, all of which they had here for like a buck a shot i think.
they also seemed to have a ton of hats, but maybe it was just the way they were displayed, i don't know. i don't even bother trying on hats at thrift stores (not only because these were predominantly women's hats, mind you) because i have, hands down, the biggest god damned head of anyone you will ever meet, ever. it's like some kind of optical illusion because it doesn't look all that big, but i promise you, no hats fit my head, ever. i have to buy them online, it's horribly embarrassing and if i wasn't on my fourth sparks i probably wouldn't even mention it but hey, this is what happens when you stop being polite...and start getting real.
they also also seemed to have a billion dishes but again that may have just been the way they were arranged. also i don't know if this shows in the picture but this blueberry pie dish has a recipe for blueberry pie on the top of it, and my question is this: wouldn't the recipe be obscured once you began to actually place the ingredients for the pie into the dish? i'm just picturing a suburban housewife with no real gift for forethought, halfway though the preparatory process for a sweet delicious blueberry pie, happily dumping the ingredients into her happy little dish, realizing only too late that she's just covered the only road map she had to completing the pie in question, just balling up her little fists in rage and vowing right then and there to dump the damn thing off at the goodwill next chance she gets. maybe that's a little too involved of a fantasy for one god damn dish, but what can i say, that's how i roll.
there were some great finds here though, tangents notwithstanding, this is a really great store and definitely worth the drive. glancing around i noticed mens tshirts were $1.59, and generally everything i saw was just a cut below the usual goodwill pricing scheme, clothes and books and housewares and all of it, so this place definitely comes highly recommended. i also found an opportunity to expand my modest but growing vintage luggage collection - i've taken to storing my books in them, as the cheaply made cardboard boxes (does anyone know when they started making beer cases out of like card stock? i used to be able to stand on an empty case of beer when i was a kid without it even budging, now i could rip one in half without even trying. what happened?) that i'm currently using die off one by one. this set was great. four bucks a piece i think, and taylor was totally jealous, until i handed her this:
the picture totally does not do it justice. this flask is a thing of beauty. amply proportioned, unlike some flasks where you take two sips (two more sips!) and the damn thing is empty, curved to fit snugly in a coat or jean pocket, manufactured in england, covered in SEAL SKIN (i shit you not), obviously if not an antique then at least a quality piece of equipment, priced at i think three dollars. three bucks. three. i already have three or four flasks at home that i almost never use (straight out of the bottle for yours truly, thanks) so i passed this off, and much to my satisfaction one k. taylor davis was proud to take it home with her.
my big find was this GORGEOUS children's book that contains no words, just a hauntingly beautiful series of drawings that i'm not so far removed from my own childhood to be unable to appreciate. if i were ever to have kids (nope) this would be a book i would raise them with. totally invites you to create your own story, and as an added cuteness bonus was written, or rather composed i should say, by the author for his own daughter. awwwwwwww i know
i kind of glossed over the rest of the books, they were just sort of okay and between the flask and the suitcases and the little garlic press i got and yada yada i just wasn't feeling it. this place's big gap though (like a lot of other goodwills for some reason) is the furniture...they had like three couches and one kind of nice but overpriced desk and one cute little rocking chair that taylor was looking at until we saw it was like $40 and had been assembled in malaysia, presumably by nine year olds working for negative forty seven dollars a second or whatever it is they do over there. all in all a good stop though...but still no kitchen table? hmmm...the tension was beginning to build.
total spending:
garlic press, suitcases, one book. i lost my itemized receipt so i don't know for sure if that was all but i think so: $13.06
plus $15.48 previous equals
$28.54 so far.
Goodwill
3830 Austin Peay Hwy
Memphis, TN 38128
(901) 380-3235
hours:
m-sat 9-6
sun 12-6
no real specials or sales that i saw, although it's worth pointing out (DISCLAIMER: AT NO POINT IN TIME HAVE I EVER ADVOCATED THEFT OF ANY VARIETY, ESPECIALLY FROM CHARITABLE ORGANIZATIONS) that the checkout people could not have cared less about me or anything that i was buying, up to and including the point of (REREAD PRIOR DISCLAIMER PLEASE) not even looking inside the suitcases that i purchased. my conscience won't let me do anything with that information but your decisions are up to you.
music: lite rock, soft hits, whatever the hell you call it
madonna "crazy for you"
that "waiting on the world to change" song that completely rips off "sexual healing" - sounds like john mayer, i wouldn't put it past him, at least he ripped off something good
and of course, "we are family." right up there with the wolf picture in terms of necessity for your thrift store to be valid
i will say this about lite rock, A.M. Gold, all that seventies nonsense that they constantly seem to play at thrift stores...not that i like any of it all that much, but you really can kind of tune it all out and relegate it to the back burner of your mind and sort of coast along on the wave of oddly familiar but still kind of distasteful diatonic harmony radio music that you immediately forget afterwards (i take notes on all this stuff in case that wasn't clear, is the only reason i remember ninety percent of it), which i think is maybe the point of it all.
okay on to the final goodwill (kind of like the final countdown, but a little less rockin') on stage road, finally in bartlett proper i think. then the real excitement begins. take off your socks now so they won't be blown off later
d
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