thrifty
I have a love-hate relationship with thrifting.
It can be a lot of fun. Once in a while, you can find something really stellar. Like the grandfather clock we thrifted for $80. Okay, sometimes it doesn't chime. It's still a grandfather clock.
And if you need something trivial, especially something that will probably be beat on by your small children, for example, why buy new?
On the other hand, god, I hate how thrift stores smell. What is that smell? Dust, mold, dead moths? When I hit sixty, is my house magically going to start smelling like that? Will I not notice? Will everyone leave my house saying, "Ew, that smell -- what IS that smell at Grandma's house?"
I also find the spread at the thrift stores depressing. Endless rows of blankets and afghans and bedspreads -- which sounds like a good thing -- except they're all made of acrylic or polyester or some other unnatural fiber that is stinky and scratchy and gaudily colored. I would probably faint if I ever found a plain wool blanket at a thrift store -- except it might be from the lack of oxygen in the dust-filled air.
When I look at a lot of the things -- shabby shoes twenty years out of date, old cracked dinnerware, and souvenir toothpick holders -- I can't help but think, "This is only here because the person who owned it died." Yeah, that's charming.
So we thrifted all day Saturday. The kids didn't seem to mind too much being dragged into and out of every crappy thrift store in town. I wanted to go to consignment stores, too, but we didn't end up doing that. We found what we were after (an end table and a magazine stand), and the kids brought home two appalling plastic headed baby dolls, which they are lavishing with more love and affection than any nice fabric dolly in the house.
The end table and the stand were $4 and $5, respectively; the dollies were $0.79 and $0.99, and we also got them an old children's book I used to have as a child, in great condition, for ... I don't know what. A buck? The stand is pretty beat up, but it's solid wood.
The end table has the coolest water stain ever. In the middle of the bleached pale spot is the perfect dark imprint of a razor blade. The old fashioned kind you use in a double edge safety razor. It gives the otherwise ordinary table a film noir aesthetic; I like to imagine it saw some sordid scenes before it ended up in our TV room.
I don't believe it did, mind you; I just like to imagine it.
It makes it that much more humorously ironic when I plop my knitting and my tea down on top of it.
It can be a lot of fun. Once in a while, you can find something really stellar. Like the grandfather clock we thrifted for $80. Okay, sometimes it doesn't chime. It's still a grandfather clock.
And if you need something trivial, especially something that will probably be beat on by your small children, for example, why buy new?
On the other hand, god, I hate how thrift stores smell. What is that smell? Dust, mold, dead moths? When I hit sixty, is my house magically going to start smelling like that? Will I not notice? Will everyone leave my house saying, "Ew, that smell -- what IS that smell at Grandma's house?"
I also find the spread at the thrift stores depressing. Endless rows of blankets and afghans and bedspreads -- which sounds like a good thing -- except they're all made of acrylic or polyester or some other unnatural fiber that is stinky and scratchy and gaudily colored. I would probably faint if I ever found a plain wool blanket at a thrift store -- except it might be from the lack of oxygen in the dust-filled air.
When I look at a lot of the things -- shabby shoes twenty years out of date, old cracked dinnerware, and souvenir toothpick holders -- I can't help but think, "This is only here because the person who owned it died." Yeah, that's charming.
So we thrifted all day Saturday. The kids didn't seem to mind too much being dragged into and out of every crappy thrift store in town. I wanted to go to consignment stores, too, but we didn't end up doing that. We found what we were after (an end table and a magazine stand), and the kids brought home two appalling plastic headed baby dolls, which they are lavishing with more love and affection than any nice fabric dolly in the house.
The end table and the stand were $4 and $5, respectively; the dollies were $0.79 and $0.99, and we also got them an old children's book I used to have as a child, in great condition, for ... I don't know what. A buck? The stand is pretty beat up, but it's solid wood.
The end table has the coolest water stain ever. In the middle of the bleached pale spot is the perfect dark imprint of a razor blade. The old fashioned kind you use in a double edge safety razor. It gives the otherwise ordinary table a film noir aesthetic; I like to imagine it saw some sordid scenes before it ended up in our TV room.
I don't believe it did, mind you; I just like to imagine it.
It makes it that much more humorously ironic when I plop my knitting and my tea down on top of it.
posted by bizarrogirl at
11:56 AM
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