I figured I'd give Goodwill a try since I've been to a couple of Salvation Army's and a privately owned thrift store already. I saw quite a few things at the Salvation Army that I would have liked to buy, but they didn't accept plastic, and I rarely carry cash. I left empty handed, making a mental note to visit an ATM before returning.
At the thrift store, I found my reading chair and a few other odds and ends.
The Goodwill was a cool store, though a little more expensive than the other thrift stores I'd been to thus far. By "more expensive", I mean a shirt was $5 instead of $1.75. Not exactly a budget breaker, but a lil' more expensive. I found lots of wonderful things here, and I had to take care not to just purchase every interesting thing I saw. The two things I just couldn't pass up are this cool little tea pot
and this pretty tea cup (I just love tea cups and coffee cups!).
The tea pot is particularly awesome because it has a fine mesh strainer going across the inside of the spout, so you just throw your tea leaves in with the water, let it brew, and pour right into the cup. Ingenious! I paid a whole dollar for it, wondering how someone could have no longer wanted that little gem! The cup I bought holds the exact right amount of liquid dispensed by the tea pot. Lovely!
My boss has recently started enforcing a business casual style dress code on me, so I chose two business casual type shirts to wear to work (if I have to buy clothes specifically for work, I am NOT spending a lot of money on them). Nothing really noteworthy, just a couple of shirts. After I picked up the shirts and was preparing to leave before the next little bit of awesomeness could catch my eye and beg me to take it home with me, I saw It.
It was hanging in the 'plus size' section (which I still peruse, though I don't need to buy plus size clothing anymore). It was hanging a little off by itself, with a sister. It was the ugliest shirt I'd ever seen in my life. It was a size 4XL button down shirt with a collar and these big floppy sleeves with no buttons on the sides to tether them shut. Oh, no, these sleeves were free as a women's libber burning her first bra. The shirt itself was a diagonal plaid motley of mismatched colours. The predominant colour was a porta-potty shade of aqua, interlaced by pea-green and neon orange stripes. There was also gold thread outlining each of the green stripes. It was absolutely hideous! I picked it up, marvelling at the aberration of fashion in my hand. The tags were still on it, meaning someone had actually bought this ugly duckling shirt for someone. I could only think it HAD to be a joke. People walking past me were making, "Are you seriously thinking about buying that?!" faces at me. I didn't know. WAS I going to buy it? I set it down to check out its sister.
The shirt hanging next to the Thing That Should Not Be was not quite as ugly, but a real close runner up. The only thing that saved it was the decently-matched colour scheme. It was diagonal striped with several shades of pink ranging from dark to light, and then white stripes, with silver thread outlining each stripe. It had the same free-flapping sleeves as its sister; in fact, it was the exact same shirt, only bigger.
I decided this was definitely the second ugliest shirt in the world. I looked at the two of them, side by side. I had already made up my mind that i was going to buy one of them. I almost chose the Ugliest, until I noticed how coarse and scratchy the material was. I had plans to wear this shirt around the house as a comfy-shirt, but if the shirt wasn't comfy then the purpose was defeated. The Pink Uglie was much softer, so I picked it up and took it with me.
I paid $8 for that shirt. That's right, I paid $3 more than the average (and better looking) shirt sold in that store for this abomination. It's now my favourite thing to wear around the house.
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