Another week-and another shopping trip with the S.O. God forbid we might actually do something useful on a Saturday-like play golf.
Today though we decided to liven it up a bit by exploring some. The weather this morning was beautiful-albeit somewhat cold. So off we set for the town of Arab AL. After its recent trashing in the media- I wanted to see the place. The S.O. was in the mood to hit their thrift shops.
The S.O. loves thrift shops. They are the closest approximation here to what they call “recycle shops” in Japan-but sadly our thrift shops are nothing near as good as the ones in Japan. Personally, I hate going to them-but if it keeps us from spending money-well then it can’t be a totally bad thing.
I do have to give the S.O. her due-she has an incredible knack for finding the diamond in the rough in these places. She has a good eye and does not just grab any old thing. She’s brought some good things home for very little money. That’s an instinct I like to encourage.
So we went to her favorite one here in Shopping Mall, then set off for Arab. Bounced around between a couple of antique stores and the Salvation Army store. Thought it was kind of odd that the Salvation Army store had the following sign posted:
Unattended children will be captured and used for medical experimentation.
You never know if they are kidding or not.
Fortunately, just about all of these places have books-lots of old books. So I get something to do while she sifts through racks of clothing and other things. Usually, I know we are in for a long siege when she sees the plates.
As I peruse the book section a couple of observations come to mind:
1) Readers Digest must have made a fortune on its Condensed Book series, judging by the number of those volumes that end up on the shelves of thrift shops. Probably loads of people bought them at the same time and the younger generation gave them away cleaning out the attic or the garage, or both.
2) A lot of people bought the book Scruples back in the day. The book had an incredibly dirty opening set of chapters-not that I would turn right to them as I look at the books today. 🙂
3) For all the popularity of the Left Behind series-it sure gets thrown out a lot. The devout must buy the book and then throw it away to lighten the load for the journey to the apocalypse.
4) Old National Geographics is a great way to kill time waiting for the S.O.
We got off fairly light today-no really big purchases and we got to see some countryside along the way. Looked as if this was the place to buy land if were so inclined-saw lots of houses sitting on what looked like a couple of acres. Lots of houses with boat docks on the lake too-but everyone knows those are big bucks.
I’d also point out that not one, not one single store, was devoid of customers today. In fact, it seems to my untrained eye that the volume of people shopping in the thrift stores was up from what it was last summer.
Sign of the economic times perhaps?
