How Thrift Stores Have Ruined My Life

When I was in high school, I had a love for any clothing from the sixties and seventies and anything made of polyester, especially those flowery polyester button up shirts with butterfly collars. During homecoming week, we had a sixties day, but for me everyday was sixties dress-up day. If it wasn't at least 50% polyester, it wasn't kosher. Anywho, nobody in their right mind wore that stuff at the time so needless to say you couldn't buy them at the mall. Well, one day I discovered that I could go to a thrift store and buy an entire wardrobe of polyester blend for under $10.00 and I was hooked. Twelve years later I'm still addicted. (Don't worry, I grew out of that polyester stage when I got to college.) However, now I can't even shop the clearance racks at Wal-Mart without muttering in disgust "They want $2.00 for this? Shaw! That's just highway robbery !" It's horrible really. I'm a spend thrift on everything! I buy generic at the grocery store,so much so that my husband asks "Are these real Oreos?" And of course, they aren't. I add more dumplins to my chicken and dumplins so that a bag of chicken lasts four meals as opposed to three,but there's still enough meat that Jody doesn't start to panic. I freak out if Jody wakes me up and says "Hey, hon, bought you something!" Such was the case at 4:00 in the morning this last Saturday when he woke me up to hand me the biggest bread machine I had ever laid eyes on. I had been wanting one for a long time and here it was. I did better than I usually do ,however, my first response being "Oh, hon,thanks", my second being "How much was it?" Even if we had had a million bucks in the bank (which we don't so don't ask for a loan)I'd still freak out from sheer habit. It makes me feel horrible that I couldn't just say thanks and panicked on the inside. And its all because , as a teenager, I embraced the thrift store culture that teaches us its wrong to pay more than $4.00 for anything. By the way, I found a copy of "Oh the Places You Will Go" by Dr. Seuss in mint condition for 50 cents and a copy of Paul Revere's Ride by Longfellow beautifully illustrated for $1.00 in great condition and it was buy one get one at the Good Samaritans today on Womens shirts! I walked away with 4 for me and 2 for Jody. But can you believe they wanted $2.00 for some of them! Shaw! Highway Robbery!