I had my first thrifting experience on Saturday. (For those of you who don’t subscribe to the urban dictionary, “thrift” has now metamorphosed into a verb.) Well, technically, not my first. I went twice in high school. My usual shopping experience consists of a plan: I know what I need; I run in (usually to Old Navy) to the designated area; I try on; I check-out; I’m back in the car. Wshoo. I check my stop-timer. Have I beat my previous time? Thrifting is a completely different realm. You shuffle through five-point-five million clothes. Personally, flipping through so many crammed clothes as the hangers screech across the metal bar can only be done while being distracted by my friends’ stories of the week.
There may or may not be a dressing room. Our first stop had such a room. I pulled on and off more clothes in that time than a supermodel at a runway show. I squeezed into jeans that I needed a can-opener to remove. I tried on a lady-in-red dress, a Hawaiian patterned dress that matches one of my husband’s favorite shirts, and a pirate flair-sleeved shirt (pirate blood courses through my veins). The second destination contained no dressing room. We yanked the jeans up under our skirts and slipped dresses on over our clothes.
The clothes may or may not have been in fashion within the last five years. As my friend, Christina, said, “It’s sad when the clothes in a thrift shop look nicer [and trendier, I might add] than the clothes in my closet.” The first shop had last week’s Express garments while the second shop included more of the vest and below-the-waist sundresses of the eighties’ variety. But the second place had great jeans and a few a la mode dresses if you were willing to pick (which, four hours after our starting time, I wasn’t – I was growing less optimistic about dress possibilities by the cloth).
I got home to show my new treasures to my husband: a new pair of jeans, softly worn yet sans holes or tears, a new white linen breezy blouse, a surfer girl fitted tee, and a red tank top.
“Because you don’t have enough tank tops,” my husband laughed. (I’m a sucker for the built-in shelf bra.)
“Yes, but I didn’t have one that is red. With a handkerchief pattern. And wooden beads.”
All of these finds for $15.
That, in a nutshell, is thrifting.
Now if I could only find a shirt that reads “Drama Queen.”