Rough Draft: Thrifty Finds

When I was a little girl I had a pink and turquoise plastic jewelry box. It had little heart clasps that opened the box to reveal a small mirror and a tangle of sparkly jewelry. This jewelry box housed my treasured stick-on-earrings, one set for each day of the week, my frilly and lacy hair bows, my assortment of Barbie figurines from McDonald's Happy Meals, and rocks collected from the playground. Every time I opened the jewelry box I would carefully sift through all the items, taking satisfaction in each prized possession. Sometimes I would examine the playground pebbles like I was performing my own important science experiment, hoping to find evidence for the existence of dinosaurs or a fossil of an undiscovered species. Other times I would trace my finger along the waves of the ribbons on my hair bows and put them all in my hair at once. I would pretend I was a fussy princess and try on different combinations of bracelets, necklaces, and plastic jewel rings and strut around my room giving orders to my dazed stuffed animals. Then, when it was time to play something else, I would take off my jewelry, collect the pebbles, unclasp the bows from my hair and put everything back into the jewelry box. The heart clasps would snap shut and my treasures inside would be secured safely.

Fifteen years have passed since I have thought of my pink and turquoise jewelry box. I am amazed at the vivid recollection of the assortment of treasures I had in the box. I never really thought much about it until I saw my pink and turquoise jewelry box sitting on a shelf in the jumble of toys at Goodwill. When I recognized the jewelry box on the shelf, my heart skipped and leaped. I remembered the feeling of giddiness when I was little right before I would open the box to reveal all of my valuables. I approached the jewelry box, almost nervous, and opened it. I did not know what I was expecting when I opened the box, but I was suddenly cheerless and disappointed. I saw the mirror on the inside of the box. It had smudges and finger prints of its previous owner and the rest of it was empty. It was sterile. It was desolate. There was no magic or playfulness it once had. It was like the jewelry box of my childhood was emptied of its treasures and placed irrelevantly on the messy and dusty shelf. I cleared a space for it, pushing aside the tacky plastic noise making toys, and rightfully making the jewelry box a place of its own. I wanted it to convey its spirit and magic to the next potential owner. I wanted the jewelry box to know it was loved. The jewelry box looked cared for and significant now that it had it was dusted off and had its own space. At the very least, I was satisfied with the cleaning and open space around the jewelry box and took a last look at a fond memory of my child hood and continued my adventure through the gently used toys and appliances.

I looked around at the random collection of items through the store. I wondered if they once had value like my pink and turquoise jewelry box had. I wondered if the other toys on the metal shelves felt deserted and unloved. I felt obligated to find an importance or value to each item, hopefully making it feel loved and wanted again. As I processed this thought a little girl wandered through the toy section. She shuffled through the toys, examining those of interest and pushing aside the others. Eventually, she selected a doll. She picked it up and held it at eye level, only inches from her face. The little girl traced the eyebrow and nose of the doll’s face and smoothed the dress it was wearing. “Cathleen!” Her father was calling her. She darted out of the aisle and proudly showed the doll to her father. She explained all the reasons as to why she should have the doll in a hurried and rapid Spanish speaking gasp. The father looked intently at the doll and nodded his head in approval as he handed the doll to his daughter. He continued to walk through the store and whistled while he kept an eye on his little girl skipping through the store.

I kept browsing through the used goods. A collection of shiny ceramic cows, dull plastic watering cans, a respected grandfather clock, and a framed Norman Rockwell print inhabited the walls and shelves. The dusty electronic section was composed of tangled phone cords, abused vacuums, forgotten toasters, naked lamps, and prehistoric computers. I weaved through the shelves and racks to the back of the store and found the furniture section. The lazy recliners, matching ‘His and Her’ chairs, and the stoic Captain’s chairs were all lined up like first graders waiting in the lunch line. I found a funny looking chair and sat. It was a rusty velvety orange sofa and smelled of dust and smoke. The velvet was worn and no longer soft on the arms of the chair. Parts of the fabric underneath showed around the corners. The cushion was so worn it surprised me as I continued to sit farther into the seat. Once I was comfortable I imagined the pervious owner of the chair sitting and relaxing, perhaps smoking a cigarette and watching television with the remote balanced on the arm of the chair. I looked at the chair next to me. It was a beige lazy boy recliner with dark stains on the arms and near the recliner lever on the side. It smelled like hard work and moths. The cyclical announcement startled my relaxed state: “Thank you Goodwill customers for shopping with us today. Friday and Saturday is the manager’s 99 cent sale on select items! The store hours are…”

I figured that was my cue to leave the furniture section and continue browsing. The clothing section reminded me of mazes on the back of cereal boxes. All the clothes were arranged in rows according to color and relative size. I could hear the sound of frantic browsing. It was the hangers scraping the metal racks. In order to get the item off the rack the rest of the clothes had to be shoved using the momentum of the entire upper half of the body and pushed aside. While the musty sweaters, elastic waist mommy jeans, and floppy t-shirts were on the congested racks, the fancy evening dresses were proudly hung on the walls of the store as if to declare they were better than everything else.

A man passed me while I was walking from the apparel section to the household goods. He walked with a slight gimp from hard work and had comb streaked hair. The expression on his face was serious and his eyes darted nervously from shelf to shelf. He was carrying two items, one in each hand. He had a framed piece of pale landscape art and an engraved wooden plaque. This man walked stiffly through the shelves and stopped. He slowly bent over to rest the art and wooden plaque against the shelf and wiped his hands along the sides of his pants. His eyes relaxed and he reached for map quietly resting on the shelf. He held the map in his hands for a few seconds and suddenly relaxed. He slowly and diligently unfolded the map and skimmed its contents. His face conjured a half smile as if he was reminiscing about a favorite pastime of his boyhood. With careful precision, the man folded the map to its original form, traced the corners with his finger, and made a space for it on the shelf. He aligned the map on the shelf so it no longer looked forgotten, but instead looked noble and dignified. The man stiffened again and reached for his items. As he shuffled away I could not help but wonder if he found his version of a pink and turquoise jewelry box. When he was out of sight, I went over to the area of the shelf where he found the map. There it was. The no longer forsaken item now purposefully took up space like it was loved again.

die-a-grams....

A pizza diagram. A map of pizza toppings. A guide to better understand a triangle shape piece of bread, cheese, and tomato sauce. This is one of my favorite diagrams. It is simple, easy to understand and color coded. I would have never thought of a piece of pizza as a diagram. Usually I just it and never stop to think that there part of a pizza that can be diagrammed and defined. Most of the other diagrams I see are in science textbooks and involve intense memorization. One I am currently working on is the plant cell. It has all sorts of parts and complex functions. Luckily a diagram just names the parts and not all the functions and purposes of each individual part. Whew. When I was a child I loved to assemble different lego figures and put things together like a barbie picnic set or a barbie Jacuzzi. My brother and I would split our allowance money and go to target to buy a lego kit. We would rush home and carefully empty the box of all the legos and open the instructions manual. My favorite part was matching the pieces and formations to those in the instruction booklet. Then as the different pieces and parts were put to together the entire lego spaceship would start looking like the flashy picture on the box. The end product would be carefully placed on the floor and admired for the next couple of days. Eventually the lego spaceship would crash in a lego star wars galactic war or pieces would be taken for another creation. Sometimes the diagram and instruction booklet would be found and the legos would be put back together again. Those were the good times--when diagrams made sense and they were not for memorizing and science oriented. (Unless, of course, the lego spaceship was modified into a spaceship/boat/car super hero vehicle.)

stranded old school style....

I would prefer to be stuck at the bottom of a dried up well as to avoid sand and intense sunlight. I would prefer to have with me more than five cassette tapes, but if that's all I get I will take it over nothing. The five albums I would choose would be: Under the Blacklight, Challengers, Begin to Hope, Wet From Birth, and The Information. (This was a very difficult choice. As I wheeled through my ipod I was torn between a few other albums, but those that were not selected are for the next time I get stranded in a dried up well.) Under the Blacklight is one of my absolute favorite albums by Rilo Kiley. I love the sound of Jenny Lewis's voice. (You can tell she is a redhead when she sings.) I also like the variety of sound from song to song in the album. It goes from hard rock to somewhat folky to soft/chill music. The New Pornographers who wrote Challengers, is a band I just discovered this year. I like how voices fit together and the music is easy listening. I can be in any kind of mood and enjoy listening to The New Pornographers. Regina Spektor is one of my all time favorite female artists. Her album, Begin to Hope was gift from my best friend. I fell in love with the first song, Fidelity, and as the songs kept playing they got better and better. Not only is Regina a talented artist, but her music is fun to sing to. Ah, The Faint. It was hard to pick my favorite Faint album, but I ended up choosing Wet from Birth. Their other albums have a theme of death, sex, and birth. I choose the birth album because if I was stranded in a dried up well, I would choose the more upbeat album. As for The Information by Beck, I had to go with one of the best artists in my ipod.

thrifting...

I like to be thrifty. My mother says I am frugal. I like to be practical. So, when it comes to buying clothes, I like them cheap. Not the dirty or less quality kind of cheap, but the worn in and well used kind of cheap. That’s why I sometimes, well most times, shop at goodwill, the Salvation Army, or the thrift stores in downtown Omaha. This kind of shopping is tricky. It requires going through racks and racks of acid wash mommy jeans, musty sweaters, and floppy t-shirts. I love it. In the mean time there is a frantic search for that one unique item, for less than five dollars of course. It gets tiring pushing the clothes aside and looking at the tag for size and price. However, when I am with friends it makes that search all the more enjoyable. The really ugly and revolting 1980’s blazers or formal dresses are pulled off the rack and commented on, tried on, and brought back to life. I or one of my friends will come out of the dressing room enacting the clothing. A neon-colored swish suit would require a silly workout routine and an impression of Richard Simons. A gaudy eighties formal dress, with an excess of poof sleeves, would be considered the next gown for prom or just to accompany plastic jewelry or tidal wave bangs. Most of the ugly or extremely unfashionable items found are eventually put back on the rack. Then there comes the time that all the hard work pays off when I find the thrifty deal between the compressed racks of clothing. It usually ends up being a pair of designer jeans that fit perfectly for five dollars or a sweater for ninety-nine cents. Whatever the item, the hunt and pursuit of these thrifty items are always an unpredictable adventure. You never know what you can find between the racks.