Born to Thrift

(re-run)

It was 12^th grade, senior year in high school when my partner, Colleen, and I drove across town to find some stuff at the DAV for our English project. Once I saw what a dollar or two could buy at a second-hand store, I was hooked.

In college, I needed a Halloween costume. I took the bus to the thrift store in downtown Ames and found a royal blue lace dress from the 40’s for $5.00. It was a whole week’s allowance, but it was my size and perfect for a gangster’s girlfriend to wear. Hermie went as a gangster with a toy machine gun and everyone asked me all night long where I got the dress.

I left that dress behind for my sorority sisters (it was worn by many) and thought I was done dressing up. Ha ha! My friends wanted to dress up well into their twenties. Two girlfriends and I dressed up as the Three Blind Mice. We spray-painted white canes, wore sunglasses, and I made the furry vests with big pink buttons.

I got married at 30 and went to a Halloween party two weeks after my oldest child was born. My husband was the woman cheerleader and I was the football player. Where did I get the costumes? Thrift store, but long before the party.

When she turned six, she had the dress-up-tea-party birthday like no other.

My kids had a costume box like no one’s business. Little did I know that the summer of 1999, my three kids whiled away their lazy summer days dressing up the rescue dog and the Dachshund, taking photos of every pose. I used those hilarious photos in my author visit talks for years to come.

I opened a shop and sold antiques, dishes, linens, and other fun stuff, mostly from thrift stores.

I dressed the cast of Grease when my youngest was in the play in 8^th grade.

After divorce, my boyfriend and I went as an angel (him) and a devil (me) and came in second in the Hilton Hotel dance party Halloween costume contest on their outdoor deck. I froze in my red slip and boa, but we did win a gift certificate to the hotel’s restaurant.

I accessorized Blackhawk Jazz with white fur items and dressed the parts photos for the Blackhawk Chorus brochure for years: the tenors as angels, bakers, and soldiers in the Nutcracker Suite. When the new director changed my part to alto, I dressed the girls as angels and early 60’s glam girls with white elbow gloves. Disclaimer – some of the altos needed no help from me and dressed themselves. When I wanted to dress them as wassailers this fall, that’s where they drew the line. Seriously, I could’ve dressed all twenty of the women who showed up for the photo.

But I digress.

Now I buy hilarious little thrift store outfits and send them to my grandson on the East Coast. I found a Tigger costume, some Star Wars and Batman pajamas, tiny vests and bow ties, all the good stuff for not much money.

You could say I’ve been thrifting my whole life. Now it’s in style big time, because it spares the planet of manufactured stuff from China and all that packaging (at my house, anyway).

Some people throw away dozens of Amazon boxes each month. I collect thrift store receipts, recycle the bags to my local thrift store, and reuse all the padded mailing envelopes from the year I judged a picture book contest. I’m a bit into recycling, saving the planet, and saving some money, too.

I bought a heavily beaded denim jacket at a thrift store for half off on Senior Thursdays, so $12.50. I took off all the beads to reveal the embroidery underneath. Three compliments and counting as it becomes my main winter coat in sunny California.

Thanks, thrift stores everywhere!