Sing Your Life

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“And make no mistake, my friend
Your pointless life will end
But before you go
Can you look at the truth?
You have a lovely singing voice
A lovely singing voice”

–Steven Patrick Morrissey

So, remember that job that I was telling you about, that job that they had only previously hired men to do? Well, I got it. I am sorting donations at a local thrift store. It is hard and brainless work, but not necessarily work you would need a man to do. In fact, I would say that women would be better suited to it, because women are generally less-squeamish about the stuff I keep encountering, or at least less immature. On Sunday someone donated a pack of adult diapers. I have had two babies “via hoo-hoo” as they say in medical parlance, and I realize that I am probably looking down the barrel of wetting myself someday. It happens. But there was an awful lot of “hur hur hur-ing” when they discovered the diapers.

Some stuff is pretty hur-worthy, though. Last night we discovered a “light bondage kit,” which included a tiny whip, some leather pasties with a tube of glue with which to attach the pasties, and “erotic oils.” Whenever the guys find stuff like this there is a lot of elbowing and snickering and a few of them will glance at me, to see what my reaction is going to be. But I am pretty unflappable, as you may guess. They were debating about where to put the kit when I chimed in. “Housewares, definitely housewares.” A more sensible guy I work with stepped in and said we just couldn’t sell things like that and took it away to pitch out.

Yesterday was a Special Bonus Day, because we also found a vibrator, too, one of the classic “tube” kinds that take batteries and have a screw-on base. “It came with its own little bag,” said the young guy who found it. “I hope it won’t be missed,” I said. This time we could file it under “housewares” for the pricers to find, because our man the voice of reason wasn’t around.

This job is different than I thought it was going to be. Can I tell you I have never made minimum wage, even before I had my degrees? And now I am. I have always somehow done at least a dollar or so better, even as a punk kid. Last summer I was doing contract writing for $18 an hour, and now I am making less than half that. But we are so scraping by here that even this crappy job will make a difference.

Another thing that surprised me about this job is how it is having an immediate emotional impact on me. I think I am having some hormonally-induced mood swings from being away from Strudel for so many hours, but seeing all this stuff is also screwing with me, too. Sometimes I open a bag and realize that I am seeing someone’s entire shoe collection, I can just tell. Which they won’t need anymore. Because they are dead. It makes me think about the mental state of the person who had to gather up all those shoes and make the decision to bring them to the store. Was it their mother’s shoes? Was it a person who volunteered to do it because everyone else was too bereaved? Were they perhaps saying, “Hooray! The old bat’s dead, now I can help myself to her Kandinsky prints!”

Or I open a box and see a cross-section of someone’s clothes and items that look exactly like stuff that an old friend I lost touch with would have worn and liked. Or I find a collection that looks like stuff you would take to a lover’s house to make your stay there more comfortable. You know, for “your” drawer. And then one day it goes badly and you break up, and then you take their comb and stupid CDs and cardigan to the thrift store, because you don’t want to think about their ass anymore.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I am being affected by other peoples’ memories.

Also, the sheer amount of stuff we get in…Christ. I think every time I work we fill up about three Dumpster-sized bins with clothes alone. And I don’t go out to the front much, but it seems to blast right out the door again. I have long boggled over the facts and figures about how much we in Western “developed” countries own and consume, but now I think that we could probably stop making stuff for about ten years and this country would still have nice, suitable crap circulating. For me, thrifting started as a fashionable thing, when I was in high school and had a lot of money to blow. And in Illinois holy shit, people will not touch western wear with a ten-foot lassoo, so, hey, more for me. Later, in college, it became a matter of economics and I only shopped new when I had to. Now it is starting to seem like a responsible political choice. I never thought I would become one of THOSE people, but there I am facing down a pile of decent (and not-so-decent) clothes, some of which still have the tags on them, that is three times as tall as I am, every time I go to work. Holy shit.

The downside, other than the fact that it is actual work, ugh, is all the detritus, tangible and airborne, that comes in with donations. There is a copious amount of dust and mold, of course, but there is always a bunch of fiddly crap we can’t do a thing with. Broken stuff, odd plastic or metal parts that don’t appear to match anything and aren’t really even recognizable. A coworker ran across a used tampon. An appliance that looks good, except for the fact that it is filthy, such as the George Foreman grill that came in on Sunday covered with burger schmutz. Stuffed animals with dried puke on them, bedraggled and dirty. We all know that a lot of people seem to be just trying to avoid making dump runs. We probably throw out about one-third of the stuff we’re getting.

Another sort-of downside to this is that the satellite radio station is almost always set to ’80s mix. So I am hearing the catchy-ass stuff that was on the radio when I was a kid. It’s fun to sing along but last night, when I was rocking out to “Living on a Prayer” I realized that that bad, awful Bon Jovi Song has become my life. And when a schmaltzy Bon Jovi song could be “your” song, it’s time to change your life.

Well, it’s a living, sort of, until we can save up to move to a cheaper part of the city.

34 thoughts on “Sing Your Life”

  1. I just donated a ton of stuff last week. Some of it was my dear departed mom’s things. If you see them don’t sell them, I want them back!! You must get emotionally involved doing that kind of job. I shop “thrift” all the time, and I never ever would have thought I would when I was younger and my nose was tilted slightly upward.

  2. Lately, due to the corporate job (read: more money and less time) I?ve been shopping retail more than I ever have in the past. I much prefer to thrift it. Underwear is my personal exception. When I was a kid, you couldn?t buy used shoes because they were like shoes when I throw them out (read: entirely worn away), but now, I don?t know, people have a lot more of them or something. I get great shoes at thrift stores. Hardly worn shoes. Fashionable shoes. Why is that happening?

  3. It’s always been hard for me to go thrift, even though I am poor, because I wear the hell out of clothes (the lament of the large-busted), and I have yet to find The Coolest Thrift Store Ever where anything fits me. Also, I think my personal style can best be described as Everygirl, and I’ll admit, I get intimidated by quirky clothes. I know I should be more adventurous, but it feels like I’m putting on a personality that doesn’t quite fit. Weird, huh?

  4. I couldn’t do it. The bizarre smells and bad vibes alone would do me in with waves of flashbacks as well as the inevitable psychic photographs into other people’s lives. You’re amazing!

  5. I find thrifting unsatisfying because all the cool, vintage stuff is tiny and I am not. I do find great dishes and things like that when I have the time to spare to dig through stuff. Good for you on getting the job and finding entertainment amidst the tedium of sorting.

    You know me and my blatantly consumerist tendencies, but I understand what you mean about buying second-hand as a political choice. It’s certainly more responsible than accumulating piles of crap made by little kids in a sweatshop. I guess I see it a trade-off between quickly getting exactly what you want/need new and finding something used that will sort of work okay and save money/concience.

  6. Well, since it seems that everyone else is weighing in I will too. I am a partial thrifter, partial retail consumerist. If I can find things that are nice and not worn out at the thrift, hell yeah I buy it. But, if I can’t seem to find just what I’m looking for, then it is the western consumerism for me. Plus, it depends on what the occasion is. If I need/want an outfit just for loafing around in, then the thrift stores are great, but if I need/want a professional outfit, then usually the thrifts do not have much of anything available in my size that doesn’t look old lady-ish (size 18) so I will buy the stuff retail.
    Anyhow, I’m glad you are not one of those uppity people who think a job like this is beneath them and then go on to live off of food stamps and ADC. Keep working at finding the right job, it will come.

  7. I’m curious about where shoplifting fits into the whole consumer ethics thing. It just doesn’t feel right – stealing stuff from a thrift store.

    Less of a buzz.

    How about putting useless crap on eBay for your admiring eStalkers to eBuy? Mucho higher reserve price if it’s been mentioned in your blog – kinda like product placement. Maybe even some “as seen on I asshole” merchandise. Hey – you need an agent? Let’s do lunch!

  8. this was beautiful. i like how expertly you move from the haha of the vibrators to the chop-chop sentences to get the sadness of someone being dead, and then the near run-on sentence for a break-up. and then bring it all back in to how you relate to it, the reality of it, and the job. really, you do have a lovely singing voice.

  9. funny, i always think about dead people when i thrift, too. especially in the furniture section. when i see a scratchy orange velvet couch that’s clean but very worn, i always wonder if there’s a ten-year-old boy out there missing his grandma.

  10. I got my degree a couple of years ago, and I haven’t had such shitty jobs in my life! I blame this partly on the fact that I now live in the backwards ass filth pig that is Pennsylvania. I used to make great money before I had a degree, just scrapping, clawing and shoving my way into promotions & stuff. Now I wait tables & it’s pretty embarrassing when customers ask if I’m in college and I have to say, “uh, yeah. I graduated. Did you want a lemon with your water?”

  11. As I delve back through your archives… I realize I had this exact same job. Except in Texas. For $5.15 an hour. Back in 2005. For four hours.

    There were used needles, used tampons, used diapers, bloody bandages… all kinds of completely bio-hazard stuff! Gruesome. It was the only job I ever, ever quit during my lunch break. I was terrified that handling this stuff would infect me with Texasism.

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