Saturday, July 19, 2008

Spreading Happiness at the Thrift Store

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Do not adjust your television dial. That strange noise you hear is The Heir practicing her musical saw! Either that or we just proved that there's intelligent life on other planets.

We're kind of weird here in the Johnson family. On a hot afternoon when everyone else is at the swim club or the movies, we hop in the car and go to the thrift store. There's a whopper of a thrift store nearby. It's as big as a Sam's Club, only packed to the plimsol line with clean, mended, used clothing.

My daughter The Spare loves the thrift store because she's a tiny little thing, and there's always gorgeous stuff in tiny sizes. And The Spare is brave about setting her own fashion trends. No friggin fifty dollar Hollister t-shirts for her! She can make a dollar holler.


Today, while browsing (and leaning heavily on the shopping cart to keep weight off my bad leg), I found a big plastic bag of Calico Critter stuff. My daughter The Heir had a bunch of Calico Critter toys when she was little. (We were in the chips in those days, not like now.) She played and played with that stuff.

Anyway, the bag at the thrift store had the whole family of bunnies and a bunch of furniture. At two bucks, it looked like a nice little ebay turnaround. So I flung it in the cart.

We were at the thrift store for about two hours. Yes, you got that right. Keep your movies and your shopping mall! At almost the end of that time, I saw a mom and young daughter moving down an aisle. The daughter, maybe 5 or 6, was pushing a shopping cart. In the cart was a dollhouse.

I got the mom's attention, put the bag of bunnies behind my back, and showed it to her. I said, "Would your daughter want these for the dollhouse?" And the mom was thrilled. When the little girl saw the cute bunnies and the furniture, she just about flipped.

So I did my good deed for the day. I'm sitting here thinking about that cute little girl, at home in her room, putting those bunnies to bed in her dollhouse. Somehow that's a nice feeling. Like white magic or something.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

OR---they are for sale on E-bay.
KD

Anne Johnson said...

Then that mother needs the money more than I do.

Thalia said...

Yeah, anonymous, pbbbbbbbbbth! :P

I had some of those!! I think they were called Sylvan Woods or something. They were just so satisfyingly cute in their design. And the family of beavers? Their last name was "Waters", not too surprisingly. But what killed me was that the son was named, oh my God, Roger.

I especially loved the mole. (He's still around here somewhere.) He was so round-headed and hilarious, with teeny little eyes, wearing this little yellow felt vest that was rather too big for him whose collar looked kind of like a neck brace because it was so thick on him. Oh my god he would crack me up just looking at him.

Of course, you understand, I had these little critters when I was in my twenties.

Thalia said...

OMFG, I found a picture of The Mole here!!

Oh. My. God.

Anonymous said...

I am sure you made that little girl's day!!!

What a kind thing for you to do!

Anne Johnson said...

Oh. My. Fruit. Fly. If that mole had been in the package, I would have wrestled the little girl to the floor, bit her hand, and grabbed it from her!!!!! I never saw that one. The Heir had squirrels. I think she still has them upstairs somewhere.

KD, the reason I think this is a real deal is that the mom showed the little girl the stuff and then put it in her shopping cart. I can't imagine a mom so mean that she'd get home and say, "Hey, no touching the bunnies! We can make a $10 profit on Ebay!"

And speaking of Ebay, Mr. Johnson used to make good money on there selling 1st edition books. Not anymore. The market has tanked.

Anonymous said...

Guess I've seen too many guys begging for money for food later on in the booze isle as I was crawling out of the gutter.
Or something like that.
KD

Maeve said...

We love thrifting and yard saling. It's wonderful. The kids never mind when I tell them we're going in search of treasure.

We scored a doll house and an ark this weekend (no people or furniture, just the shells that open up). It took the kids no time at all to have them populated with dinosaurs and trucks. heh I loved the ark full of dinosaurs.

Hope your leg feels better with the resting, and good thing you don't have a machete!

Anne Johnson said...

Yes, an ark filled with dinosaurs. Great authenticity!