I select the charity shops I give stuff to based on whether I can park right outside them.
I am never in a million years going to be organised enough to run that particular errand every time I have collected enough to fill an easily portable plastic bag - nope, I have to fill a Large Box with clothes and homewares and the occasional curtain, and then I have to have the box in the car next time I pass a charity shop I can park outside. It's a very delicate chain of circumstance, I can tell you.
It didn't quite come off yesterday, when, in the rain, on my third pass round the go-round I still couldn't find a space. But what the heck, I thought, I'll double park. All I want to do is dump the box and run. How long can that take?
So I 'parked' the car - well, more 'stopped in the middle of the road', wrestled the box out of the back and made a dash for the Shaw Trust doorway. All this made even more exciting by the presence of a Small Child in my car. (Magic for getting a primo parking space at the supermarket, I can tell you. And then of course they want to push the trolley, play with the scanner all the time, even when it's your turn - y'know, the magic runs out pretty damn quickly. Forget I spoke.) But The Little Treasure in the back seat meant I really had to get a jerk on.
The woman in charge, on the phone at the time, managed by dint of flourishing her eyebrows and waggling her fingers to make me understand that she wanted me to hang about. Which I did. You try hopping nervously and impatiently from foot to foot while carrying a large and heavy box. Go on. When at last all her attention was bestowed on me, stap me if she didn't start picking through the contents of the bloody box. With a 'hmmmm' here and a sad shake of her head there, she informed me that, apart from the odd piece of clothing, she wouldn't take anything I had brought, as 'none of it will sell'.
WHAT!
How on earth does a charity shop get to pick and choose? 'None of it will sell', I ask you! (As 'appens, the minute I got home I hit Freecycle, and half of the stuff is already gone. OK, for free, but it really wouldn't have cost too much in the flippin' shop.) When did charity shops get so damn sniffy about what they stock? Surely clean and operational and no duct tape is enough! Not these days, it seems.
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4 comments:
how very rude of her - particularly when you were clearly in a rush. that would be enough to strike them from my donations list, i can tell you.
re small children and parking - maybe someone should market inflatable ones that you could strap into a carseat so it looks like you have a small child. ahhha! another money-making idea (although rather an immoral one)
Salvation Army will do the same here, sending two winos out to pick through your crap right in front of your face. Once loaded into the truck they then go through the 'keep' pile and divide the spoils amongst themselves before it ever hits the shelves. oh yes.
i know this because i used to pick antiques for resale. i knew the SA drivers and often *ahem* bought things off them before they ever hit the store. did the money ever see the Salvation coffers? did it f***.
Why did you deign to stay? I just leave my stuff just inside the door and run!
You're too polite, Mangonel.
There's a pecking order for Charity shops round here.
Best stuff goes to the Trinity Hospice
Crap goes to the romanian orphans shop.
I lug my stuff around in my shopping trolley. I hand my bags over and run.
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