New To Me

I buy clothes at thrift shops; I can't help myself. I'm a born cheapskate, descended from a long line of accomplished penny-pinchers.

My mother and her sisters took this to an extreme. On visits, my Aunt Margaret would happily present us with two dozen donuts, only a tiny bit stale, but 90% off the marked price, and my mother would lament the distance from our house of the shop where she purchased them. "That's a very, ah, colorful dress," people would tell my mother, clad in some newly-bought horror. And my mother, ever a sucker for wildly colorful shifts with oversized flowers, never failed to take this as a compliment. "Do you like it?" she would cry delightedly, "it was only 15 cents at Value Village!"

Although as a teenager I found my mother's admittedly cringe-worthy behavior horrifying, I've since learned to be proud of it; to accept it as not only my heritage, but my own personal make-up. In my youth, when I was making good money, I went through a brief period of only buying brand-new clothes from nice shops, but a mild financial setback has helped me get in touch with my real roots. It's great; there is something almost divine about finding a damn good bargain. I am friends with other cheapskates and we regularly compare notes and subtly compete.

I try not to brag about this too much, though; not everyone shares my passion. In fact, some people feel downright negative about buying clothes at thrift shops.

"You know where those clothes you buy come from?" a woman I once knew commented.

"Other people?" I ventured.

"Dead people," she said triumphantly. "After they've died, their families clean out their closets and take all their stuff to thrift shops."

This woman has been known to purchase china and books in thrift shops, but not clothes. Well, guess where some of that stuff comes from? You can eat off dead people's china and read their books, but you can't wear their clothes? I gently suggested this to my friend, but she wasn't buying it.

"It's the thought!" she snapped. "You put on some dead person's clothes" -- she shivered -- "and it's like they can come back and haunt you!"

I am philosophical about wearing the clothes of dead strangers. This world we live on is arguably a huge burial ground. Millions have come and gone before us, and while we may not walk over their graves every day, it's silly to feel so nervous about using their possessions. The past occupants of the house I live in are certainly dead, yet every day I walk through the rooms they once lived in. I look out the windows they had glazed and turn the original handles of their doors. Call me weird, but I find this strangely comforting. I often wonder about them and wish I could meet them (though admittedly, not in the wee small hours of the night).

I'm a practical person, too, and I have a horror of waste. All the work that goes into making even a factory-produced blouse or coat -- all the resources! No way do I want to see that trashed.

After I die, if my kids do anything as daft as burning my clothes or throwing them out, I swear, I'll come back and haunt them.