The Wonderful World of Crap

I spent my lunch at a thrift store in the Mission. I wasn’t looking for anything special and even if I had stumbled on something fabulous, I don’t know how I would have dealt with it since I had to come straight back to the office. Mostly I was just went to poke around there; I find browsing in junk stores very soothing.

Plus, today was apparently High Style Toozday at Thrift Town. The store very thoughtfully provides a tester station for people to try out electrical appliances before they buy. Usually it’s being utilized to see how loud the clock radios will crank out the classic rock station, but one time I saw a young man plug in a toaster which immediately started emitting an impressive cloud of smoke. He stood there with a look of real concentration, as if trying to decide if five bucks was a good price for a fire hazard.

Today, a middle aged gent with coarse thick hair styled in something between a mullet and an homage to Farrah Fawcett’s glory days was testing a blow dryer. He was parked there with his eyes closed, his chin tilted back, rocking his head from side to side in the stream of hot air, channeling some Wella Balsam commercial from thirty years ago. I tiptoed past him.

Then on the way out, I was trapped behind a tiny elderly Lady absolutely decked out. Sure, she was wearing sweat pants, but they were some shiny, iridescent material the color of grape bubble gum. They were so sparkly I wanted to touch them, but restrained myself. And on the other end, she had on the exact same wig Eva Gabor made so memorable as both Lisa Douglas in Green Acres and as the genesis for the Eva Gabor Wig Collection, god’s gift to down-market drag queens everywhere. I especially liked the fact it was at least two sizes too big and perched on her wee little head like a hat. I take it as a matter of faith she snagged it at some previous thrifting expedition. I just hope it was on Senior Citizen’s discount day.