(Pretty necessary around here if the weather keeps up its current trend of endlessly rainy and cold days)
I drove my grandfather to a doctor's appointment earlier this week, and the office happened to be nearly next door to one of my usual thrifty haunts. Their prices are generally far too high, in my humble opinion, for merchandise they have received for free, and the volunteers who work there are all cranky and appear as though they have been sucking on lemons for far too long, but they have the greatest - the GREATEST! - vintage rack in the middle of the store. Furs, coats, hats, dresses, oh my! Normally, I almost always find something there, even with their ridiculous prices ($14 for a DRESS!? $300 for a broken down room divider!? Are you KIDDING ME?!?!?!). Well, today I listlessly sorted through the rack of clothing, not finding very much. I did, however, notice two 1950s mink collar coats for $40 each that are IDENTICAL to two I picked up at the Goodwill for $4.99 a piece last October. Seriously, this thrift store needs to fire whichever member is pricing items out. Anywho, I always make sure to check the floor under the clothing rack before I go, because many a time things fall and no one notices them with all of the suitcases and other items piled up against the already-overloaded clothing rack. That, of course, was when I struck gold! The most adorable 1940s (maybe early 1950s, but I highly doubt it) dress for $7! The label read "Brentwood Cottons by Penney's." It was so cute! The belt was missing, so my grandmother (ever the wonderful - and generally successful - haggler) went over to the giant back room where they sort incoming donations and asked a lady to find a matching belt for the dress. When one was found (not the original, but a cute replacement), she put it through the loopholes on the dress's waist. The thrift store volunteer said, "Oh, wait, let me put a price on the belt." My grandmother replied, "Honey, the dress was supposed to come WITH a belt, so this gets included as one piece." The wise volunteer knew better than to argue with the determined little Italian lady. And, because it was Monday, I got 20% off of my dress! Normally, Mondays and some Fridays, "all clothing and shoes are 20% off" there according to their signs (it does not say ANYWHERE that vintage is not included, nor do they mention any exceptions to the discount). However, if you try and bring up a piece of VINTAGE clothing, the cranky volunteers will generally deny you the discount. How a dress - vintage or not - doesn't count as a clothing item is beyond me! Like I said, these people are out for all of the money they can get (can you tell they annoy me?). I have given many a thought to bringing a white-out pen with me in order to blank out the "vintage" on the tag just so that they won't have any room to pull that BS, but I'm far too honest of a person, sadly. So when the (new-looking) volunteer rang up my dress and took the 20% off, I nearly jumped for joy (I restrained myself til we got outside)!
Surprising all of us, Gramps requested that we take him to another thrift store in downtown after his doctor's appointment, so off we went! There I found, to my immense joy, that the 1940's Cheongsam dress w/matching jacket (originally marked $12) was on clearance for $3! I snapped that thing right up! It has a metal side zipper, and snaps up along the shoulder. The material is a beautiful iridescent blue-green silk, with a modest slit on the side and a high collar. I love it!This was definitely a good thrifting day.
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