Common Occurrences

You walk into a thrift store and ultimately each thrift store is pretty much the same place despite its different location. The smell is still that of your grandmother's old, cluttered closet and the dingy feeling of dust and grime still coats the air. Don't even get me started about the people and their shuffling, shopping habits, or the fact that there is 95% of the time a baby heard screaming in the background...

But what else binds all thrift stores together?


The endless rows of old computer monitors! While at one point these were hot items, sometimes selling for hundreds of dollars, they now sit and gather dust and the occasional glance from that one old man who just figured out how to "call the internet".


And since you're looking for an old tube monitor, don't forget to grab an old joystick to go along with it! There are literally dozens to choose from!


Then in the next aisle, among the puked on carseats, diaper genies, and toaster ovens, you'll discover that one perfect gift for mom... That one perfect gift that at one point everyone felt was the perfect gift and in an instant spontaneously bought... The foot bath! I guess mom was so overwhelmed with joy from the foot bath that she mistakingly threw it into the donate drop off at the Salvation Army... But now you can have one of your own!


And of course what thrift store visit would be complete without a couple of minutes weeding through the old 80s and 90s electronics? You might find a good deal on a cassette player here and if you're real lucky you may even find one of those hard to come by CD players.

Old Lady Junk

This is an entry that has been a long time in the making. I've been pondering for a couple of weeks on exactly how to structure this entry. First, a story.

What exactly is "old lady junk"? Here's the best way I can explain it. Imagine waking up on a Saturday morning and, at a loss of what to do with your day, feel an urge to go "garage sale-ing". You set out with the intent to find unique or useful items but after actually visiting two or three garage sales you're sad, hurt and disappointed that all you could find was crap like this:


This, my readers, is EXACTLY what I mean when I say "old lady junk". Just random, useless bric-a-brac found in abundance in nearly every grandma's house. And believe it or not, there are entire thrift stores that have accumulated nothing but this very same old lady junk.






And last but not least, there's this horrible piece of crap:


This is especially irritating because I think we all know that late middle-aged/old person who finds sayings like this clever or funny.

Rex Kwon Do anyone?

Not quite.



Although this isn't really a thrift store, it appears as though someone took the thrift store concept and tried to apply it to some sort of generic martial arts academy. Who in their right mind would enter this place? I've seen higher-budget store signs in Mexican slums.

-jon

So you want to know what these thrift store stops look like?

Commonly we are asked where we find such nightmares, or to some, treasures, that we speak about in this blog. Now, let me tell you that finding thrift store nightmares is not the easiest job and is in fact one that takes a lot of dedication, especially when it comes to finding the perfect stores to shop. The two of us have done our research and searched far and wide (and continue to) destined to have found the seediest, most visibly damaged looking stores. These usually hold our best treasures. Whether it be the Salvation Army with a bum sitting outside or a Joliet area thrift store with run down buildings surrounding it and gangster rap in the air, we are usually successful at finding the most interesting crap. We've risked our health (we're positive that we caught a thrift store virus) and even our safety (we went to a very wrong side of town a time or two) to bring these nightmares to light... But somebody has to do it!


-k8

Welcome to the Nightmare

Thrift store shopping is an art. It can be a hobby enjoyed by people of all ages as well as a comfort through viewing gateways to long forgotten pasts. Curiously your feet take you on a path through familiar objects, all appropriately aged and some covered with dust. You sift through dozens of items hoping to find that one perfect treasure, while in reality, the back of your mind reminds you that it is unlikely. Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you go home empty handed, only to venture back another day. Each time you return it's always the same feeling... The air scented with hints of moth ball coated goods mixed with an aged closet smell. Organization hardly exists and it's always up to you to independently find what you're looking for... For you see, there's an independence in shopping at thrift stores. They are all unique in their own special ways and almost always are guaranteed to hold something meaningful at least once in their cluttered existence. Best of all, the price is right.

We've all been there before. An item calls to you from across the room. There's a type of magic in the moment as your feet carry you to its discovery. You feel like that kid in a candy store and you feel rewarded by the thrift store gods for every single high dollar item you've donated to the Good Will. Finally your years of searching high and low for the perfect thrift store treasure are now paying off! The second you find yourself staring down at that particular item, however, is when it all hits you hard... That sinking feeling of disappointment in one certain find starts it all. The disappointment doesn't last long though, as it is quickly replaced by sheer perplexity. You cock your head, rub your eyes, and stare at the object for a second time. And a third. And a forth... You pick it up as if you expect it to be some sort of sick mirage. It's not. It's real. Wonder hits you as to how this specific item came to be, but then you realize that in thrift stores anything goes... You've stumbled upon a thrift store nightmare.

This blog is a chance for all of our thrift store nightmares to be brought into the light of day, shared to the public to experience the same horrors and bafflements we've lived through while doing our routine thrift store shopping. It's a collaborative effort between husband and wife, both of us finding equal amounts of haunting objects and sharing loads of laughs while doing so. The idea to expose these nightmares came to us from experience, living in a town that hosts a variety of these classic thrift stores, all with their own unique possessions. It became a bit of an obsession for the two of us to find something horrible with each visit and most of the time we were never disappointed. And so came this blog.

We welcome anyone to join in on sharing their own thrift store nightmare finds. It's quite easy! Just email us a picture at Thriftstorenightmares@gmail.com. After all, for every town that holds a thrift store, there are at least a dozen nightmares waiting to be unleashed.

-k8 and j-on