Photo by Yelp user Paul B.

I am so stoked right at the moment. Let me fill you in ……

I recently received a Wal Mart gift card with which I bought a printer. After the $80 or so dollars for said printer, I had a balance of $19.08 which absolutely positively had to be spent.

My roommate with whom I love to sit all day and talk loves Planters Cocktail peanuts just as much as I do. So I wound my way to WalMart last night, dashed in before they closed at 10PM, got myself a bath towel, a 16 oz. can of Planters for my roommate, and 2 bags of unmentionables for me (uh, well, how DID those Reese’s Minis get in my cart???? Must have hopped in there all on their own …… hmmmmm ……).

Imagine my roommate’s surprise when I knocked on her door at shortly after 11PM with the can of nuts. She jumped 11 feet and hopped around screaming. It was a joy to watch!!!!! 🙂

Then today she gave me an undisclosed amount of money. Not much, but when you have $0 and 0 cents until the 23rd of August, $5 is a fortune (it was more than $5).

I promptly headed over to A.I.D.S. Assistance Thrift where I had bought this coffee cup that she has been admiring ever since I brought it home two days ago. There is a story about the coffee cup:

My first exposure to 4th Street was A.I.D.S Assistance Thrift’s annual book sale. It just so happened that the weekend of my first-ever disability check was also one of their annual book sale weekends. I carefully slogged through the selection, having no idea there were even cheaper hardbacks in the rear of the store. I was completely and totally absorbed in the choicy hardbacks for $2, $3, $5, rarely $6 or $7—we’re talking hardbacks with ORIGINAL DUST JACKETS.

I have been in the Thrift probably five times now and have yet to explore the cheapy cheap, regularly-in-the-store hardbacks. I was in heaven with the book sale titles. I asked the wonderful gentleman who was the cashier to total up my order; there was one book about which I could not decide.

“$52,” he said, and then he looked at the book about which I could not make up my mind. It was a hardback of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. “I think this has the original plates ….” he mused, and then made up his mind. “I’m throwing this one in,” he said, “you’ve spent so much already.”

I was floored. Grateful, I carried my twelve or thirteen hardbacks home to the Long Beach Inn and considered myself the lucky one.

I guess spending $52 on hardbacks, each one quality literature, makes an impression. I had also gone back into the Thrift to let them know that I had indeed gotten the job with the Post, and that I had had a spread in the first bi-monthly edition (half of the centerfold and a full page; the article on motels). Both cashiers that day, one of them the same gentleman, beamed.

So this Tuesday I think it was, I had exactly 0.54 cents in my INGDirect account (I am still in training, INGDirect; don’t give up on me yet!). I had joked with the Passport B driver that the hard part of going to The Center of Long Beach to use their computer lab would be getting past The FEED Store (in which I had, that same disability check weekend, spent probably $40-$50 on dishes for my soon-to-be-kitchen; a steal, every item, because everything in the store had been 30% off that weekend) and the A.I.D.S. Assistance Thrift.

She laughed and wished me well.

I did manage to get past The FEED Store, only sticking my head in briefly to see if the leather briefcase/shoulder bag I’ve had my eye on was still $35 (go in there and buy it, I breaka yo’ a’m). I would have made it past the Thrift, but that durn annual book sale sign now said “Book Sale Books 50% Off.”

What is a former literature professor, now columnist and author, to do?

So I sauntered in, looking carefully past the books because I knew 0.54 cents could not get me one tome. Why, however, did I have to discover that they had a dishes section?

Now it is by no means as glorious as the dishes section of, say, The Salvation Army or it’s neighbor, the FEED Store. While the section of kitchen and bakeware at The Salvation Army goes on for miles and features the very best crystal, there is such a wonderful homespun coziness about shopping in The FEED Store’s kitchen section that it is just irresistible.

Yet the A.I.D.S Assistance Thrift is really not into selling dishes. No great appeal in their dishes section, but they don’t have to bother. Your eye is caught by the gorgeous antique and expensive-as-hell-but-absolutely-worth-it furniture crammed into every nook and cranny amongst the books and clothing. I’d give my teeth for $5,000 and a week or two in their furniture section. My house (which Tara Colquitt, The Credit Woman, is going to help me save for and purchase) will be a walking shrine to the good taste of those who donate to the Thrift.

Still, I peruse the dishes and see this coffee cup, all by its lonesome, sitting there looking calmly glorious in all of its brilliant orangy-yellow. It is one of those one cup is really 2 1/2 cups but looks like 1 1/2 cup deals. I pick it up. 50 cents.

No, I think. No!

I look again.

50 cents.

I smile at God and walk to the register. Yet God is not finished!

I walk up, smiling, and wait for my now favorite cashier. He is helping about five people at one time, but finally has a moment for me. I am in the midst of a charming conversation with another patron whose wife is eyeing a very expensive set of books. Expensive as in they are in the display case. The patron is trying, I think, to keep her from spending the mortgage, but is transfixed by my informing the cashier of my latest doings at the Post. I am showing him the hard copy of my motels article—centerfold placement and all.

The patron is interested because he and his wife have a friend enduring homelessness, and they are worried because they have not heard from him in a week or two. I share my recent rise from homelessness, and we both shake our heads at the wanton vicissitudes of life. Finally, the cashier focuses on me, and I think, I’d better get this done.

I tell him about the 54 cents and how I tried, but had not been able to pass up the store. He smiles, extends his hand, and says, “give me the cup; I am not taking your last 54 cents; give me the cup!”

And he takes it from my hand, wraps it in paper, and hands it back to me.

I am floored once again.

Today, therefore, I was all too happy to spend my “big money” ($20) in the Thrift.

It all started when I left the apartment determined to go to the Thrift and find another coffee mug for my lovable and loving roommate. One good turn deserves so many others. I also wanted to get something for my other roommate (our apartment comfortably holds four) because I didn’t know what she liked and so had not been able to treat her last night at Walmart.

Yet I had seen her bringing two styrofoam cups of coffee up from the kitchen at breakfast every morning and thought perhaps she might like a nice big cup like my roommate would. My roommate had bought a mug from the 99 cent store, but it was not as attractive as mine.

Thus I perused the available mugs, and nothing as great as mine, yet and still, two very passable ones. Then I saw the stuffed animals I had eyed the other day and selected two. I chose only two because I didn’t know how much they cost and didn’t want to overspend.

When I walked up to the register and my favorite cashier said “50 cents” I nearly fainted.

“50 cents??? For each one???”

“Yep,” he said; “50 cents for each stuffed animal.”

I promptly went back and got one for each of my roommates, one for a particular friend—another resident, and one for a staff person whom I secretly adore.

Grand total? $3. Yep, that’s what I wrote: THREE DOLLARS.

Do you see why some of us are addicted to thrift store shopping? Because you get QUALITY STUFF for cheapy cheap!!!!! And you know the people to whom you are giving the items will love them because they too will see that it is quality stuff, and much loved by the previous owner.

I have long wanted to give accolades to The FEED Store, the A.I.D.S. Assistance Thrift, and The Center of Long Beach. The computer lab (in which I am now composing this column) is a heavenly place to work. The seats don’t make your bum hurt if you sit too long; the folks who check you in at the desk are always pleasant; the bathroom is luxurious and always squeaky squeaky clean; and if you just want to lounge while you wait for it to get closer to 9 o’clock so that you don’t have to spend too many $5 (it is $5/hour after the first hour), you can settle in and watch the big screen tv while reading the latest edition of the Post. If I haven’t hijacked all of the latest copies, that is.

Thus I eagerly await returning home after stopping by WalMart to get more Tide balls so that I can wash my new stuffed animal gifts. One for me, four for my friends.

Thanksgiving in July? Nope! Christmas!!!!

Until again, why? Because joy is our birthright, homeless or no.

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Albertson’s (5th & Long Beach Blvd.) has recently reduced their produce prices throughout the store, so the Store Manager, Anthony Diersing informs me. I noticed on my own that Fuji Apples are now $1.49 as opposed to the former $1.99. Take a moment or two to go in and browse the now much more affordable selections!!!!