Goodwill Studies, Part 3

Further Finds:

A plastic toy Jeep. Contains two plastic rednecks in hunting gear, hats pulled so low they appear to have no eyes. Attached to hood: one plastic buck, tied down with plastic rope. When you flip a switch on the underside of the Jeep, the whole thing bounces on its wheels, plays "Dixie," and the buck lifts his head and begins to sing along, plastic automated jaw clacking up and down.

A book, entitled Created To Be His Help Meet: Discover How God Can Make Your Marriage Glorious. I encountered this at the cash register because someone--get this, a WOMAN--was actually buying it. Having committed it to paper, I now purge this event from my memory.

A plastic hula dancer with a music box hidden in her base. I'm guessing, from her fully jointed plastic hips, that she was once meant to dance seductively to the jarringly non-hula music emanating from her person, but now she just hangs limply at a very unhealthy 45 degrees, arms upraised, as if her torso was going to dive sideways into the tropical seas and her legs begged to differ. I only mention this because of the way her music is activated. You don't press a button that plays the song, then ends. You flip a switch. An on/off switch. So of course every child that goes by flips it to on, and her violently generic song plays on a constant loop until I stomp over, grab her willowy, broken waist, switch her off, and thump her back down on the shelf with a challenging look to any bystanders.


One Very Important Question

The first time this happened, I was going to call the offender Admiral Obvious and write a character study about them. But then it happened again, and again, and again, so now I must pin the blame on an incredibly varied and vast population.
Let me give you a picture of me at work. I'm hanging clothes, probably, or rearranging them, or pulling them off the racks with a clipboard in one hand. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume I'm not actually behind a cash register or helping a cashier do a refund. I have a lanyard of keys around my neck, and most importantly of all, I have the Vest. The Vest is that very primary, crayola shade of blue most associated with Goodwill. It is BLUE, people. It says GOODWILL in rather large lettering on the front, right over the GOODWILL logo, and on the back it says "Thank you for helping us create jobs, hope, and opportunities." So I'm a little baffled every time someone comes up to me and asks:
"Hey, do you work here?"

No. I'm just their biggest fan.


The Un-PC Hordes

I went in for my last formal regional training session today. Belated, yes, but required nonetheless. It was at the Patton Ave location, since they have a whole training center next door. A few other trainees and I arrived early, so we were seated in the break section of the work floor waiting. At 8:00, the back doors (two garage-sized monoliths) slowly creaked open to admit that day's work crew.
Now, the Patton Ave location is the center for much of our actual services, by which I mean career rehabilitation--or just habilitation, for that matter--for those with mental, physical, social, or financial disabilities. And for the elderly. ESPECIALLY for the elderly.
So when those giant pod bay doors opened this morning, they let in a creaking, shuffling, white-haired, bespectacled horde, approaching inexorably with canes, walkers, and wheelchairs, a veritable Army of the Almost Undead.
Every member of which saw us, paused in their synchronized shuffle, gave a huge, crinkly smile, and waved.

I have 200 grandmothers.