Those second hand stores

Oh how I used to hate them. We'd be walking down the road happy with smiles on our faces, then suddenly our faces would drop. Why? I'll tell you why, because my mother always had to pop into a charity store! Why oh why?! For a bargain of some sort, that's why! It was as though the charity shop had some sort of gravitational pull on her that she just couldn't resist. My sister and I would do our best to fight against it, "No! Please, mama! Noo! But to no avail. In we trudged, with the saddest faces. These shops, usually, always smelt a bit musty (like unwashed underpants) and were packed with clothes and whatnot. I just hated being in these shops, however my mother just loved them; well of course she did.  In her element rummaging around looking for a super bargain. We just couldn't cope. I couldn't cope... what if somebody from school saw me! I may as well have started looking for my own coffin and arranging the flowers.




So there I was... stood in the shop acting like I wasn't really there, looking at old women with hairy chins, odd smelly men, and my mum with a big smile on her face. This was torture. I refused to even look around, no! Just no. If a school friend did happen to go past the window and spot me - I would have had to pretend to be a mannequin or dive into a pile of old jumpers.  Why didn't my mother care about my reputation, why?! Sometimes I would eat my cereal and wonder if she actually loved me.


 

Why did she have to buy me a pair of black shoes that had probably, certainly, been previously owned by a scarecrow. Why?! Those horrible clumpy shoes that the scarecrow didn't even want anymore! It's like my mother knew all the second shops in our local area. I'm sure she had a map in her bedroom with them all located on. But to my mind the one that always killed me was the one on Smithdown Road, that one always, always made me feel uneasy. Then there was Oxfam and Bernados on Allerton Road.

So years have passed by and how things have changed. The mental scars have faded a tad, and you know what -  second hand shops are now seen as cool, even Oxfam isn't so, so bad. (I still can't get down with Bernandos, though) Second hand shops have been re branded as: vintage, retro, thrift and, erm, yeah, not scruff stores. If you want to be 'different' go along to one of these stores and you'll most likely be able to buy something nobody else has. Yep, not even your local tramp. Like, really, it's all seen as cool, because everybody wants to be different, right? So as I got older I began to actually like vintage stores, picking up nifty pieces of clothing - from 70's inspired cardigans to snazzy shirts. Some of the best thrift stores I have been to have been in Berlin and Barcelona, and those ones were massive.  No longer havens of shame and torture (and odd people) these places are now, for me, not as bad as they were when I was poor young boy trying to live a stress free life. A young dude who absolutely hated the thought of spending a month (hey, it felt like) in places that my mum always made us go into. Oh how I hated those places, but now - I'll confess, they're not so bad...






(I won't admit that to my mother, though)

Demola, TCC