The focus of our journey was to find a piece of furniture for a very low price that Nancy S. could transform from junky to funky with a coat of paint and new hardware. Now, let me stop here and tell you that I have been a professional junk shopper for more than 20 years. I have clothed my children (and sometimes animals), decorated and furnished my home, stocked my bookshelves and decorated for every holiday earthlings have thought up so far, all with junk store "deals".
However, for some reason today I realized what an oxymoron the idea of "junk shopping" seems to be. Who in their right mind would voluntarily shop for junk? It is amazing to me that at some point in time, there were people who paid retail prices for the millions of horrific and flat out ugly items of clothing and gimcrap we sifted through today. I never noticed it before in all my years of "junk shopping" how many worthless things there are in the world, and they are all grouped up in one place; junk stores. I couldn't help but mourn the poor cotton that sacrificed it's life for some of the hideous garments we witnessed. And could it be that the people sorting this junk have lost their minds? Item after item, now chipped and broken, that even in their hay day were a joke, sat in a line of shame, embarrassed that somebody in the back room had the audacity to price them at $4.95.
After the third store, I wondered, "have the stores changed or have I changed." Perhaps I had been buying and wearing and decorating with ugly, outdated and worthless items all this time and my friends were just too nice to tell me. Though the majority of the heaps of items were without merit, digging through them did not go unrewarded. At the end of our trip, I emerged with a crystal champagne flute that matches ones I have collected (all from junk stores) over the years, 2 books that I had been looking for, a heavy square glass vase and a cute tee shirt for each of my kids, none of which cost more than $1 (not counting time and effort).
On the ride home I thought, "I wonder if these items are as nice as I think or if they just seem nice because of their proximity to all that garbage." As a reward for our hard work, we stopped into the Pier 1 Imports and that's when I realized why I "junk shop". Everything in the entire store was beautiful, absolutely gorgeous and shiny new! No junk here! The problem is that I'd have to sell my car to pay for them. Suddenly, sifting through that sea of crap seemed more worthwhile and what seemed like an oxymoron now looked more like common sense. Since Nancy didn't find her project piece, I guess we'll have to go "junk shopping" again. But for NOW I'm off to cut some iris for my new vase, pour a shimmering new crystal champagne glass full of root beer and read my new books while the kids' tee shirts get to know their long lost junk store cousins in the washer!
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