I have this addiction....

I love, love thrift store shopping....so tonight when David and I were running around, I saw a new thrift store had opened in our neighborhood and said "you know we are stopping there on our way back right?"
I have dreams of finding another vintage Dior skirt (yes, I have found one before) or a vintage Coach purse accidentally marked for $5 (yep. that happened too).
I would rather thrift store shop than any other kind of shopping. I can find amazing things for a little amount...
And because I find such great treasures I felt it was time I started posting them to keep a log of sorts.
Tonight at the Arc Value Village I found; a bird cage, a pair of hammered silver earrings, a vintage tie, a vintage clutch purse and a vintage dress. the total was $13.98.

peeing in public

In middle school, Rachelle, her mom and I would often take day trips to the “big city” to find treasures at thrift stores, Ax Man hardware store and of course, Ragstock - the Mecca of alternative apparel in the early 90s.
We traveled around midtown, uptown, downtown and North Minneapolis – with the prompt, often, from Chelle’s mom stating “lock the door” if we were getting into a shady neighborhood.

After finding an incredibly great panda purse at Ax Man that was probably included in a kids ‘beauty’ kit in the 1970s, we were off to Ragstock.

We parked relatively far down on University Avenue. We started walking past African beauty supply stores, Asian grocers and finally - FINALLY making it to Ragstock. My heart was beating so hard. I had seen advertisements for clothes at this amazing store – not knowing what to expect, I expected it all.

We walked in – the store smelled like musty basement mixed with incense. Loud music was playing over the speakers. Luscious Jackson? L7? It had to be The Edge, whatever was playing. The best radio station around.

My fingers flitted across the flannels, cartoon t-shirts, crinkle skirts, crocheted vests, baggy skater jeans, sunglasses, tights –Oh. My. God.
I could have slept there. Lived there. Please, don’t make me choose – I only have $50! I want more!

Luckily I had time to decide. Chelle’s mom is notorious for taking her time – this was the one place I could bare to stand for more than 1 hour. I got lost in the directly imported Kimonos wondering if I could get away with wearing one of them to school. I slid hangers from one side of the rack to the other, looking for the perfect shirt that would encompass me and my aspirations to be … well, I don’t know what.

I cannot remember exactly what I came out of there with but I know eventually I had in my possession a few vintage shirts, sweaters, a Mr. Bubbles t-shirt, a pair of bellbottoms and a pair of white Kurt Cobain glasses.

On our way back to the car, Chelle’s mom realized how bad she had to pee and pulled us into the African beauty supply store looking for a bathroom. While she tracked down a clerk, Chelle and I smelled the oils, looked at the fake hair and were pulled out of the store so quick when it was realized there was not a bathroom available for customers on the premises.

“Come on. We are going to Rainbow across the street”Tammy said getting into the car.

Oh. Rainbow grocery store – that sounds OK.
We quickly maneuvered across University Avenue and into the parking lot of Rainbow foods.

Running to the back of the store near the meat section, we finally found the restroom in a dark hallway. It was a 1 stall bathroom with a sink and mirror. Tammy went into the stall while Chelle and I stood over the mirror, primping and putting on lip gloss.
Suddenly the door leading back to the store flew open and a guy in a trench coat came in.
- WHAT! You can’t be in here – this is a women’s restroom!

Mumbles came from the man as he fumbled with his zipper.

The man pulled out his penis and started urinating in the sink right in front of us.

Rachelle yelled “MOM STAY IN THE STALL THERE IS A CRAZY MAN IN HERE”

“What?” she yelled back.

Both Chelle and I ran outside looking for a store clerk to help us. We found a man who worked in the meat department and told him about our experience. From what I can remember, he followed us to the bathroom where he found Tammy in the stall yelling for us and the smell of urine in the sink.

“We weren’t lying - he was here!”

Tammy came out and all of us were shook up about it – mostly Chelle and I. We just saw a grown man’s penis – he could have easily peed on us!

If I didn’t have issues peeing in public before you better bet after this crazy event
that I did for a long time.

I tell people about the guy busting in on us at the Rainbow foods off of University and they say “what do you expect? It’s the ghetto Rainbow?” true. It is.

the night I picked a fantasy baseball team in my sleep

A certain bunch of us, in high school, considered a certain local family’s basement “the best hangout” (which, honestly I think it was voted that in our yearbook). At any rate, it was THE place to be …. Or was it the ONLY place to be – meaning there weren’t too many other places to hang out. I’m guessing the latter.

When in doubt, head over to the Wallendas*! You knew the guys would be over there playing James Bond on N64 or having some weird ping pong tournament that involves running around the table a few times before you could hit the next ball (I swear this happened). Most of us were there in hot pursuit of a boy which, if we could hold their attention long enough from the glowing screen of glory (aka TV) maybe we would sneak a kiss or go into the woods for a long talk about how we wanted our relationship validated and they really could care less.
It was the summer leading up to my junior year of High School and miraculously, my family was going out of town for a whole weekend. My mom left me a detailed list (about 2 pages double spaced) of things TO DO and things NOT TO DO.

TO DO
Load dirty dishes into dishwasher – please put bowls on top rack.
Feed Nikki 1⁄4 cup of wet food in PM.
Fold load of towels and put away.
Be back by 1am – we will call!

NOT TO DO
DON’T SMOKE IN HOUSE
Don’t drink alcohol (we know how much is there!)
Don’t have a party
Don’t light any candles

The list went on and on. Some of the things my mom listed NOT TO DO I had thought of combining to make a huge NOT TO DO faux pas – “oh! Don’t make a giant fort and light candles and smoke and drink beer in it? But MOM! That sounds super fun!”

I actually hated when my family would leave because I had huge issues (still do, kind of) with staying home alone. My house got broken into 2 times growing up and my sense of safety was down to almost nothing so I, more often than not, would invite a few friends to stay the night (Jackie, Megan, Tom & Chelle etc). My parents often knew that people would sleep over but I had convinced them it was for safety, not for a party (kind of…)

This particular weekend, a few people had stayed over on Friday night but I had yet to find anyone who could stay the night on Saturday. I wasn’t too worried about it – Nikki, our Sheltie was there with me. Granted he wasn’t too threatening but at least a warning system if someone tried to get in (along with our Brinks security system) .

I ended up going over to the Wallenda’s that night and lo and behold, his parents were out of town as well leaving the 2 Wallenda’s brothers to hold down the fort. That night they had a bonfire down by the lake (no this isn’t the story where Kunz starts the dock on fire) that involved heavy, heavy drinking that led to screaming Insane Clown Posse lyrics at the top of their lungs while us girls sat and stared in horror/amazement/love?

At this particular party, there were a lot of upper classmen. This changed the dynamic but only slightly. Our age boys were less likely to stick around if upperclassman so-and-so was there hogging all of the Hot 100 or Blue 100 or Everclear (HOW COULD YOU GUYS DRINK THAT!!) Although the majority of the hard partiers stayed, some left. I chatted with a few upperclassmen about their college plans while they interrupted me to sing along with TuPac or ICP. I had to keep in mind that I had to be home by 1am for my parent’s phone call. I ended up barely dragging myself out of there with drunk dude (my age) in tow.

“Ju-just letme walkyou to your car”
- Oh I don’t really need any help but ok.
“hey. Hey listen. Lets have a smoke? The driveway is like Jurassic park”
- Yeah. Its crazy. Remember when Miller drove TJ’s car into the marsh? That sucked”
“DUDE. I know.”

We get to my car and finally after 15 minutes of making out, I unfortunately had to go.
- I have to go home! My parents are calling me.
“well come back after you talk to them”
-Maybe.
“Come on! Party time here”
I told him I would when in reality I was tired and just wanted to go home and sleep.
I got home shortly before 1am received the phone call my dad who, by the sounds of it, was sleeping and had probably set an alarm to call me.
“Toots, you home?”
- No I am not.
*Laughs “ok well we will see you around lunch time tomorrow”
- sounds good.

I started my nightly routine of washing my face, putting on my zit cream and crawled into bed.
After 2 hours of being asleep, the phone rang.
I picked it up, hesitantly
- Hello?
“DUDE. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” (upperclassman I had talked to earlier that night calling from the Wallendas)
- Picking my fantasy baseball team – what do you think I’m doing?
“Oh really? Do you have Ken Griffey?”
- Of course! And Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez (I kept up on my baseball seeing as so many of my loves were baseball players).
“Well do you need help? We are going to come over”
- Who is we?
“Me and Wallenda (younger)”
- Ok.

As I hung up the phone I wondered why this upperclassman decided to call me. He was an acquaintance, at best. But took it as a weird occurrence – he knew my parents were out of town and who doesn’t love to drunk dial? But to actually go through with driving out to my house? doubt it.
I got up and made myself presentable for the hour it was (2:30am).
I turned on the TV and started to fall asleep again - waking up pounding on the sliding door.

“HEY! COME OUT FOR A SMOKE!”

I wasn’t breaking the rules. I wasn’t smoking inside. Hehe.
They hung out for a few hours – eating chips, watching TV. Then they took off at around 4am. I honestly cannot remember what we did while they were there. I just remember how strange it was to receive a phone call at 2am letting me know that they were on their way over and the fact that I told them I was picking my fantasy baseball team.

It was one of those weird nights where you think – did I see that on a TV show or was that real? More of these weird nights followed throughout my high school career. I think about this one a lot.


*Family’s Surname changed to preserve privacy.