Holy Donation, Batman!

Maybe it's the fact that AV and I still feel like poor college students or maybe it stems from Dad's penchant for dead men's wardrobes and Mom's refusal to pay full price for anything, but AV and I spend a significant amount of our shopping time in Goodwill stores.

Even though I usually leave these stores with an almost obsessive desire to bathe, I still shop there. As long as you wash your purchases in hot water and bleach it's really not as nasty as it sounds. Well.... sometimes it is as nasty as it sounds, but more on that later.

Our dumpster diving shopping style has really paid off a couple of times. When we first moved up here we found a Mike Knuble Red Wings jersey. Obviously, hockey is HUGE up here and I really wanted a jersey but even the local team's* jerseys sell for over $80. So when we spotted a jersey hanging on the wall in the local Goodwill we made a bee-line for it. Seven dollars. NICE.

Lookin' good Knuble

The second greatest purchase (or quite possibly THE greatest) was a discovery in a Salvation Army store in Cinci. Always on the lookout for sport jerseys (AV likes how the wicking material feels) we discovered something AMAZING. A grey and blue sport shirt with a "23" and "WILSON" emblazoned on the back. But the amazing part was when we looked at the front. "Northern Kentucky Table Tennis" and a pair of crossed paddles. OMG. NKU has a ping-pong team.  

Bring it Grandma.

If you can handle the motion sickness inducing 360 degree room view for the first thirty seconds of the video, you can see the shirt we found at around 0:35 in the video below.

But after our Purdue adventure this weekend, I'm not sure about Goodwill anymore...

We went down to PU last weekend to watch SWE compete in Grand Prix**. It was moved to Sunday due to the weather and we were stuck entertaining ourselves for an entire afternoon we hadn't planned on. We did what anyone would do in our situation and ended up at Goodwill. AV made a bee-line for the glass case on the front wall containing "valuables". He collects/plays/sells old video games and records and has been able to find some real gems at stores like this. As he perused the record selection I stared into the glass case.

There was a small box between some other, larger boxes. Most of the front of the box was covered by a $3.99 price tag. I didn't have my glasses on so I assumed I had made a mistake when I identified what was in the small red box.

I pressed my nose to the glass and my jaw dropped. That was NO mistake. That box was EXACTLY what I thought it was.

O_o

WHO DONATES THAT TO GOODWILL??? And maybe more importantly, who BUYS that from Goodwill???

Cheers,

Red

*The Muskegon Lumberjacks
** Winning their sprint race and placed 30th in the starting lineup of the big race, kart 44 finished the race 7th but officially finished 5th following TWO disqualifications in the top five finishers. AWESOME job ladies!

Photo credits:

Knuble - http://www.sportsmemorabilia.com/image_php_1030077.jpg

Ping-Pong Grandma - http://office-table.com/tag/picture-of-table-tennis-game

Northern Kentucky Table Tennis - http://www.nkytt.org/