Goodwill

Since I am no longer what one would call a "normal" teacher, one thing I do not get to do is go on field trips. You know, getting to travel to places you would not go otherwise, and bringing along a pluthera of very excited children and their sack lunches.

**Small side story (you are used to these tangents if you have ever talked to me AT ALL)---as a child, I, of course LIVED for field trips. My most memorable one was in first grade when my class went to Rawhide. Where else can you pan for gravel that has been spray painted gold?? Anyway, the reason I remember this trip so vividly is because of a kid in my class, Jonathan. He was know for being a very preppy first grader. Yes, we are talking clothes that looked like they were meant for dads, just put into a shrinky-dink machine so they would fit his boyish frame. Jonathan had chosen to wear a very thick and billowy black and white embroidered sweater to RAWHIDE. In the desert. In the hot sun. Not sure if he missed the field trip attire memo: Ragged T-shirt, black bike shorts and a neon fanny pack. That's really all you need. Soon into the trip he got super pale and ended up vomiting all over himself. This somehow was important enough to me that I wrote about it in my diary that night! Smelled like vomit the whole way home. I'm almost vomiting just thinking about it.

Back to the point of this story: Tyler and I took a field trip to Goodwill yesterday. We are having our small group Christmas party on Thursday, and of course we are doing the "tacky Christmas sweater" theme. I walk in and am instantly hit by the aroma of library, mustiness and feet. Not a great combo. Mind you it was already a mildly aggravating day at work. So Tyler and I each make our way to the respective departments to search for our ugly clothes. While I found an abundance of 3-D Halloween sweaters (you know, the kind the require a 9 volt battery or an extension cord to operate), there were no super tacky Christmas sweaters. Probably because everyone and their moms are having the same kind of parties! So Tyler got some embroidered one, pretty much the grown up version of the one Jonathan vomited in at Rawhide. For me, it was between two pretty ugly ones, but the grossest of the two had an added tacky bonus---it was completely covered in some sort of animal hair. Aren't you supposed to wash things when you bring them to Goodwill? They didn't have a comment card for me to fill out, so I suppressed my dry heaves and bought it.

We had one more item on our shopping list: a gift for the White Elephant gift exchange. What better place to get a unique, and somewhat scary gift? We found it right away. It's about 3 feet tall, and we're 99.9% sure it is a mountable bird bath, perhaps used in the Civil War. It's very ornate and is gold. Well, a lot of the gold has flaked off, and it might be lead-based paint. Which would make it a "killer" bird feeder. To round out the gift, we purchased a "Blue Christmas" vinyl record for a dollar. Then the receiver would be able to listen to festive holiday tunes as he or she watches birds meet their maker. It's more of an experience than a gift, really.

While it was a bit of a "Debbie Downer" trip, overall Tyler and I had a good time. Cheap date night!