After the magnificence that was the South Flores Texas Thrift Store, we knew that anything else would be a pale second. Out of a sense of duty, we went down the other, lesser thrift stores on South Flores, taking a detour down Military Drive because South San Antonio is kind of like the Bermuda Triangle, navigationally speaking. We found this little guy at the Sally on Southwest Military Drive. Won’t you take him in? He’s looking for a good home.

Previously, I’d have thought that you couldn’t screw up a puppy dog, but shell art changes the impossible to the inevitable. Shells cascade down his ear like a river of tiny, friendly worms, and the skin around his eye isn’t covered with a down of fur, so much as a jagged, pale, serrated parody of hair. Don’t pet him, you’ll only hurt yourself. And that’ll hurt you, and blood everywhere, and it ends up just like that last trip to Thrift Land, we can’t take you anywhere anymore.

Points to the artist for clever use of cowrie shells as lips. It didn’t work, but I do applaud the effort.

Teeth like a dainty shark. Well, I’m in love. How much IS that puppy in the window? The one with the serrated jaw?

Okay, here’s the plan. Me and Scoob here will distract him. Velma, you knock the hideous shell dog off the shelf with that giant pumpkin. Let’s go, gang!

…Several confused left turns later, we had navigated out of the gravity well that mysteriously surrounded Southwest Military, and found our next destination–Community Thrift on Southeast Military. Truly a magical wonderland! This MUST be a re-furbished Home Depot, Sams, or some other Big Box store, but they’ve turned it into a hunter’s paradise. Not everybody was as impressed with it as I was, though.

Displeased cat is displeased. However, if you bathed yourself with your tongue (and who doesn’t?) and someone shellacked you with a heavy gloss of irridescent black and yellow paint, you’d probably cop a bit of an attitude yourself. Kind of like Bill the Cat.

Ack!!

The heavily-painted, faintly disgusted cat was only the guardian, the sphinx at the entrance to the valley. Beyond him–her–it–a full aisle of brik-a-brak. It was…beautiful. I had come home.

Just past the pretty lady in the egg-carton dress, we stumbled over this Boschian nightmare.

The fine meaning of this piece eludes me. I’m pretty sure that it involves Voldemort somehow, and that the angelic vision that is Cyndi Lauper is using her apotropaic powers to protect the huddled forms of Ignorance and Want (or anthropomorphic grape and orange popsicles?) as they cringe in a vine-covered cave, while tiny red devils begin their sinister musical number of Doom as they attempt to break through the green barricade, in an obvious allegory of the herd mentality and the dangers of conformity. I’m not at all sure how Voldemort figures into this, that’s where the entire thing breaks down.

Okay, this piece is really too much fun to make fun of. This guy’s just great!

The triangle motif’s carried out in so many different ways–the geometric world being invaded by biological, curving imps, a barricade of wedges and angles becomes our only wall against the organic, vibrant world of our subconscious demons. And Voldemort.

Oh, how the fiends cackle! Shala, what a strange world you’ve painted for us!

Actually, that looks kind of fun, like a thousand little scampering devils playing at a children’s playscape, sliding down the slide with their little hands in the air. Wheee!

But I’m still not sure how Voldemort figures into all this.

Next week, the management promises there will be jokes, and shell art. Some things are too much fun to make fun of!

Oh, Texas Thrift Store. You amaze me. I thought, growing up in a town with a dozen vintage stores within a block of each other, I’d seen–really experienced–thrift. You taught me otherwise. You taught me to fear thrift, respect thrift.

This chain is astonishing. Four huge locations, each the size of a grocery store, each filled with…really, the cream of the crap. Everything I’d hope to find–horrible handicrafts, disturbing wall art, inexplicable small appliances, and a few gems. I’m not going to give up the 183 and Research Goodwill’s class ring over it, but maybe I’ll have to apologize afterward, bring it some flowers, you know.

Is this a cultural artifact? I’ve seen a few of her now, mystifying, strangely beautiful ladies, wearing gowns spun from the purest egg carton, delicately festooned with glitter and sequins like they were dancing a spiralling pavanne under magical fairies–incontinent magical fairies.

…So beautiful. And yet so strangely like an android. An android wearing several egg cartons, and a crown of pipe cleaners. Were she only life-sized, she could be swept off her feet by a handsome prince, or a really stiff wind. Wheee!

I thought this was for something like a quinceañera, where a young girl gets all dressed up like she never did before and never will again, really comes out like a shining star, but I think this may be a little more like that scene at the end of “The Little Mermaid” where the heroine comes out wearing a dress made out of coral and angry cuttlefish, squawking voicelessly, before she drags her betrothed to her foamy, under-sea lair and endlessly dresses him in squid. Disney really did pretty up the story for the modern audience.

…So beautiful.

I’m not sure if this could legitimately be called a “horror” or not. But it does seem to hearken back to the holy grail of the bargain bin that is Goodwill–1970s handicrafts. And “Things That Seemed Like Good Ideas After We Had a Few.” The artist, after a quick count, seems to have had about 104. Phantom beer tabs–make that pull tabs, we’ve gone waaay back in our beverage history–form a mandala of used delights, topped by little pats of embroidery floss that look like tiny swirls of mustard from the end of a pâtissière‘s semi-automatic paper cone (sputsputsputsputsput!!)

For some reason, a very few of these are red. Is this a sophisticated statement about race in a postmodern society, or did the artist run out of yellow twine? We may never know.

Shortly before we left the Texas Thrift Store on South Flores, we discovered Satan. But he’ll wait until Friday.

This July, Thrifthorror took it to the road with a two-day, all-expense-incurred trip to exotic San Antonio! We discovered many things. We discovered that San Antonio’s thrift shops are BIG! Texas Thrift Shops are amazing thrift fantasy wonderlands, with, like a Time-Life record collection, cast-off crap from the 60s, 70s and 80s. We discovered that two full days of thrift shopping can strain the strongest relationship. We discovered we LIKED hybrid cars, bless their fuel-efficient hearts. And we discovered that there is ONE thrift shop in San Marcos. Seriously, what’s up? Don’t you people ever get rid of anything?

We also discovered the North American Snub-Nosed Mallard.

Nearly driven to extinction by well-meaning plastic surgeons, the snub-nosed mallard was known for both its distinctive call, and for its unfortunate predilliction for drowning while trying to scull the lake floor for food.

It was also known for its perpetually surprised expression.

Oh, for the days of my youth, when the San Marcos river teemed with these beautiful, maybe a little embarrassing, waterfowl. How we’d laugh when they struggled to catch a fish, finally succeeded, then sputtered in frustration as the fish would fall out of its mouth.

They did a little better once they learned to eat with a fork and steak knife, not a lot of birds can do that, but necessity is the mother of table manners.

Many children grow up now without ever having seen a snub-nose. And they’re surely the poorer for it. Now, they only turn up once in a great while at Goodwill, and their noble cry of “Fnark, fnark!” no longer fills the air.

Next: San Antonio!

Snub-nosed mallard found at Highway 80 Goodwill, San Marcos, Texas

What will YOU put in this? Flowers? Freon? Some other fluid? Here at Thrifthorror, we have no idea, and we assume you don’t either.

For a teapot…maybe, still not sure what the “F” stands for…this one has a number of strangely animalistic qualities. The trunklike nose, and the little moon-sliver bevels and scallops, give the item an elephantine look, as if it hailed from a land where massive, ponderous kettles moved slowly through the marshes, blowing hot water through their noses on each other with a high-pitched whistle.

Or maybe it’s a dachshund, with a lovely curly tail, that’s been hollowed out and used to serve oolong or earl grey. “Yarp, it were difficult, and there weren’t no small amount of struggling,” he said, a reed clenched between his teeth. “But it doon stopped his barking.”

From other angles, it’s just kind of rude.

I mean, really. In all seriousness, what would you put in here that wouldn’t look completely inappropriate, if you had to provide a full breakfast service to your visiting aunt Gertrude after church? Orange juice? Tea? Certainly not cream. The vicar would throw a fit.

Identifying the poor thing’s species isn’t so difficult–it’s obviously some sort of hybrid of a nine-banded armadillo and a tapir. The real question is, “What does the F stand for?” My unkind inner voice says “well, it’s obviously the grade the kid got in Ceramics,” but that’s unfair–or tells a sad tale of self-defeat and self-sabotage that’s totally out of place in the world of crafts. Maybe this was pulled from the kitchen of a strangely domestic superhero–Full English Breakfast Man! perhaps, or the Fantastic Four Food Groups.

Or maybe there’s another 25 of them, and someone broke up the set. There’s a scary thought.

Goodwill on Stassney and Manchacha, Austin

“Captain, the crew’s talking among themselves, they say that no good’ll come from this voyage. They’re saying the ship’s a’cursed.”

“Belay that kind of prattle. The HMS Conchiolin is the prettiest ship on these eastern seas. T’ain’t no ship as charming as she. Why the day she first set sailed, they said, ‘That’s a right lovely boat there.’”

“Nossir, they said, ‘Damn it all, get the ropes and a team of horses, she’s sunk straight to the bottom of the harbor.’ Then, begging your pardon, they said some unkind things about your mother, may she rest in peace.”

“May she rest in peace.”

“Yessir. Mostly, they said there were reasons that no god-fearing man would build a ship out of shells, sir. Even really big ones.”

“So I’ve heard. From the mob, from the broadsheets, even from the flower girls. Hells, the parrot’s saying it now. But there’s more to sailing than a stout hull, good sails, a functional rudder, and a deck.”

“No there aren’t, sir.”

“I say there are. Is, rather. There’s the look of the thing. The spirit of the thing.”

“If the spirit’s made of clams, I’d say we’re golden!”

“Stout fellow. We set sail at noon. Once we’ve finished dredging out the crew’s cabin.”

“Nossir. Ain’t got one of them, neither.”

“Splendid! Then we sail at 10:30, after breakfast.”

“Sounds good. I’ll warn the men.”

Next to New Shop, near 2222 and Burnet, Austin

It’s an addiction. In some less permissive nations, it’s a controlled substance. But wherever you are, chances are in your adolescent education you learned to use it responsibly–you’re the boss of the honey, not the other way around. Unfortunately, bears never went to your school.

The orange-rimmed eyes, the agitated, frantic expression, those are the first signs of a honey user. More experienced–or more jaded–users will inevitably learn that swallowing it by the fistful doesn’t give them the buzz it used to, so they start using “the spoon”–if you think your bear is a honey addict, or “honeyhead,” check the nose.  If he’s using “the spoon” look for the telltale nasal bleeding.

In the end, honey feeds a downward spiral–at over $12 a jar, the habitual user may have to turn to crime to get their honeypot. Or like this poor, benighted soul, sell himself at a thrift store.

2222 and Lamar Goodwill, Austin

I don’t know how to spell it! It’d sound like Walt Whitman’s barbaric yawp, or an anthropomorphic oboe singing its love song to the moon. Or the mating calls of two steamrollers in a misty forest in October. Or the world’s biggest frog doing a Barry White impression.

Try to fit THAT noise in your head, and then meet today’s kitten.

Bwaaauuuur!

You may be wondering what this is. I am too. Maybe it could hold napkins, or possibly two dead mice, unless you have a better place to keep two dead mice. It is, in fact, a whatnot.

Apparently, Mentone, Indiana was something of a what-not hot spot in its day. There was a What-Not club (I don’t think it was necessarily related to the What-Not Shop, but quite a coincidence!) And then there was Eber, churning out his what-nots. People probably asked him not to. “Eber,” they’d say, “The City Fathers have asked you to slow down with the what-nots. They’re piling up around town hall, and our Suzanne couldn’t open the bakery this morning because there were a bunch of balsa-wood terriers and a clever shelf made to look like a man with a handle-bar moustache outside the door in a pile. We don’t need all these damned what-nots.”

“Nobody needs ‘em,” Eber would say, whittling a piece of balsa into thin strips, dipping them in glue. “That’s the point, Lawson. You don’t need a what-not. It’d be like having a mighty craving for a whimmydiddle or a gew-gaw.” He’d peel another thin, curving strip of wood away, peel and dip. “Are you saying you’re having a problem with my what-nots?”

“Well, no, not as SUCH, we value you as a member of this community! You’ve been here since Taft. Oh, I see you’re making a Taft now. How clever.”

“It’s not a Taft, Lawson. It’s a what-not. You think this town could stand on its own feet without my what-nots? This town was BUILT on what-nots. The walls–the streets–they might as well be built of three-ply Douglas delaminated board. What-nots made this town, and what-nots can break it.”

“Well…perhaps just fewer what-nots?”

“Get off’n my porch, Lawson. It’s balsa.”

Bwaaaaauuuur!!! cat found at Goodwill on 183, Austin. Better than chocolate with more shell art.

I had this thought that just maybe kittens would be a good way to ease back into harmony and happiness after a week of clowns, but, no, the kittens in their own special way bring their own special nightmares. Particularly when they seem to have been inexpertly resurrected after an accident involving a cast-iron skillet, an air compressor, the La Brea Tar Pits, and maybe a flock of seagulls with dyspepsia.

So we’re going back to clowns.

…No, never mind. Clowns are not an improvement. At least, not that clown.

Back to kittens. Or at least ex-kittens.

When you were a kid, did your mom ever pop open those pre-made cans of cinnamon rolls? The kind that comes six to a tin, wrapped up in a coil of tinfoil and cardboard, the kind that unseals itself with a satisfying “pop” as the dough stretches and relaxes? The kind that comes with a gritty, sugary white pasty frosting? That’s really the important part.

One day in the midsummer, we accidentally left one of those sweet roll cans under the rear window, then went out for lunch. There was probably a “pop.” There was no shortage of icing. I think the dough was turning a little crisp in the sun. That’s what I’m flashing back to here.

Try not to make eye contact. It’ll follow you home, and leak on the carpet.

Clown from Savers South Lamar, cat from Savers North on Burnet, Austin. Thank you, Savers. I love you too, but maybe we should just be friends.

Become lost in the depths of its eyes. There is only you…and the kitten, reflecting you. As it reflects you, you become the kitten, consumed in its gaze. When it blinks–if it blinks–hundreds of you will vanish and be reborn in an instant.

The kitten is all things. It is peace and tranquility, insight and understanding. It is not, however, made of shells, but it knows someone who is.

However, you should not, if at all possible, allow the hypnotic spirals of the shell owls distract you from the very important thing, namely, the kitten. Who knows what insights can be found in the depths of its eyes? What self-knowledge and revelation could you glean if you–oh hold on–

It got bored, never mind.

Savers on South Lamar, Austin