Fact: After clowns, shell art, and violated dolls with no clothes and unfortunately Cyndi Lauperine hair, mysterious bottles of twigs, berries and leaves rotting in translucent oil are the biggest shelf-wasters at your local Goodwill. Normally, one can laugh them off, “peppers from the ’90s floating in brown murk, how droll,” but once in a while, you find a treasure.

Remember: in retail parlance, a “gift” is something you would never ever buy for yourself.

If you have the expensive “Led Zepplin Extras” boxed set, cue up “Stairway to Indigestion” now. I’d start from the bottom and work my way up, but how do you define bottom? Maybe I’ll just start at the ones that actually make sense.

I don’t know what these are. I’m guessing peppers, because they were obviously meant to impart their delicate flavor to the gourmet experience this thing proposes. But they might easily be polyps, or the young of some strange sea creature. The top one is an impudent little thing, isn’t it? “Oh yeah, you WANT to splash me over your salad. But you’re not ready for that kind of zest.”

So sad. So alone. Are one pepper and two bay leafs, and possibly a juniper berry or allspice pod, really up to the task? No, probably not. Mostly these things are just used to make a kitchen look authentic and well-stocked, and if that was the case they could have gone the extra mile and added a second dessicated pepper. But no. That’s too much zest.

Then things get a little weird.

Do people particularly need a bottle of what appears to be strawberry shortcake-flavored canola oil? I mean, it’s pretty, kind of, the strawberry is dark and lustrous, but what’s the rest of that crap? A sprig of wheat? Corn, maybe barley?

In ancient Egypt, the bodies of the wealthy were preserved with grave goods to take with them to the afterlife. Maybe it’s like that. Maybe they thought the strawberry would get hungry. Here, strawberry, have some millet to tide you over until Osiris and Seth judge your soul as worthy. Safe journeys.

Please excuse the quality of this next image, I was laughing.

Yeah, it’s hard to make that out, but it’s corn. Corn! What flavor does corn soaked in oil impart to your food? Corn flavor? What would be the point? I mean, there’s not a lot of point to the bottles filled with carrots and peppers, I’ve yet to see any recipe call for carrot oil, but at least it looks like something. This looks like tired, wet corn. I guess you could upend the entire bottle into a kettle and have a very small serving of popcorn in one convenient go.

Hmm. I’ll have to check to see if Orville Redenbacher has a patent on single-serving stovetop popcorn yet. This may be marketable, in that sort of “80s single serving decadence” sense of the word.

Your label says thyme but your body says compost.

I checked under the bottle for a “Best when used by” label. I couldn’t find one. I assume this means “best when used by never.” I’ve always found the delicate paradox of something cosimultaneously labeled “gourmet flavor” and “not for consumption” delightful. But that’s a label you wouldn’t need for this bottle, which is is clearly not meant for any sort of use at all.

Lastly…old man butt and twigs.

Thank you.

Goodwill on Brodie in Southwest Austin

Okay, Goodwill, let’s just pause, step back a bit, and address some quality control issues, okay? Just a few…little…things. This goes beyond “make sure the Easter Bunny has a head when you sell them,” and far, far past “the box with the picture of the small personal stereo should ideally contain a small personal stereo, and not just be a box, because we cannot sell just a box, no matter how good our intentions are we are NOT trying to sell the flash.” No, this is a very basic, very simple concept.

If you sell a plate, rinse off the plate, okay? Seriously. We know it’s used, we don’t need a demonstration.

“Hi, I’m Nelma.”

“Hi, Nelma. You’re in a safe place here.”

“I’m with the group because…”

“Let it out, Nelma. Let the pain out.”

“sniff.”

“It’s okay, baby, you’re with friends here.”

“I came here because I have a perfectly flat face and a perfectly flat head and my hair’s done up like Wolverine and I’ve stuck blueberries to the side of my head.”

“That’s good baby, you’re with friends here. We all got flat faces and flat heads and Wolverine hair and blueberries on the sides of our heads. We got to stick together.”

“I love you all.”

“We love you too, Logan.”

“Logan?”

“I mean, Nelma.”

…So, Goodwill?
Yes?
This is about that thing we were talking about before?
Thing? We were talking about a thing?
Yeah, the, uh, thing about washing plates before you sell them.

Uh…why? Were you talking about something like that?
Yeah, just like, five paragraphs ago. Before the crazy snub-nosed victorian girl with the salad bowl for a hat.
She was pretty cool.
You’re changing the subject.
No, I’m not. You never said anything about washing plates. I totally didn’t hear that. La la la la.
You’ve got your fingers in your ears, Goodwill.
Do not.

Okay, just…never mind.

You know, it’s been like five years and I’m not sure where “Plate with Food” came from. I have a vague recollection of thinking it was the most disgusting thing I’d seen at the Savers on South Lamar, but I was proven wrong later. Pretty pretty princess…which, really, isn’t a plate, but it was round, and that’s kind of on topic, right?…from Texas Thrift on I35 and 51st, Princess Wolverine from Salvation Army on 183 near 620, Austin.

…Hmm. Maybe I should have saved this guy for Christmas. But after all the damned bunnies, it’s good to get back to something a little more cheerful.



I like him, he works on levels. Just to start with—and I’m guessing that he somehow escaped from a headshop to wind up in a Goodwill’s crapateria, so this may in fact be unintentionally ironic, the corner smoke shop is not America’s bastion of subtle nuances—the idea of a skeleton hovering over an ashtray really works for me. It says, “Say fare-thee-well to your fetuses, oh pregnant females.”

For reasons that are not clear to me, he’s playing a pendaflex accordian file folder. I’m not sure what’s going on there, but it’s very secretarial. “Arrr…me and Davey Jones just got back from Office Depot. That be a fine, fine office supply and stationary store, matey, it is. Now if you’d be helping me with that chest and those barrels, there, they be having a special on post-its and Almond M&Ms, and I thought we’d stock up for the crew.” And I’m okay with someone playing an accordion file folder, that’s your basic level two whimsy, textbook stuff—I have NO idea why he’s apparently chewing on a World War II fragmentation grenade. That’s just dangerous.

Oh…no, that’s not a starfish in the bowl of the ashtray. Once again, the magic word here is subtle.



In the background, please notice the bottle of DIY Gin. Have you ever heard of one of those country craft “instant soup” gifties? It’s beans and some dried herbs? This is pretty much the same thing, but with gin. Just add water. Or possibly just add vodka, which seems like a pretty good way to start the week. The recipe is apparently three cups of juniper berries, a heck of a lot of dried fruit of some sort, some twigs—yum!—more coriander than is usually found in a typical Thai restaurant, and some boll weevils. Enjoy!

Goodwill on 2222 and Lamar, Austin

I do like a parfait. I don’t think I’ve met anyone that doesn’t like parfaits. Until they saw this parfait, which would pretty much put anyone off of parfaits forever.

That is because this is a parfait that was spurned by God and all that is good, a misbegotten example of a layered dessert. AND it’s a Thrift Store candle. That right there is pretty damning, but for this candle there is no salvation.

Firstly, eew. A plum-pudding rice dessert congealed in paraffin. How lovely. With…actual plums. How nice. How festive. And…peach pits?

Is that even legal? Or rational? “Here’s a delicious rice pudding for you, and I’ve thrown pre-chewed peach pits in it, haha! And because I learned candle-making from the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, I’ve layered it in molten wax to keep its souls from separating!”

Though you can see that they’re trying. Here we see the spirit of the deceased peach rising above its earthly remains, as the ba floats free over the the ha, ascending into the heavens, which here are represented by some sort of weird rice cave. It’s either that, or there’s a small dead goldfish floating belly-up. And given the general aesthetic and moral degeneration of this piece, I could believe that, too.

…not sure. Might be jackfruit. Might be giant salt crystals. Could be slugs. Don’t eat it, whatever it is.

Here’s where cave explorers found the first rice chamber. You can see two tunnels to the rear of the chamber. The left tunnel leads to the Cream Pit. The right one, probably dried fruit or some stuff.

…aaaand here’s the dried fruit. What a sad little plum. It’s bobbed to the surface of the wax like a whale drifting on the La Brae Tar Pits, or a bloating hippo bobbing in a pool of Knox Gelatin. OR maybe a little pig with a cute little tail. That one sets on fire. The smell…the smell would be special.

In conclusion: Rice Pudding Candle. Not to be bought, burned, or eaten under any circumstances.

Goodwill on Parmer near I35, Austin

It’s the latest drink in Miami, and you heard it here–”Sunrise on the Beach,” a fruity concoction of an unnatural jelly-like substance and discolored sand, redefining “drink” (and, indeed, “beach”) for the 21st Century.  Tasty! One part jello-shot, one part…uh…sand. Maybe sugar. Rim the top of the glass with it, dump it in by the scoop. If your dentist has given you the go-ahead on this already, throw in a few shells for variety, you’ve got 32 teeth, give or take. It’s time to give.

This is what happens when the local craft store puts out an ill-advised pamphlet on a trendy new craft. Gel candles all the rage? Make your own. Heck, you don’t even have to buy the darn pamphlet, thanks to the internets. But, as we have all learned by now, you can’t buy taste on the internet. Lurid yellow and hot pink may have worked in the 80′s. Many things worked in the 80′s. Shoulder pads worked in the 80′s. Parachute pants allegedly worked, I don’t remember the 80′s so well because of the side effects of Ghostbusters breakfast cereal. But I’m sure they would have approved of this candle.

At least I think it’s a candle. Someone de-wicked it, which had catastrophic effects throughout the candle’s fragile ecosystem.

Actually, that’s kind of cute, it’s like the little clam is making a herculean effort to rid his sea-bed of a massive pink jellyfish. Go, little clam! Free your brethren! It’s all down to you, brave mollusc.

A survivor’s tip: do NOT stare too long at the spray of yellow sand on the side of the glass. And do NOT attempt to adjust the color-balance and saturation on this image to make the colors “pop” more, because the monitor might. These things we learn only through experience.

Savers, South Lamar near 290, Austin

…Now available for $3.99.

Trust me, this piece has the ENTIRE experience of southwestern life in one small, blessedly-sealed container. The sand really is that orange, the wildlife really is that stunted, and there really is a strangely rippled, mysterious wall of force that completely surrounds you, isolating you from the world and the blessed gifts of water, air, and Miley Cyrus.

I respect the general line of thought the artist was going with. Terrariums are really cool, and cactuses don’t need a lot of water, so, sound design principles all around. Where they faltered, or perhaps expressed their genius, was in gluing the sand together. Brilliant! An eternal, perfect Santa Fe Sunset of orange and yellow, preserved for all time, and climbing up the side of the cactus like a slime mold. It’s so beautiful. So beautiful the cactus tried to escape all the beauty, climbing out of its pot and beating itself senseless–in that special “cactus” sense of the word “senseless”–before succumbing to exposed roots, fatal levels of glue, and all the regrettable side effects of living in a tightly, inviolably sealed glass brick.

Let this be a lesson to us all!

Goodwill on 2222 and Lamar, Austin