Under His Hand » 2006 » July

Goodwill Rawks!

(I’m going to respond to all the comments from the last post in a day or two. Each comment was written with a lot of thought, which I’m overwhelmed to be the recipient of. So I will reply to each one with just as much time and consideration as you all put into them. I have to go to Illinois tomorrow and I have some things to get done before I do and also when I get home, so be patient please? But know that I am reading each one and I am genuinely touched. Thank you.)

But in the meantime.. have some fluff. :-)

My son has an aversion to wearing “used” clothing. Coming from a garage sale/Goodwill loving mom like me, it created a problem. It’s not a snobbish thing, or a ‘too good to wear Goodwill’ thing. It’s more of an OCD type of thing. Wearing someone else’s clothes squicks him out. He has other germophobe issues with things like food. If anyone touches his food, he won’t eat it. My daughters used to torment him terribly with that. He’d labor to make a sandwich and then they’d lay a finger on it, which would send him into a complete ADHD-fueled temper tantrum. And I couldn’t make them fix him another one because they’d have to touch it. (I could make him a sandwich but I could not touch any other food he was going to eat.) For years throughout elementary school he wouldn’t eat from the hot lunch line because he saw the lunch lady touch something one day and that was the end of that.

He’s a lot better these days. I don’t worry that he’s going to be another “Monk” anymore. He still prefers that nobody touch his food (nothing wrong with that anyway) and then he has this little ‘thing’ about used clothing. I’ve tried to bring him around to our side (the girls and I love Goodwill) but he’d go naked before he’d wear someone else’s skin cells (his words, not mine).

Fortunately for myself and Master’s wallet, he’s only 11. He’s preoccupied with video games and star wars minis. He can’t remember to brush his teeth, let alone what clothing made up his wardrobe yesterday. I buy the stuff when he isn’t with me, take it home and wash it so it smells like our laundry, hide it in the back of a drawer somewhere and wait for him to find it. He has never suspected a thing. He rifles through his clothes, pulls out a shirt and says “Cool shirt! I didn’t know I had this!” and puts it on.

Go mom.

Until today.

We were heading to the local Piggly Wiggly in the ~~mobile oven~~ truck. It’s hot outside. It’s 90-something with a heat index over a hundred. I’m… cranky. The heat is making me ornery, plus I’d just read through the kids school supply list. That’s enough to make any parent see red, you know? Now I love teachers and I know how much they spend out of pocket to equip the classroom. I sympathize with that, really. But damn, every year the supply list gets longer. And a portion of it is stuff that isn’t my child’s personal supplies but stuff that’s going to be donated to the classroom. Most specifically I was chaffing over the increase from one box of kleenex to two boxes of kleenex. Not a great big deal, but then you figure I have three kids so now I’m buying SIX boxes of kleenex. And, I’m buying highlighters and red marking pens for the teacher. And… oh bother. I know, I know.. kleenex for fucks sake. Take a pill, kaya.

I was mentally tallying the cost of supplies, the cost of groceries and hair cuts and gym shoes while melting to the car seat and we drove past the Goodwill store. My daughter, sensing my irritation, made a soothing comment about stopping in there someday soon. Bless her.

And then my son, sitting next to me in his Goodwill shorts and his Goodwill t-shirt turns his nose up and says “I’m not wearing Goodwill crap.” Like his sister and I are ‘crap’ for wearing it. I could not stop myself.

“Yes you are.”

He gets a little panicky at the thought of me taking him there to go shopping and I start feeling meaner by the second and I say, “No, I don’t mean you are going shopping there. I mean you ARE wearing it. Right now.”

He almost started to cry. He was dangerously close to vomiting. Lay on the mommy-guilt already.

I had to take him home so he could take a shower, change his clothes (into clothes that he had seen me buy brand new with his own eyes) and made me promise that I would take ALL the germ-laden clothes out of his drawers Right Now.

So I took out a couple of stained up shirts and some jeans that are too small. What the hell? Money isn’t growing in my backyard anytime soon.

This was one of those little secrets that parents horde, one that I was going to tell him when he got older. Like how he used to fluff up granny’s boobs and called them pillows. Or the day he asked excitedly how could he get those marbles out of his ball sack. “And I used to buy you Goodwill clothes and hide ‘em in your drawer!”

You see how the heat and humidity can just ruin *everything*??

I do have to wonder if I’m seriously affecting his psyche just to save a few bucks on clothes. Do you think so? Not that I’m going to stop buying Goodwill or anything, but you know, I could take the money I save on clothes and put it in a therapy fund or something. :D

~cheap cunt