Monday, September 17, 2007

MY STRANGEST THRIFT STORE POCKET FIND EVER


I gravitate toward the clothes section(s) in the thrift store first. Manly because of the exceptional possibilities of finding something bizarre. Even when a garment doesn't seem say "buy me" sometimes it says "search my pockets." Which I then oblige, because if clothing is talking to you , you've already got problems, right? So why fight it?

In most pockets I find nothing or old candy wrappers. Sometimes a handwritten grocery list or movie ticket stub to Rocky III. Someone I used to know found $300 in a pair of old blue jeans. I myself have not found more than a dime. Occasionally, however I find something worthwhile, like a Boy Scout badge or a old Cracker Jack charm.

But hands down the strangest thing I've ever found in a thrift store pocket was this:


Inside the interior pocket of a US Air Force blazer from the late 1970s, no less. Of course I've blurred the agent's name and telephone number (because I don't really want to get a visit by the FBI). But I do have the number, tucked away, just in case.

Anybody out there beat that?

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

It wasn't a pocket find, but....
There was a book I owned when I lived in Memphis approximately 1987. It got lost in moving. In 1996, I was in a thrift shop in Miami and found a copy of this cheesy teen novel.... and then I opened it up...and it was MY copy--the pages were ragged, a poem I had written in math class was scribbled inside the cover. Let me tell ya THAT was a trip!

eniksleestack said...

@marie

That's like a Ripley's Believe it or Not story! You know, the one where the lady loses her wedding ring down the sink and then cuts open a fish 3 years later and her ring's inside?

I've seen my own stuff in thrift stores, but it's because I dropped it off there and went back a week later.:P

The Fiji Mermaid said...

Wow... what an interesting find. Marie's story is also quite strange. What is the chance of finding your old book?

Jessica R. said...

I'll have to start doing that. I actually love the idea of finding old ticket stubbs to movies.

Anonymous said...

Somewhat off-topic...

I once bought a used paperback of Rod Serling's adaptations of stories from THE TWILIGHT ZONE. When I got the book home I noticed that inside, someone had carefully clipped out old TV guide synopses from the episodes represented in prose. It seemed that every time I opened that book one of these clippings would drift out. Little gifts, I always imagined, from some deformed shut-in with nothing but time, or an obsessed institutionalized wreck trying to make sense of it all.

eniksleestack said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
eniksleestack said...

I used to cut out pictures of the back issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland not because I was a shut-in or institutionalized, but because I was an six year old kid with a pair of scissors and no idea what "collectors item" meant.:P

Anonymous said...

I just like the idea of a deformed and/or institutionalized Janet Tyler (see Serling's EYE OF THE BEHOLDER) being the previous owner of my used PB. --MQ

So Cal Peeper said...

i don't think mine qualifies as a pocket find, but it was strange. No, I think 'awful' is more appropriate.

i was in the goodwill by my house when I uncovered a small bowl sitting on a high shelf. I lifted the bowl down and to my horror, discovered that someone had.....poo'd in the bowl.

Luckily, I carry hand wipes with me.

eniksleestack said...

"someone had.....poo'd in the bowl"

If I ever rename this blog, I think that would be the new title.

And, oh yeah... EWWWW!!! :D

I have also learned the value stashing 99 Cent Store baby wipes under the seat of my car, because of the poo.

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