I don't particularly like clothes shopping either, mainly due to social anxiety and general insecurity about my appearance.
I've found wearing a balaclava works wonders for these issues! Retail staff become remarkably less intimidating when you're masked up and anonymous. I can try on all the cargo pants I want and somehow my potato bod just doesn't seem as embarassing.
...Ahem, on a more serious note, I bought an
absolute fuckload of books today. Well, yesterday now.
Went on a pretty nice drive in general, but the op shop I went into in this tiny, interesting little town in the middle of nowhere turned out to have a
huge selection of
actually good books. Like, at first glance it seems pretty standard with a bunch of bland, uninspiring clothes, and I'd already bought a couple of books elsewhere so I wasn't exactly seeking out more, but then I came across this small adjoining room with a wall full of goddamn books.
There were CDs, DVDS and tapes of both the video and audio varieties, too, but I didn't really have time to investigate those beyond a brief scan of the tapes - my attention was held by this treasure trove of books.
Quite a lot of shit I was actually into, too. Honestly, that was probably the most consistently interesting op-shop book selection I can remember seeing in... well, a fair while at least, I don't wanna trash talk the many other shops I've bought good books from. One of the first to catch my eye was 2666 by Bolano, which I've been meaning to read and which I just saw someone talking about online the day before. Wild.
Other standouts included not one but two books by E. Annie Proulx, which led me to wonder just how many of these books came from the same person. Also a sci-fi novel that I'm pretty sure is considered, like, a big-time classic... stars like sand in the palm of my hand or something along those lines (the books are still downstairs in the car so I can't refresh my memory).
I've still gotta finish my current read, but dang this is exciting. They were all one dollar, too! Other stores in the same chain usually charge a lot more than that in my experience, especially for giant-ass books in near mint condition like many of these were. Goodness me.
There was also a frickin' amazing secondhand store/trading post that specialised in army memorabilia which was basically the archetypal chaotic antique store. Like, I don't know if I've seen anything like it outside a movie, book or whatever - there were literally
piles of stuff all throughout, with narrow paths wending their way through the fascinating clutter. I don't even know what to start with describing from that place, honestly. There was a ratty old pith helmet. There was an entire bookshelf piled high with phones from various eras. There were antique bayonets in pretty much every glass cabinet I glanced at, and one even had a cavalry sabre of some kind that I would have loved to inspect more closely. Towering stacks of old cans, bottles and other bits of junk loomed overhead. There were old flight helmets, complete with dangling pipes and tubes that I'm guessing were to keep the pilot from passing out or suffocating at high altitudes. There was a stack of White Dwarf magazines, oddly enough, that I found tucked away under a table or something. There was your usual conglomeration of medals and bits off vehicles, aircraft and probably people. Another cool thing was a bucket I found that was filled of wooden rifle parts, like the stocks and such - on some of which you could still read the manufacturer's stamps detailing what they were and when they were issued. Very cool. Oh and there were tonnes of canteens, one of which I was kinda tempted to buy, though really I know I'd be better off buying something newer and less likely to leech toxins into my drinking water or explode if I put it in the freezer.
Possibly the coolest part was that most items had a tag or sticker with information about its history scrawled on. Neat.
I could have spent hours, maybe even days looking through that place if I was on my own. I may well have spent a lot of money, too, though, so perhaps it's for the best.
Oh, and the proprietor of the store was shuffling around doing heck knows what, barefoot and generally looking the part. Seemed like a nice chap, though.
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Topic: [MILK] There were 12 eggs here what did you do with them? (Happy thread?!) (Read 15033773 times)