Search results for "overpriced goodwill item of the week"
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Surety Regular Absorbency Pads! Now Available at Goodwill!
I‘LL ADMIT up front that this particular Overpriced Goodwill Item of the Week might be a stretch. I can’t definitively say that these are priced too high because I was just a boy when Mother would send me to the store to buy them for her; this was of course years ago – I don’t remember how much they were going for then and I can’t imagine they’d cost the same today.
Asking Donna, my wife, is equally useless because she buys hers by the bale from a livestock husbandry supplier. (Then once a month she, the kids and I have a sort of Family Home Evening where we sit around the living room, and with templates I fashioned using leftover linoleum from our kitchen remodel, trim them down to the right size while discussing current events. The surplus I save for eBay packing.)
So I could be wrong on this, I don’t know.
I’ll leave it up to my, what?, six readers: Is $3.99 a fair price for a package of 22 regular absorbency pads that were donated to a thrift store?
Things to consider:
• The per-pad cost ends up being just over 18¢.
• They have that patented Instabsorb Layer™ for quick absorption.
• These pads feature Omni-Odor Guard™ – handy!
• Though each weathered package is dingy, scuffed and faded, and was sharing space on a shelf with a handful of pointy tent stakes, I didn’t see any tears so you probably won’t be bringing home bedbugs. (And take my word on this one: you don’t want bedbugs “up in there.”)
Hell, if it turns out this is a good price, I might swing back there and pick up a package or two. It’s Donna’s birthday next week.
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National Thrift Store Throw-These-Things-Out Week: April 16-20!
ABOUT A DECADE AGO, I started noticing a disturbing trend around the holidays. You’re smart; you probably did too.
Numerous retailers – I’ve seen this everywhere from Target to J.C. Pennys, Kohls to Walmart, and then eventually closeout places like Ross and Big Lots – began offering a particular type of item which apparently carried the caché of class and sophistication yet was mass-marketed in stores’ last-minute holiday gift sections alongside shelves of shrink-wrapped samplers of cheese, sausage and jam, the perennial Chia Pets and strange, oversized Scrabble- and Oreo-themed ceramic mugs with packets of gourmet hot chocolate and/or sundae “fixin’s.” Whew! That was one torturously long sentence but it had to be said!
Of course what I’m referring to are those decorative bottles of olive oil and/or vinegar packed with artfully arranged peas, lemon slices, beans, onions and of course peppers – whole or sliced.
Curiously, the gift-buying public embraced these things. Each year, at Christmas, more and more recipients added them to their kitchen counters. Oh, perhaps you didn’t have a high-end granite or marble counter top, maybe you were living in some crappy one-bedroom apartment in Mar Vista with a chipped and scratched Formica counter, but put one of these babies next to your George Foreman Grill and suddenly you’re a gourmet chef and your kitchen belongs in “Martha Stewart Living.”
After half a dozen years of wiping the dust off these vessels that were supposed to be decorative as well as consumable, their owners started realizing that they’re never actually going to use something that’s sat out on their counter for so long and is starting to show its age – the ring of peperoncini strips just starting to disintegrate adding to that layer of sediment and mystery twigs, leaves and other flotsam at the bottom.
Thus began the steady exodus of these glass jugs from folks’ homes which continues to this day. Since these full bottles were still arguably decorative, since the layered vegetables are still mostly intact, because the classy red wax seal at the top has never been broken and the contents are completely unused and since it had been received as a gift, few have felt comfortable doing what they should be doing: throwing them the hell out. In the trash!
And so they started appearing on the shelves of our nations’ thrift stores. Disturbing? Oh, my, yes.
Even more disturbing, more frightening is the realization that when thrift stores receive these as donations, they don’t refuse them or throw them out, either! The thrifts put them on the shelves despite the fact that they wouldn’t (or in some cases couldn’t legally) offer other donated food items.
There these things sit, and each month, more and more and more appear…and nobody buys them. Not only are they up to a decade (or more) old, in addition to their contents beginning a slow deterioration towards cloudy amorphousness like a jar of unopened pork tidbits recovered from the wreck of the Andrea Doria, on top of all that, most of these bottles of vinegar and olive oil are products of China!
If that’s not enough of a reason to throw them out, nothing is! I don’t know about you, but since that whole baby formula debacle in China a few years ago, I haven’t exactly felt all that comfortable feeding my baby China-grown olives and jalapeños suspended in garlic-infused vinegar. Attention Child Protective Services: Don’t worry, only nourishing American-made vinegar goes in our little Blythe’s Evenflo.
So while this does of course function as one of our delightfully informative “Overpriced Goodwill Item of the Week” posts…
…Goodwill is not alone in their poor judgment here. Like you, I’m finding these in every thrift store I go to.
See, these glass receptacles of flavored cooking fluids aren’t likely to be purchased on the secondary market by anyone – not even by the irritating Etsy and Retro-vation set. You can’t “repurpose” bottles of rancid olive oil into something jackasses in thick-framed nerd glasses and Betty Page bangs will embrace. These aren’t old vinyl LPs, brother!
Plus there’s no reason to stockpile this crap for thirty years in the hope that hipsters of the future will pay high prices for them to create a vintage 2010s kitchen in 2050 – these low-grade vegetables marinated in what amounts to Chinese formaldehyde will be nothing but discolored mush by then. Mush I tell you!
That’s why I’ve taken it upon myself to declare this week National Thrift Store Throw These Things The Hell Out Week.
And so I’m trusting that all my, what?, six regulars will help make this a reality, even if you personally have to go into every Goodwill, every Salvation Army, every little-old-lady-run church thrift store within a few hundred miles of your house, and heave these demon bottles off the shelves and down onto the floor yourself, in a coast-to-coast explosion of broken glass, capers, garlic cloves and extra-slippery Grade 有unrefined olive oil! Also, my attorney has immediately cautioned me to tell you to not under any circumstances do what I just wrote!
So I guess I’m left to appeal directly to the people taking donations at these secondhand stores: For the love of God, good cooking, uncluttered counter tops and non-tacky kitchen décor, please, thrift stores of America – throw these things the hell out as they come in! And throw out the ones your store already has now!
And while you’re at it, throw out these absurd amalgams of popcorn, rice and dried beans…
…and the bath oils…
…all the bath oils!
And get rid of the artisan spice blends in economy quantities…
…and the bottled sugar, cinnamon and syrups…
…Away with the dried pasta…
…and for the love of Christ, whatever unholy thing this is…? Burn it!
Get rid of it all!
Thank you.
Well, I think I’ve done my part here for thrift store shoppers and employees alike. And what better way to reward myself for a job well done than by finally cracking open that old store stock jar of Koogle I scored on eBay a few weeks ago and treating myself to a true epicurean delight – a taste sensation I last enjoyed before Kraft discontinued making it back when I was in kindergarten. Like you, I’ve been dreaming about it ever since.
And between you and me, I’m not even going to bother with bread. A rare treat like this should be enjoyed straight from the jar by spoon or finger so that no other conflicting tastes might taint its delicate flavor.
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Fifteen Things What Was Bueno in 2015!
LIKE you, I don’t understand why “Year In Review” or “Best of [insert year here]” articles are run in December — the year’s not over! I mean, what — are we to believe that by writing these things largely in advance, to run at the end of the year, whatever publication, “on-line” or real, maybe is able to give its writing and production staff a little breather, a little time off over the holidays?! Ridiculous.
Anyway, it’s with that in mind, you know, running this in early
JanuaryFebruary instead, that I justify dumping a ton of What’s Bueno items here — with modified ratings, to save space, and in the process get to clear out a bunch of photos I have on my computer.Be warned: Most of it’s from the 99¢ Only store, and some of you, what, six readers have given me grief about covering them more than the other dollar stores. And to that I say, “Get off my ass!” And more importantly, “Thank you for reading my blog.”
Onward!
Baby New Year Solar Dealie from Dollar Tree!
I kinda like these solar-powered figures. Both Dollar Tree and 99¢ Only carries various styles for a buck a piece. They don’t seem to last indefinitely: The solar cell wears out, they slow down and eventually stop moving. This one was cute and it was only available for 2015. For all I know they were back this year with “2016” on it. 5 out of 7 dollar signs!
$ $ $ $ $ $ $
Simpsons Figurines from Dollar Tree!
A buck for a Simpsons figurine? Aah, hell, why not. I think there were eight of them. Bart as Bartman, Lisa, Maggie, Marge, Homer, Chief Wiggum, Krusty (shown) and Mr. Burns. I thought Burns looked the best, so that’s the one I bought — you may choose differently. They had similar figures from other properties, too — Toy Story, DC Comics, Cars, Finding Nemo (Bruce the Shark was particularly well done). They’re each about 3″ tall or smaller. Not a bad deal: 4 out of 7 dollar signs!
$ $ $ $ $ $ $
Dollar Tree: Taste of Tony’s Microwaveable Pizza!
Dollar Tree seems to have had a long relationship with Tony’s. Just a few years ago, you could occasionally find their full-size pizzas that go for $3 or more at the regular grocery store. Man, those were the days. Now they sell individual French bread pizzas there, and these. Note it’s “Taste of Tony’s” not “Tony’s” on these microwaveable dealies, since they’re smaller and most disappointingly, unlike the bigger Tony’s, they feature imitation cheese. Meh. Save your money and get the big, regular kind at the grocery store. Costs a little more, but it’s worth it. 3 out of 7 dollar signs.
$ $ $ $ $ $ $
99¢ Only: Splash and Play!
Though the photo on the package shows three, you get just one Splash and Play to a package. If you want three, you’re going to have to shell out three bucks.
And just what do you do with Splash and Play?
Despite its name, you just blow it up, lay it on the lawn in front of you and sit there quietly with your mother. There’s neither any splashing nor playing. It earns a perfect 7 out of 7 dollar signs for helping to keep your unruly kid under control!
$ $ $ $ $ $ $
99¢ Only: Aunt Jemima’s Griddle Melts!
Like you would, I collected the entire set — Sausage, Ham & Bacon; Egg & Cheese; Sausage, Egg & Cheese and Apples & Cinnamon. And I felt good about doing so, because the nutrition information on the back indicates they’re fairly low in fat.
Then I got ’em home, opened ’em up and saw how small they are:
Well, you can’t tell by the photo, but they measure a paltry 3″ x 3″. If you’re like me, and you are, you’re going to have to eat a whole box to satisfy that breakfast hunger — and in doing so, you just multiplied that fat content by four!
Here’s one after it came out of the microwave:
You’ll notice that despite the package photo to the contrary, there’s virtually no way to slide this mess onto a napkin for dainty eating.
I bumped into the head of the TedParsnipsDotCom web design team in our break room here (where he seems to spend his entire workday) and he took one look at this melted, congealed, adhered-to-the-plate monstrosity and snickered, “Heh — for people who can’t dump their own garbage on a piece of bread.”
Sadly, he’s right. And I told him so just before I ordered him to clean out his desk and had Security escort him out. 2 out of 7 dollar signs.
$ $ $ $ $ $ $
Dollar Tree: Bahama & Co. Tropical Tiki Air Freshener!
Ah, the tiki conundrum: I hate “goofy” tiki merchandise, but as both a tiki collector and dollar store enthusiast, I was compelled to purchase this. As you would, I hate its wacky oversized white teeth and wish the entire thing was cast in black or very dark brown. It’s a nodder, too, and I don’t like my tikis to move. Despite that, it somehow smells like my mother’s house did, so it gets some points for that. 3 out of 7 dollar signs.
$ $ $ $ $ $ $
99¢ Only: Core Power High Protein Milkshake!
Ask anyone who sees me at my gym: “That guy clearly has no idea what the hell he’s doing, but by Godfrey, he’s here almost every day doing it! Jackass!” After an intense but largely pointless, possibly muscle-damaging workout, I drink one of these. I think it’s supposed to be good for you. Tastes good, anyway! The main thing is they go for over three bucks at Walmart, so I feel like I’m getting an amazing deal regardless that drinking it is probably completely counterproductive to the effects of my misguided attempts to
stayget in shape at age — …eh, whatever age I am. 6 out of 7 dollar signs.
$ $ $ $ $ $ $
99¢ Only: Creepy Cameo Costume Jewelry!
Not a big jewelry wearer here — being a man and all — but I couldn’t help but be delighted by this ghastly cameo necklace in 99¢ Only’s ladies department. As you can see, the other cameos are traditional, what, 18th or 19th century-type ones. And then we have the skeleton woman. (Wish I got a closeup. Sorry!) Pretty sure it was leftover from Halloween and someone just put it with the others, but regardless, it gets 7 out of 7 dollar signs from me!
$ $ $ $ $ $ $
99¢ Only: Fred Cards!
When the early-2010s generation starts getting nostalgic about its bygone youth — and it seems the nostalgia cycle is getting smaller and smaller so it could be any day now — no doubt YouTube’s Fred will have his own segment with D-level non-celebrities reminiscing about him on some VH1 show. Meanwhile, in antique shops and collectible stores, you’ll find unopened decks of these Fred cards going for far more than 99¢ Only…with no takers. Despite all that, I’m giving these cards 6 out of 7 dollar signs in a pathetic attempt to appeal to a much younger demographic that doesn’t look at blogs.
$ $ $ $ $ $ $
Dollar Tree: Lobster Spread! With Cognac!
A dollar for lobster spread? And they have a similar crab spread as well! Doesn’t matter that the actual lobster (and crab) content is probably minimal — the can looks so stylish. I bought one of each. Tasted fine, though kind of unremarkable. Goes for $3.99 a can at Cost Plus World Market! That and the wonderful printed-on-the-can packaging earn it 5 out of 7 dollar signs.
$ $ $ $ $ $ $
99¢ Only: Jif Cereal!
The 99¢ Only store had more Jif cereal than you can shake a spoon at! You know I bought a coupla boxes, loving — as I do — all things peanut butter, as one should. I guess the people at Kellogg’s made too much for this product launch (industry term) and you, Mr & Mrs. Dollar Store Shopper, benefited. If you bought some when they had it. And brother, they had it for months! 6 out of 7 dollar signs!
$ $ $ $ $ $ $
99¢ Only: Super Obama Figure!
Even at $1.99, which is more than 99¢ only, I figured these wouldn’t last long and I was right — they were all gone on a return trip to the store a day later. There was practically no information on the package other than what you see on the front: “Obama — Exclusive.” Maybe “Made in China” on the back, but little if nothing else. Likely they were unlicensed (not that a public figure needs to be licensed), but eBay — chock full of them at ridiculously high prices with none selling — also shows figures from the same line featuring Obama as a Jedi Knight and as a Chicago White Sox player…which would have had to be licensed and weren’t. I was going to buy one for my father and send it to him as a joke, but really, $1.99 only plus whatever crazy price Priority Mail postage is up to these days just to good-naturedly raise Dad’s blood pressure? Pass! Still, 4 out of 7 dollar signs.
$ $ $ $ $ $ $
Dollar Tree: Stone Wave Microwave Cooker!
“If you wait long enough, anything As Seen On TV eventually makes its way to Dollar Tree.” —Ted Parsnips.
Truer words were never spoken. Now I just need to copyright that, put it on a t-shirt that I’ll advertise on TV and no one will buy, and it’ll end up at Dollar Tree, like a Bacon Bowl maker, the Topsy Tail braider, or the above, the Stone Wave microwave cooker. Like you, I have enough kitchen junk I never use, but I figured for a buck, this would have been worth buying just to review. And then I never got around to it until now.
But I did use it and took some pictures.
Here it is midway during the unboxing [industry term]. Looks like a cross between a Sherman tank and a TIE fighter!
Here’s all the elements, disassembled!
You get a pot and a lid! An instruction book, too, fulla recipes!
Here is it assembled, all ready for action!
I made exactly two dishes in it — some sort of spiced apple thing, which was pretty good, and something resembling an omelet, below:
The omelet wasn’t bad, either. The little Stone Wave cooker is small: you’re not going to be feeding an army with this thing. I’ll be surprised if it’s still in the cabinet. I haven’t used it other than those two times and I’m probably just going to toss it out if I haven’t already. Heck, at a buck, I can afford to!
Still, I’ll give it a decent rating especially because the Stone Wave Microwave Cooker, at my local Goodwill thrift store for the inflated price of $3.99, also qualifies as an Overpriced Goodwill Item of the Week…
And 99¢ Only has them, too — but for twice Dollar Tree’s price — $1.99!
Order it off TV and you’re going to pay $10 plus about $7 in shipping, so for all these reasons including Dollar Tree’s so-cheap-why-not-give-it-a-try price: 6 out of 7 dollar signs!
$ $ $ $ $ $ $
99¢ Only: Quisp Cereal!
I must be growing up: 99¢ Only was selling boxes of Quisp for just 99¢ only and all I did was take this picture. Don’t you make the mistake I did! 7 out of 7 dollar signs.
$ $ $ $ $ $ $
Dollar Tree: Wacky Packages Stickers!
Speaking of things from one’s childhood — I remember a time when you would get five Wacky Packies, as we called ’em, for a quarter — plus a stick of gum as well! Today, the gum is long gone, but Dollar Tree will sell you a package of four Topps Wacky Packages for a buck! Let me do the math here — Okay: The price of an entire pack of five hilarious stickers (and something to satisfy your gum tooth) from back when I was a kid — 25¢ — now only gets you one lousy sticker.
Or, to do more math and put it another way, that involves me doing more math — for the price of one pack of 4 Wacky Packs today, you could have gotten four packs of 5 Wacky Packs back in the day!
They’re still fun though, so 5 out of 7 dollar signs!
$ $ $ $ $ $ $
Wow, fifteen What’s Bueno at the Dollar Store items reviewed and I’ve barely made a dent in my backlog of dollar store crap. Expect more reviews, plenty more! And I’ll expect you to keep coming back to read them!
But I won’t hold my breath.
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It Came From The Free Online Photo Editor!
IF THERE’S ONE THING I’VE LEARNED over my past thirty-eight years of blogging here on the internet it’s that a good portion of my, what, six readers enjoy reading stuff about thrift stores, if I’m correctly deciphering the all-but-impossible-to-interpret Google Analytics information I obsessively check each night at 12:01 a.m. with a tumbler full of high quality Chilean brandy.
Regardless, seems the thrift store posts get a lot of hits (followed closely by posts about fried bologna sandwiches, so expect to see a lot more of those in the future). Problem is, I don’t see a really good Overpriced Goodwill Item of the Week every single day. Or every single week for that matter.
However, sometimes I just happen across something that’s, well, that’s just kind of neat.
It’s with that in mind that I, with great fanfare, roll out yet another “regular” (ha!) feature, soon to be forgotten by the both of us…
That’s pretty self-explanatory, right? Saw something unusual; took a picture of it; didn’t buy it. There you go. Wonderful.
Oh, and look who’s here! It’s our first noteworthy thrift store item!
Steno Booster!
Dictation Speed and Accuracy Training Course! For every type of shorthand!
“Practice at home today [for] …a better paying job tomorrow!” reads the sleeve.
Miss Jones! Take a letter! ‘Dear Miss Jones, Maybe if you didn’t wear the same outfit two days in a row, you wouldn’t have been passed up for that promotion to the executive steno pool. Hygiene is important in this organization. Very truly yours, etc. etc. P.S. Take a shower.’ Type that up and give yourself a copy, then head down to Rexall on the corner and for God’s sake, woman, buy a bottle of Stopette.
So there we go! That wasn’t too painful, was it? Well, sometimes these new regular features are a little rocky at the beginning. Remember that first fried bologna sandwich post? Yeah — and look how far we’ve come since then.
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The Agony of De-Arm!
AS MOST patriotic Americans know, today the Olympics begin, and I for one couldn’t be more excited!
My God, just think about all that hot, sweaty flesh…!
But enough about me in only a pair of dingy, threadbare briefs, stuck to my leather recliner, eating one microwave chimichanga after another while watching TV during one of our nation’s hottest summers on record!
What you’re here for is one of my most popular features – The Overpriced Goodwill Item of the Week!
This week’s item (heh – “week” – as though I post one of these with the regularity that this feature’s title implies!) will set you back $3.99 – as you can see here in this closeup of the price tag:
“Why, $3.99 isn’t a terrible price for anything – especially an imported curio from mysterious and exotic Korea,” you say, having noticed the gold sticker on the bottom of this item – whatever it is!
Oh no? You’ll pay $3.99 for this, will you?!
“Again,” you insist, “$3.99 seems perfectly reasonable for a ceramic figurine of belovedly forgotten Sam the Olympic Eagle – the visually uninteresting Disneyfied mascot of the 1984 Summer Olympics held in the filthy toilet that is Los Angeles.”
Oh, I’d tend to agree with you, probably, until the figure was turned around, that is – and we all saw this!
Gasp! His right arm-wing has been snapped off! Broken! Gone! Shattered and destroyed like the Olympic dreams of a Greek athlete found guilty of tweeting pictures of herself marrying gay West Nile Virus-carrying illegal immigrant mosquitos to each other at Chick-Fil-A, if my grasp of this week’s headlines is accurate.
A missing appendage – the glaring imperfection that will render an already practically worthless collectible ceramic figure even more practically worthless in the practically worthless collectible ceramic figure collector’s market! The judges aren’t going to like that!
But you want to pay four bucks for this thing, there, Mr. (or Ms.) Moneybags, be my guest. Be my guest!
“Oh, for God’s sake you jackass, give Goodwill a break!” you argue. “Clearly the dirty, poorly-behaved, unsupervised child of some annoying and pushy customer broke this after it was priced.”
No! No! You do not insult the dirty, poorly-behaved, unsupervised children of annoying and pushy customers from my local Goodwills. Not on my watch, pal! You do not do that!
No, as a matter of fact, I happened to be there when this little beauty was brought out of the back on a cart laden with all kinds of overpriced secondhand crap and put on a shelf on the sales floor (industry term). Troublemaker that I am, I even made a point to tell the woman who was putting out the merchandise “This thing’s broken” and show it to her.
Her response? A shrug and then, as she walked away, “Someone will want it.”
Give that Goodwill employee a gold medal!
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Congratulations Janet & Dan!
IF IT’S MONDAY, and Ted’s got nothing more substantial for us (thank Christ), why, it must be Overpriced Goodwill Item of the Week…Day! You’re saying to yourself! Sure!
While today’s offering is not outrageously overpriced…
…it’s still something that you and I are betting not a whole lot of people are willing to shell out three bucks for at a thrift store.
What is it? you ask.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you…
Our Children’s Wedding: Janet & Dan’s parents’ wedding album…for Janet & Dan’s wedding. If you follow all that.
And what’s more…? It’s empty. No photos inside! None!
Wedding pictures are notoriously uninteresting to everyone but the bride, but even so, if you’re going to put this out on the sales floor, Goodwill, why not leave the photos in it?
Yes, yes, I know: Likely whoever donated it pulled the photos first and gave the thrift store an empty album. In this case – here’s a suggestion, Goodwill: It’s personalized! Without the pictures it’s even more worthless than it would be with them! And you can’t get much more worthless than worthless! And it was already worthless!
So now it’s completely worthless to everyone everywhere!
Unless…!
Unless – through a rather unlikely set of circumstances – some person just happens to have a son named Dan or a daughter named Janet and they just happened to have married someone else named Janet or Dan (whichever the case may be!), and they did so on May 23, 1981; and somehow, over the last thirty years, this same person, the parent that is, never got around to buying an album to put their copies of the wedding photos in, and this very person just happens to be shopping in the very Goodwill that I found this…and comes across this in the bric-a-brac section!
If that’s the case, and you are this person, by all means, buy the album. Buy the album, sure!
And then you contact me because I’m going to have you go out and buy me a lottery ticket.
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LOOK at that! New for 2012, we actually have a little logo for this feature now!
You’re probably saying, “Uh-oh – quality like that cost ol’ Ted plenty – it’s only a matter of time before he starts charging me for access to his site, not unlike the many premium porn sites I’m a member of. And he’d be right to do so, Ted would, to charge me a bi-weekly fee, that is.”
Don’t you worry: The site is still free. (Well, for you it is. But me, I’m hemorrhaging cash just keeping this thing online – my hosting company charges me six dollars per post, and if it features a photo or an inordinate number of letter V’s, hoo boy – that’s when they really stick it to me!)
No, despite the expensive look to that logo, believe it or not, I crafted it myself with nothing more than a camera and a free online photo editor website. And a little bit of elbow grease, and a small stack of Chips Ahoy! for snack.
Anyway, to celebrate all of that, and the beginning of the new year, we’ve got a special Overpriced Goodwill Item of the Week for you!
What’s more timely for the beginning of January than an Overpriced Goodwill Item of the Week…that’s a calendar…?
Well, I’ll tell you what’s more timely: A calendar that isn’t a decade old. Three ninety-nine they want for a completely useless calendar from 2002!
The entire cast of “I Love Lucy” would be rolling in their mass grave if they knew about this thrift store outrage; that is, if they were buried together – but it turns out they weren’t. (I looked it up.)
And I think I speak for all of us when I say that when you have a show that’s so beloved as “I Love Lucy” continues to be some thirty years after it originally went off the air, you want to think that the cast, Lucy and Ricky and Fred and Esther, each one hilarious and unforgettable in his or her own way – Lucy with her hare-brained schemes, Fred with the wacky things he did, and all the rest – were as close off-camera as they were on-camera, and that they stayed in touch with each other until the end of their days, going out to lunch, perhaps shopping, attending each others’ kids’ bar- and bat-mitzvahs, spending holidays together, rollerblading and whatnot.
So taking that to its logical conclusion, wouldn’t that mean that even if they hadn’t agreed to some sort of mass suicide – which I reiterate they didn’t! – wouldn’t that mean that they were so close, that when the time came, they’d all just want to be buried together for all eternity? I think you’ll find comfort, and a measure of wisdom, in these thoughts.
My attorney, however, thinks we’ll be hearing from Lucie Arnaz.
I’ll tell you what Lucie should do, though – she ought to call Goodwill and demand they remove this thing from the salesfloor.
Three ninety-nine they want!
¡Ay yi yi!
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Pucker Up And Open Your Wallet!
LOOK, I know I haven’t done one of these babies in a while – and believe me, brother, it ain’t due to a lack of surprisingly expensive merchandise down at the local Goodwill.
So my promise to you, dear readers, is to feature a new
What’s BuenoOverpriced Goodwill item each and every singledayweek of the year right here on this blog.Oh, look, it’s
more than two weeksnearly three weeks into January. Well, I’ve already screwed up this one. I guess there’s really no reason to waste my time trying to bother with the, what, 49 weeks left, is there?…And yet: How hard can it be? Between you and me, most of this “blog-writing” just ends up being me copying and pasting text from previous posts and then editing it ever so slightly. Shh!
So with that in mind, let’s get started:
Oh lookee here! Lip gloss! Thrift store lip gloss!
I’ll point out that you’re not just getting one novelty mouthal item, but two: Flip over the blister card [industry term] and you’ll see that your $5.99 also entitles you to this lip balm.
They’re by the good folks at Lotta Luv Cosmetics – the first (and, presumably) only name in licensed candy and soda stocking stuffer glossenbalms, which is a word I think I just coined, though there’s the distinct possibility it’s borrowed from the Germans.
And I guess it should be noted that you’ll also be receiving a generous length of packing tape binding these two items – the yin and yang of lip decor and emollient – together to ensure they are sold as a set – and potentially remain so forever and ever and ever.
…On account of there’s no one who’s gonna pay six bucks for this.