highway robbery gone legit

I must dig deep for a topic unrelated to the job search. I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel. Remember, no job stuff. I ask for your compassion.

Today's topic d'jour: the Goodwill. Dullsville? You'd think. Except this Goodwill has a twist. It's evidently the off-the-racks of the racks. And rather than the stacks and racks loaded with goodies and garbage, there are rows of tables lined side by side in the warehouse, tables flat, low, wide and stretching some 30 feet in length. Around six of the some 10 rows are heaped with clothes, completely random, no separation or categorization by size or type. Hangers, psshaw! Dig in, grab a handful, turn over, sift, repeat. What you won't need in cash you will need in patience. The remaining several tables hold household items (at least in their former incarnations), sporting goods, toys, shoes, games and the like, and off to the side a collection of furniture (none I'd want in my home); clothing and linens dominate this Goodwill.

But that's not the twist. The twist is, there's not one price tag. Everything's sold by weight. Dry goods have their own per-pound cost scale. Clothing, meanwhile, weighing in between 1 and 20 pounds runs a buck-39; upwards, the prices adjust incrementally with blocks of weight. That might explain the customer who was pushing a shopping cart loaded with so much clothing and linens that I bemusedly speculated that she was opening a motel.

Me, after shoveling through heaps of clothes like so much soil to a mole, I never did find exactly what I'd come for but did unearth a creative alternative of a dress and a couple other items. Set 'em on the scale. The clerk pushed a button as if she were weighing turkey slices at the deli. And announced the grand total: 88 cents.

Damn! Highway robbery goes legit. It can't get any cheaper, unless you're packin' heat and got your head inside a pair of pantyhose.