Of all of the thrift shops in Highland Park and its right now environs, the Tower Thrift Shop is the only one I go to regularly. It's internal walking distance, it has a bigger choice than the opposite Highland Park shops, and its prices are even lower than Goodwill's?Simply $1 for maximum tops and $2 for pants. And at the same time as the garments aren't as nicely organized as at some stores, they're as a minimum loosely grouped into small, medium, and massive categories, so I do not have to have a look at each single garment in the store to parent out which of them are in all likelihood to healthy me. Its largest disadvantage is that its hours are confined, however I can normally manipulate to make the time to stop with the aid of on a Friday?Particularly in the course of the summer season, whilst our weekly farmers' marketplace is being held inside the automobile parking space simply out of doors the church in which the thrift save lives.
Yet no matter those many blessings, my trips to the Tower Thrift Shop are very hit-and-leave out. Sometimes I discover two pairs of pants in my unique length, much like magic; distinctive instances I turn via each rack in the shop and locate not some thing that appears remotely useful. So I had little idea what to anticipate once I headed down there today. Would I subsequently hit my thrift-shop shopping for stride, or might I strike out another time?
At first, it gave the impression of this adventure became going higher than any of the others. I clearly found numerous pairs of pants nicely really worth attempting on, in an series of fabric: shimmery gray high-quality-wale corduroy, clearly protected black wool, and a few sort of mild-weight synthetic. But unfortunately, not considered considered one of them sincerely healthful properly sufficient and regarded right sufficient to be definitely really worth the $2 they had been asking. I moreover attempted on a gray wool sweater in a boys' size XL that mistakenly were given filed at the girls's clothing rack. This modified into some thing I'd been searching out mainly, and the overall duration and sleeve duration have been definitely approximately right on me, however the boxy boy-sized reduce simply didn't appearance appropriate. So, regretfully, I once more that to the rack as properly.
In the interests of giving the store every possible chance, I made a point of checking out the bookshelves, as well. Our town doesn't actually have a used bookstore anymore (in the 13 years we've lived here, two of them have gone under, and so far no new one has emerged to take their place), but the Tower Thrift Shop has a rather motley assortment of volumes at truly unbeatable prices: just 25 cents for hardcovers, 10 cents for paperbacks, and if you buy two, you can get a third for nothing. But this time, nothing on the shelves particularly jumped out at me. I suppose I could have bought something just to buy something, but right now, we already have several books at home on the "to be read" pile (including our new Wilkie Collins fromHole in the Wall Books), and I just didn't feel the need to bring home any more. So once again, I walked out with plenty o' nuttin'.
Unfortunately, I fear that I won't be able to make my final Thrift Week excursion tomorrow, either. I was planning to stop byThe Second Time Around in Pennington, a somewhat larger and nicer thrift shop that I seldom get a chance to visit, before going on to a belated birthday dinner with my parents. But it looks like both plans are going to have to be postponed, as we're currently expecting blizzard conditions all day long, with total snow accumulation of about a foot. So it looks like my Thrift Week thrift-shop binge is coming to a premature and rather unsatisfying end. Still, I will make a point of visiting the Pennington store some time in the next month or two and reporting on the results. I remember patronizing this store in the past, back when I lived in Hopewell, and it was pretty good back then—and at this point, I feel like it's become my personal quest to discover at least one good thrift store in Central New Jersey where I can reliably find useful stuff.
