QueenBee’s favourite place is the Salvos – Australia-speak for the Salvation Army charity shop. I love it too, for many reasons. One is that it willingly receives the majority of my soul-purging chuck-out sessions and many dispossessed profit from that. (Anyone who’s lived in Africa will share my horror of discarding perfectly okay stuff. It almost feels like an insult to scorn everyday things when so many have nothing.)
Another is that it is heaving with clothes chosen by other people. Not a clothes horse, with zero interest in fashion, I find shopping overwhelming. I am good at choosing words, not so much at choosing a usually overpriced something in an emporium of infinite choice and unkind mirrors. I figure if something fits and someone else has liked it, it’ll do for me. (And no, I am not a man.)
Possibly the most compelling is that it is a few shops up from a soul-mortgagingly expensive toyshop that gleams and glistens, luring children from the pavement with balloons and a rocking horse at the front door. I am able to hustle QueenBee past with an assurance that the Salvos are waiting. When she lingers at the threshold, feeling the magnetic pull from within, I say, ‘Quicksticks, I think the Salvos had a delivery this morning,’ and her ‘tired’ legs that ‘don’t want to work’ scramble up the road in double quick time.
Inside, Bee is enraptured by any and everything. She spent a happy half hour yesterday riffling through a bin of seriously manky toys – like detritus from the set of Child’s Play – trying to find some feet for a Bratz doll. She has wanted one of those vile plastic monsters forever and I have balked. Aside from the name (since when are brats attractive?) I find their over made-up features and disproportionate anatomies utterly repellent and was unwilling to fork out $15 ($20 at the toyshop down the road) for one. However the Salvos castoff had a pathos that elicited sympathy. The unfortunate creature was crippled and footloose, and all the feet at the bottom of the toy bin were mismatched by the varying heights of their different platform heels. The deal was that if she could find a couple of attachable feet that let Cloe/Jade/Sasha/Yasmin stand level, I’d shell out $1.50 for the doll. A half hour later, I had a few bum-hiding hole-free shirts; Cloe/Jade/Sasha/Yasmin had matching feet; and Bee had a smile, a spring in her step and all was well with the world for the rest of the day.
In a couple of months, Cloe/Jade/Sasha/Yasmin and her matching feet will find their way back to the Salvos Chuckie bin, a few more dollars will go to a good cause and Bee will be back at her personal fashion capital, delightedly browsing again.