The Goodwill

When you are a retiree like myself you still like to work part time to keep yourself busy. So I decided to give back to the community and volunteer at the Goodwill. For the past month I have been working there once a week on Tuesdays. And I get an employee discount! You’re not supposed to shop during your shift or break but I do glance at some items.

I’m already a regular there. Things go fast at the Goodwill so I check out the movies and stuff all the time when I go on my morning walks. DVDs are $3 each (no tax) and I have probably bought like 20 of them. And VHS movies are only a buck so I bought a ton. Including every decent Disney and Pixar movie there is. Even though my brother hates when I buy tapes. I also have a friend that works there that I met through poker. He knows my love of movies and is going to actually bring a list of his DVDs and sell me the ones I want.

They pretty much put me wherever they need me. My first day I had to do “pulls.” When clothes and certain items have been there for five weeks they move them to the other Goodwill store or donate them. So there are five different color tags and my job was to go through all of the women’s clothes and pull the clothes with the orange tags. Too bad the yellow and orange tags look the same and I spend more time figuring it out what color it is. And some of the tops keep falling off the damn hanger and I buddy told me fuck it.

The next week I had to pull men’s clothing. Too bad I had to pull men’s boxers. Gross. I mean who donates boxers and who actually buys them. I mean I don’t want to get Aids. I hope they check for skin marks. Goodwill doesn’t even wash them. I have also heard of people donating grandma panties. Haha.

For my third week I helped out with moving the furniture. The thing that pisses me off is that people are too fucking lazy and cheap to throw out their furniture in a dump. So they “donate” all of this junk to the Goodwill. I know all too well people aren’t going to buy those old shitty wooden rear projector T.V. stands.

For my fourth week I got to sort through incoming items. It’s probably the most fun job looking at donations and peoples shit. One old lady donated a purse filled with coins. We gave it to the manager. There were some Iphones and shitty computers. And there was garbage. Literally.

I saw Ram Man from He-Man. He’s the guy whose legs spring up and down. So he goes from a midget to a normal person. Knowing they’re worth a lot and my cousin collects He-Man toys, I wanted to buy right then and there. But it’s against Goodwill’s policy. So I have checked the toys section three times and I can’t find him.

There were two other volunteers that helped out. Both were high school students working there for the summer.  I think they wanted to get experience put on their resume or get a paying job there. Too bad idiot dropped a glass bowl. Twice. So there was glass all over the fucking place. I mean come on.

We found several books on how to land a man and why men are assholes. It was hilarious, we had a good laugh. We were thinking it must have been some desperate woman who divorced a bunch of times. I remember one book was something like “Why Men like Bitches” and another was the classic “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.” Do you honestly think these books help?

I forgot how it started by me and one guy, both atheists, started talking about how ridiculous the Holy Bible is. I was saying how impossible it would be for Noah to catch two of every animal, bring them back to his huge boat he built himself, keep them safely separated, feed them, and keep them alive for forty some days. And then put them back where he caught them all over the world.

And the other guy who is deeply religious overheard us and said it was possible. Then he had all of these arguments that were just nonsense. I felt bad and I didn’t want get into any theological debates. But my atheist friend kept going at it and religious guy’s eyes were getting watery.

Religious guy explained the Pixar theory to me. It is basically saying that most or all of the Pixar movies are related in some way to one another. It blew my mind. For example the doors in Monsters Inc. are actually time portals. There are all of these small details that you don’t notice right away. But I’m not good at explaining things so go look it up on Youtube.

There is also a Value Village in town. However they are overpriced. They also sell movies but for $5 and they have a terrible selection. They sell sketchy and dirty clothes. The thing is Goodwill is non profit while Value Village isn’t. At least Value Village gives some percentage to charity.

A while back I bought a T.V. for $17 at Value Village. When I see something with a sticker saying “as is” I won’t touch it. But this television clearly said tested. I get back home and its fucked up. I go back to the store to return it. Dude told me that they don’t take returns and I told him it said tested. He says the power worked but they couldn’t hook it up. And that its only $17 and he doesn’t want to lose his job over this. I tell him ya great job and then I told him to fuck off. So his manager gave me my money back. But I sill wasted gas and more importantly; my time.