Cash for clothes

So I have been walking past this shop for more than a year when I finally plucked up the courage to push the door open and walk in. The window and door were plastered with adverts saying “€1 for every pound of clothes”. It struck a chord with me as besides needing the money I have over the past 20 years been stockpiling clothes. Now, I visualised a weighing scale sat on the shop counter and the black bags of clothes being weighed and the cash handed over. With the number of clothes I had to sell, I’d be looking at €50 at least

I walked in behind a young man, casually dressed, who put his bags on the counter. I was shocked to see the two shop assistants tearing open the bags and pulling out the clothes. One at a time they held them up, scrutinised them, checking for faults and after reviewing the twenty odd items, €15 was torn from the cash register and passed across the counter.

I was appalled. His stuff looked as new as the day it was bought. All neatly folded with creases where there should be creases. I reckon he must have stayed up the previous night, having previously popped them in the washer dryer, to give them a last loving iron before carefully folding them and placing them in the plastic bag. My mind’s eye visualised the pile of unsorted, ancient, torn and damaged clothing I had planned to visit them with and I shuddered. You see to make it into my castoff clothing pile the smart jeans, for example, would have to have had a broken zip or a large tear in the ass, paint splattered on the legs, worn through knee damage or an unfortunate stain around the groin. Simply being old or out of fashion would not be enough.

 My cast off clothing travelled through a multi-phase process to final discardment. First, their replacement items were test worn until I feel comfortable with them, as I grow quite attached to any clothes I buy. When, after several months, I decide to downgrade, let’s say the jeans, they move out of the wardrobe and into the gardening wear pile. From here they can be used to wear while I mix concrete, paint sheds, shift soil or cut wood. They can last several years in this pile until finally retirement to the castoff clothing pile. Even then they may be retrieved for a particularly dirty job such as the cleaning out of the septic tank.

 I came out of my daydream to see the shop assistants looking directly at me. I smiled weakly and without a word made a swift exit and ran up the road to catch up with my wife.

 “Well?” she said.

 “No good – they only take women’s clothes. Shame though…”