No Skirting Around These Prices

I used to work in a little thrift store. Mostly we had very low prices, especially for clothing; we were lower than any of the other thrift stores in town. This was simply because we got so much clothing donated and had so little space to put it that it was more profitable to sell it inexpensively as quickly as possible. We set one price for each type of clothing — for example, all T-shirts were a dollar — so we didn’t have to spend money or time tagging them.

This brings us to the lady with the two-dollar skirt. I was putting out clothes on the racks, aiming for our usual level of minimally disorganized, when this lady held up a long skirt to show me.

Me: “That’s very nice!”

Customer: “Well, I was just thinking about getting it because I have a pillow I want to recover, and if I went to a fabric store, this much fabric of this quality would probably cost me $18.”

Me: “That’s quite clever! It’s lucky you found a skirt you like that has enough fabric!”

But I didn’t think much of it and continued putting out the rest of the clothes I had.

About ten minutes later, the cashier asked me if I would watch the desk for a couple of minutes while she went to the bathroom, so I happened to be sitting there when the lady with the skirt walked up and set it down.

Customer: “I was wondering if there’s any flexibility on the price? Because I’m just going to use the fabric and it seems like a lot to just use some of the fabric.”

At first, I thought she was joking, and then I realize she really didn’t recognize me as the person she had just spoken to and was quite serious. I just laughed.

Me: “Really? You just told me that this was at least $18 worth of fabric and what a great buy it was.”

There was a moment of stunned silence as she actually looked at me and realized that I was the same person, and then a rather defeated, “Oh…”