Thursday II – Bargain Hunting
Aug. 5th, 2010 01:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
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Lately I’ve been checking out the garage sales in the neighborhoods around my office during my lunch breaks on Thursdays and Fridays. I’m looking for books, because garage sales are – hand’s down – the cheapest place to buy them. Used book stores sell them at half the cover price, and while you can find bargain books at Amazon.com you still have to pay shipping on them. At a garage sale, books tend to go for as little as 10 cents to up to a dollar each. I’ve even been picking up books I don’t want to read because the used bookstore close to me has put a call out for certain titles, and I know I will get more than my 25 cent investment back.
I got out of the car at one garage sale today and felt a little annoyed to see that it was one I’d been to last week, featuring the same merchandise I’d rejected last week. I recognized the three little girls running it. Last week their mother was with them, but today they seemed to be running it by themselves. The oldest child looks to be about 12, the youngest around 8. To be polite I decided to walk glance through the items yet again because I did not want to hurt the little girls’ feelings.
In the middle of the garage sale, just inside the shade of the garage, was a collection jar with a sign. Last week (since I’m limited to the time I have on my lunch break I don’t dawdle) I had not bothered to read the sign, but today the child – the middle child who looked to be about 10 – asked if I’d like to contribute.
“Would you like to donate to my mom’s kidney fund?” she asked. I stopped to read the sign on the jar written in black marker on pink poster board. Her mother has kidney disease and needs help to pay for her kidney medicine and to raise money for her transplant fund. Another piece of poster board had a diagram of her mother’s insides, and showing how her barely functioning kidneys were working. As a type 1 diabetic, it’s been in my best interest to read up on kidney disease since I am at a higher risk for it than the population at large. When her mother’s kidneys fail, she has roughly a 5-year prognosis unless she finds a donor. I also know her mother is s school teacher by trade. I’d pawed through her books the week before, and a lot of them were for young adults and were marked with the words “Ms. S-----. DOES NOT LEAVE 1902-B.”
I only had enough cash on me to buy a handful of cheap books, so I put a couple of dollars into Ms. S----‘s kidney fund. Then walked over to the box of books, some of them for younger children that I would guess her daughters had outgrown, and many of them the young adult books labled so that her students did not abscond with them. I picked up an Econo-clad copy* of The Giver, by Lois Lowry. I already own a copy of it in my own personal library, but I know my used book store is looking for more copies of this title because it is required reading in some of the local schools.
I dug a quarter out of the bottom of my purse and asked, “Who has the bank?”
The 12-year-old stood up and smiled, and I put the coin in her outstretched palm.
She thanked me politely, the way you would expect a school teacher’s child to do. I wished her a good day, and wondered how much medicine my quarter (or even my two dollars) could possibly buy.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
* Essentially a book that looks like the bastard offspring of a paperback and a hardback, only purchased by for and by libraries and schools.
.
.
Lately I’ve been checking out the garage sales in the neighborhoods around my office during my lunch breaks on Thursdays and Fridays. I’m looking for books, because garage sales are – hand’s down – the cheapest place to buy them. Used book stores sell them at half the cover price, and while you can find bargain books at Amazon.com you still have to pay shipping on them. At a garage sale, books tend to go for as little as 10 cents to up to a dollar each. I’ve even been picking up books I don’t want to read because the used bookstore close to me has put a call out for certain titles, and I know I will get more than my 25 cent investment back.
I got out of the car at one garage sale today and felt a little annoyed to see that it was one I’d been to last week, featuring the same merchandise I’d rejected last week. I recognized the three little girls running it. Last week their mother was with them, but today they seemed to be running it by themselves. The oldest child looks to be about 12, the youngest around 8. To be polite I decided to walk glance through the items yet again because I did not want to hurt the little girls’ feelings.
In the middle of the garage sale, just inside the shade of the garage, was a collection jar with a sign. Last week (since I’m limited to the time I have on my lunch break I don’t dawdle) I had not bothered to read the sign, but today the child – the middle child who looked to be about 10 – asked if I’d like to contribute.
“Would you like to donate to my mom’s kidney fund?” she asked. I stopped to read the sign on the jar written in black marker on pink poster board. Her mother has kidney disease and needs help to pay for her kidney medicine and to raise money for her transplant fund. Another piece of poster board had a diagram of her mother’s insides, and showing how her barely functioning kidneys were working. As a type 1 diabetic, it’s been in my best interest to read up on kidney disease since I am at a higher risk for it than the population at large. When her mother’s kidneys fail, she has roughly a 5-year prognosis unless she finds a donor. I also know her mother is s school teacher by trade. I’d pawed through her books the week before, and a lot of them were for young adults and were marked with the words “Ms. S-----. DOES NOT LEAVE 1902-B.”
I only had enough cash on me to buy a handful of cheap books, so I put a couple of dollars into Ms. S----‘s kidney fund. Then walked over to the box of books, some of them for younger children that I would guess her daughters had outgrown, and many of them the young adult books labled so that her students did not abscond with them. I picked up an Econo-clad copy* of The Giver, by Lois Lowry. I already own a copy of it in my own personal library, but I know my used book store is looking for more copies of this title because it is required reading in some of the local schools.
I dug a quarter out of the bottom of my purse and asked, “Who has the bank?”
The 12-year-old stood up and smiled, and I put the coin in her outstretched palm.
She thanked me politely, the way you would expect a school teacher’s child to do. I wished her a good day, and wondered how much medicine my quarter (or even my two dollars) could possibly buy.
* Essentially a book that looks like the bastard offspring of a paperback and a hardback, only purchased by for and by libraries and schools.
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no subject
Date: 2010-08-05 08:51 pm (UTC)These kind of encounters remind us...I kind of feel bad sometimes that I can't afford new books, etc but hey, my kidney's still work.
Just a couple ideas (you may already do) my library sells used books very cheaply. Thrift stores are another great place to find cheap books:)
no subject
Date: 2010-08-07 04:01 pm (UTC)That she was selling her personal stash of books that she kept in the classroom for her students makes me wonder if she's not too ill to teach right now. Not a good sign. The book I bought is still on a lot of schools required reading lists (which is why my little bookstore was so happy to take the copy I brought in for them).