My Father, A "Mexican" and a lot of Leather

This is a recollection of some materialistic consumption I carried out on this day. I'm sharing it now because why the hell not...

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My father and I braved the obscenely gloomy weather and journeyed to the Crux once again to revisit the Jesus thrift store...that was not the actual name of course, but they played straight-laced Christian music (the kind that lulls the spirit instead of moving it) and I think the actual name had something to do with Christ...I had come back for a leather jacket I wanted to purchase earlier, but I didn't have the money at the time (I asked my father like an overgrown, whiny brat and he declined to give me the $20, which I would have paid back immediately despite just departing from my profession as a slave/prostitute). He told me there would be a 50 percent off sale from everything in the store on the last Tuesday of the month so I should wait. My father is very old so he has an acquired taste for waiting for things; when you're old what else is there to do except wait and die? However, I am still of the mindset that if you wait too long, you will miss out and things will slip away.

When we returned, I discovered my selection had disappeared.

Inside the Jesus thrift store.

I'm guessing this is what Robin Hood wears in the winter time...

This is what I came for initially; it was the perfect, oversized menswear leather jacket. I didn't want the typical moto jacket with all the typical moto things, I wanted it to look baggy, simple and '90s.

Here's another selection in a different style. I found it intriguing and I would have gotten it had it not been in such shabby condition on the interior.

My father instructed me to hide the jacket until the day we returned, so I hung it inside of that ghetto-trashy looking puffer jacket thinking that offensive print would act as repellant to other shoppers.

After getting upset with myself for letting my father make me wait (READ: after getting upset with my father for not giving me the money), I looked for other choices and selected another leather jacket that was in pretty perfect condition--it screamed "LOOKIT ME, I TOTALLY HAVE MY SHIT TOGETHER!" Except I was just working as a slave/prostitute so clearly I did not. I was hesitant to make the $10 purchase, despite the fact that I basically had nothing to lose in doing so.

I didn't want it at first, but it's a really nice leather trench coat and I know I'll be wearing it a lot more...when I finally get my shit together.

Then suddenly a little brown man walked by with what looked like my coat in hand (it didn't matter that I didn't actually own it of course...) I stalked him for a while, watching him browse the aisles with another woman who was also making some selections.

He consulted with her in a foreign tongue; she seemed to approve of his choice...

At first glace, I would say they were Mexicans; short in stature, copper brown in color--but their tongues were not consistent, no rolling of the 'r's--Laotian maybe? Whatever, that Mexican-looking man had what I came for and now I officially couldn't stand the idea of someone else walking away with it.

So I approached him.

"Do you want that jacket? I'll pay you for it..." I said--clearly before I could rationalize what I was actually doing...

His English was shit. He just looked at me and at the jacket and back again, perplexed.

"I'll pay you more for it..." I said with a tinge of desperation (because shopaholic tendencies...)

"Yes, but I need it..." he started to say, still confused as to what this tall black chick was trying to do.

I didn't feel like giving up right away so I stood there as he looked at the woman who prattled something back to him as she stood browsing the kid's rack in front of us. "I don't understand...I go to the register and pay?"

I responded with a pursed smile before I turned and walked away. $10.60 later, I was sitting in the car feeling as the weather looked.

Of course I whined to my father who drove to Goodwill where I was hoping to fill the void. The selection was lackluster and overpriced, but I was in that unhealthy state of mind where I couldn't accept that I hadn't gotten what I wanted so I had to get something else...a hooded leather anorak in almost mint condition.

Next, we headed to Volunteers of America where they were having their own 50 percent off sale. I was now two leather jackets deep and completely out of cash so I wasn't planning on buying anything.

I sifted through the racks, trying to get an idea of the selection; it was definitely the largest of all the shops and it had more variety. It was crowded with people from the well-to-do, to the white trash, to fake hipsters trying to look like white trash. In the middle of it all, we met a Ghanaian man with his wife and daughter. While my father chatted them up, I wandered around some more, still on my mission despite my empty wallet.

Now when anyone, not just a borderline shopaholic like myself, finds something that they have desperately been on the hunt for, the feeling is so euphoric, it's almost out-of-body--so excuse me if I can't quite recall the exact sequence of events that lead to the finale of my epic search for the perfect menswear leather jacket.

I just remember walking up to the front of the store where all the jackets were hanging, pulling out the only black leather jacket there and then dying.

This time my father could not decline my whining and he handed me the $20. I was ready to do a victory lap around the store.

Leather perfection.

...now imagine if we had decided to wait until the sun was out?




Day 27: two of five tomorrow.