A Passion for Charity Shops (Thrift Stores)

I have a secret passion. A secret activity. I am a regular customer of the charity shops of Dublin, Ireland, where I live. I hunt for charity shops. I want to find them all. I love them. Every time I find a new one I feel the excitement of a child finding a toy. Camden Street is rich ground. And Capel Street. And I have found a few good ones in Rathmines. I love everything about these shops.

They are busy and crowded. A mass of bargain hunters and volunteer workers. All crammed into the small space the charity can afford to rent. The customers range from old folks to young mothers with babies, women of every nationality examining toys and jackets and curtains and dark men fitting on colourful shirts. Some of the customers haggle over the already ridiculously low prices. "I only have a euro ," someone might say to the elderly saleslady and she looks at the customer across her glasses to see if it might be true. If a child's coat costs three euro a mother might pay one euro to put the item aside and come back on Friday with the rest. Nobody bats an eyelid at this type of transaction. And the child gets a very good coat.

Some of the older folk seem to use the charity shop as a place to socialise . Its somewhere to go to get out of the house, with the chance of a bargain thrown in. The volunteer salespeople chat loudly with each other and the customers, many of whom are regulars, as they sort goods and negotiate payments. Loud Unselfconscious conversations take place, sometimes of a personal nature, the likes of which you would not generally hear bawled around in the department store down the street. "Well I don't eat fish, Mary, you know. I prefer a bit of beef. When we were in Spain, on our holidays, you know, last year, my cousin Pauline had fish every night in the hotel. I might eat a bit of haddock though an odd time, if Frank wanted it, you know, for his tea. Fish was only for Fridays when we were growing up...it mustn't have been the same in Spain. But it's all changed now. " I listen to the old women's talk as I hunt for treasure among the shelves and rails of used goods. If you can put aside your worries about germs from peoples used clothing, there is no place on earth like a Dublin charity shop for an afternoon's entertainment.

I love the fact that I can bring all the stuff I do not need any more to these shops and it is be sold for a good cause instead of adding to the profits of big companies.

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