A Tinful of Memories

Courtesy: Brady's Bunch

Lunch hour found me selling candy to my middle school classmates. With most of them living out in the country, they had reason to envy my proximity to a candy shop, Alger Variety Five & Dime. I could turn a box of Lemon Heads for 15 cents that I had purchased for 10, or a Tangy Taffy for 40 that I had purchase for a quarter.

When I first shopped Big Lots, on a trip visiting my aunt and uncle in Illinois, though, a whole new world of wholesale pricing opened to me. Large bags of candy for mind-bogglingly low prices enticed me to buy a cartload, which I stored in a suitcase under my bed--my own little candy store warehouse. Eventually, the killjoy school principal shut down my enterprise, more concerned with parental complaints, cavities, or classroom distraction--I never figured out which--than impressed by my entrepreneurialism. I reopened once he retired.

My last Lip Lickers Lip Balm tin, which I
thought about selling at Laura's Last Ditch,
though, ultimately, I changed my mind.

At Big Lots, Lip Lickers Lip Balm, on clearance for ten cents each, presented a bargain I couldn't ignore, tempting me to branch out beyond sugary sweets. I bought three cases of Lip Lickers: strawberry, cherry, and watermelon. These, too, I sold to the kids. Going to a small school with seventeen classmates, of which only six were girls, I quickly glutted the market.

I'm a lip balm addict, though, and used the overstock myself. When I finished the second-to-last container nearly a quarter century after purchasing it, I posted the empty tin on eBay. I learned ages ago that people buy the strangest things. I didn't think it would sell for much, but since my 1980s Trapper Keeper fetched a pretty penny, there was only one path to certainty. Multiple bidders pushed the price in excess of $20. Gloating to my friend, Pam, she gushed that she had some, too, complete with contents.

Pam composed an evocative eBay description, celebrating the ubiquitous lip balm's softening to a pleasant consistency when stored in a back pocket, its fruity aroma greeting the nose while the satisfying click of the sliding lid tickled the ears. For her, it was pure nostalgia--nostalgia that she could part with, though, for a price. Hers, with a condition far superior to mine, topped $100 in an all-out bidding war. It might've reached $150, but I can't recall with certainty. I wish I could ask her.

I remember meeting Pam. Socializing in groups of women intimidates me, yet I steeled myself to try the moms' group at my church. While I liked the people there, Pam stood out: we shared an interest in selling online, she was fun, not too straight-laced, and I felt I could be my unedited self around her. When you're as unusual as I am, that says a lot. I enjoyed seeing a friendly, welcoming face at church, someone with whom I could exchange more than pleasantries.

Pam loved the tale of the lip balm tin. To this day, when I first meet someone who knew her, I'm greeted with, "So you're the one who sold the lip balm!" She's been gone nearly a year and a half, having succumbed to cancer, yet she's still breaking the ice, posthumously.

My friend, Pam.

When I think of middle school, I recall my desktop candy and lip balm shop, but mostly I remember not fitting in. When I think of the lip balm, though, it fails to evoke feelings of youthful rejection. Instead I think of Pam, and the feeling of welcome. The sliding lid isn't the only thing that clicked--we did. I regret that we didn't get to know each other better, sooner, outside of church. She deserved to be more than a compartmentalized friend.

It's my nature to sell things. Through the recession, prices on vintage Lip Lickers plummeted, yet I find myself drawn again and again to the lip balm tin, and the temptation of selling it. But a friend is a balm beyond price, so the tin's not for sale, not now. To anyone else it would be just an empty container, but to me, it's full.

It's full of memories.

Next up: Ridiculed for my frugality, I've concluded, Blessed are the Thrifty.
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Blessed are the Thrifty

I know how to pinch a penny. I've been thrifty long enough, I recall the ridicule in middle school because of it.

The Tightwad Gazette. I can't
recommend it highly enough.

Several years ago, my brother's mother-in-law recommended The Tightwad Gazette to me, but, figuring I could've written the book myself, I brushed it off. There's something about hearing a suggestion twice. When my sister, working mightily to save for an adoption, read The Tightwad Gazette and insisted I do likewise, I devoured all three volumes in a few blissful days of non-stop reading. While others might scoff at the offbeat money-saving techniques, I took notes. With The Tightwad Gazette author Amy Dacyczyn encouraging readers to shop secondhand, I bought a needed pair of sweatpants in practically my first trip to a thrift store since childhood.

Yet I didn't eschew the Kohl's clearance racks entirely; my nascent secondhand sensibilities hadn't fully taken hold, and it still seemed superior to purchase new when steep discounts beckoned. But I experienced buyer's remorse frequently. I found a cute knit dress, which pilled and shrunk, unpresentable after its first spin in the Maytag. My husband bought a seemingly indestructible metal garden trowel, but the tip broke off. Our must-have cookware gradually lost its nonstick coating, which I assume we ingested. Most new items promised more than they delivered.

But the more I scoured the secondhand market, the more I appreciated the quality difference between new and used. With Goodwill's shelves teeming with vintage merchandise, I learned I could avoid new item failures. The phrase, "It's brand new!" started to irk me.

I love quality vintage cookware.

Used items have undergone rigorous quality testing. If the clothing will pill or shrink, it already has. If the trowel has dug decades of holes, it's unlikely to break no matter how hard-packed the soil. If Zia Francesca made her famous pasta sauce in the pot ever since her wedding day back in 1946, likely I can put it through a few more decades of home cooking, then bequeath it to my dear ones, along with the family recipes. 

Certainly, some items of yesteryear lacked quality, too, but they're already landfilled. Even if a used selection doesn't serve me long, I find solace in its life with the original owner and its comparatively low price. Unlike new goods with "no user-serviceable parts," it's likely to be repairable. When a new item bites the dust, I'm left with not only a fuller trash can, but the improvident feeling of pure, unadulterated waste--money and resources squandered in equal measure.

I'm glad some people appreciate quality vintage items,
or my shop, Laura's Last Ditch, would be out of business.

Dollars spent at a garage sale, thrift store, or estate sale stay in the local economy and compense the item only, not additional resources used to create and transport it. Buying used online supports a small business owner such as I, or assists in another's decluttering. But, purchase at a typical store, and money goes overseas, enriches a CEO (not that I begrudge the CEO, but still...), and may contribute to forced child labor or degradation of God's beautiful creation.

Buy used, and I see and feel the item, unimpeded by packaging, allowing me to detect how it has held up under normal conditions. I've prevented mounds of waste, and cut the time spent nagging my son to take out the trash. Plus, I adore the amusing unpredictability of thrift stores.

You know packaging is bad when they
sell a tool just to open it. Instead of buying
Open It!, I vote to avoid packaging altogether.

With myriad reasons to purchase secondhand, it's no wonder "It's brand new!" rubs me wrong. I don't use the phrase, lest I give the impression I consider new items superior. Children hear this and learn, if it's not new, they've received less than the best, when the opposite may be true. Really, how much is a tag worth? How much for a curse-eliciting, impenetrable plastic package? Will the $2.99 clearance shirt from Target equal the $2.99 quality shirt from Salvation Army? Even when a store price equals the used price, it doesn't mean the new one deserves a spot in the cart. Instead of considering 'new' the standard of quality, 'tested' makes a worthier standard.

My new ad for Laura's Last Ditch,
celebrating vintage quality.

Do you shop secondhand, or do typical stores still tempt you? As a new year dawns, consider joining "The Compact," or simply commit to avoiding recreational shopping, choosing used instead.

While I pinch my pennies, I'm pinching myself: rather than cursing my things as they fail, I feel blessed to have quality at a reasonable price.

Those middle school friends who ridiculed my frugal ways had a point: thrift can be ridiculous. Ridiculously good.

Next: When my 83-year-old grandma receives her first computer as a surprise birthday gift, she's not the only one Wowed.

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Wowed

I'm a late adopter of technology. As I successfully google obscurities such as "How to make soap from raccoon fat," or soak up rare video footage of Fritz Wunderlich--my favorite classical singer, dead 50 years--I marvel at the Internet. Submitting to its many charms, I feign productivity, wishing I inclined as naturally to stewardship of hours and minutes as I do to dollars and cents.
While others debate the relative merits of iPhones versus Androids, I have barely an inkling what they do. A BlackBerry, to me, ripens mid-June, along a forest's southern faces, waiting to be plucked into my upcycled tin can bucket. Among the rapidly dwindling ten percent of Americans lacking a mobile phone, I cling to a bare-bones landline; call me, and--without the benefit of voicemail or call waiting--you may hear an anachronistic busy signal or endless ringing. I resisted home Internet access until my online business, Laura's Last Ditch, outgrew the public library's computer lab.

A WOW! Computer

My grandma, too, resisted the digital age. On Thanksgiving day, she scarcely noticed the oversized computer monitor atop her vintage metal desk--at Grandma's, parties are BYOT, with 'T' signifying 'Technology.' My mom, well aware of Grandma's technophobic tendencies, lured her into the office, ostensibly to see my blog. She spurned the computer, though, until a mere touch to the prominently placed 'plus' icon enlarged the print to a manageable size. No ordinary machine, the AARP magazine advertised this WOW! Computer, for seniors new to Web navigation. Realizing it belonged to her--a surprise gift--my grandma, from whom I hardly recall a negative word, mustered, "I'm just not sure about this. I try to be a good steward of my time."

Nevertheless, the family gathered, sharing favorite YouTube videos: Susan Boyle's stunning TV debut; Danny Macaskill's acrobatic bike stunts, Paul Potts' touching "Nessun Dorma." We googled 'Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever,' a malady afflicting an honorary grandchild. Growing interested, yet not fully convinced, we signed her up for Facebook. She beheld endearing photos of great-grandchildren in fleeting stages of babyhood, and clips of just-celebrated Thanksgiving dinner at the in-laws'--a virtual family reunion. Won over, my grandmother exclaimed, "Wow! So this is what I've been missing!"

While pondering the Internet's magnificence, I consider how, some day, when we see Heaven, we, likewise will exclaim, "So this is what we've been missing!" We will see not only the dearly departed, but our Savior, Jesus Christ--no longer through a glass, darkly, but face to face. Take that, Facebook!

Jesus of Nazareth--L. Jambor
in my Etsy shop.

Though I enjoy the Internet, perhaps a little too much, I recall my wise grandmother's admonition about stewardship of time, knowing I must answer to the same Jesus for how I've spent mine. I resolve to do better, yet fail miserably, concurring with the apostle Paul: O wretch that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?

Thank God, the same Jesus, who could condemn us, owns a love more personal than Facebook, wiser than Wikipedia, and vaster than Google.

WOW!

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