Reduce, reuse, recycle. These are familiar concepts to almost everyone now. What was once a mantra for “tree huggers” (a term my father still uses!) is now a way of life for many families, if not for environmental reasons, then for economical ones.
The other day I was feeling quite proud of myself. Needing curtains for Mita and Enu’s rooms I shopped at Gabriel Brothers and dug for the matching curtains I needed. I saved a lot of money with that little bit of digging.
Then Elle and I were off to the Good-Will to see what treasures we could stumble upon. As we walked into the store Elle was confused as this was not the Good-Will she was familiar with. I explained that I often dropped off things we didn’t need anymore at the Good-Will drop of near our house, and that the store we were going into was the place were every-ones donations were sold. I then proceeded to over-explain for my five year old’s age level and discussed how this was a form of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and it helped people find jobs. Not thinking anymore about it, I went shopping and I scored some Timberland shoes for Elle at $1.99 and some brand new Girl Scout shirts for adults for $1.99 each.
The next day I was wearing my “new” Girl scout shirt when someone commented on it and said, “Where did you get that?”. Before I could answer Elle jumped in and said,”My mom got it in the trash.”
So much for my lesson. All that fuzzy-good-for-me-feeling was gone as my attempts at being earth/people friendly were reduced to an episode of dumpster diving!
