Don’t Desert the Deseret* Dessert in the Desert

(Note: This title has nothing to do with the text other than I mention the word Deseret in it. I just liked the play on words.)

Those of you who have known me well in recent years know my growing affinity for thrift shops. Much of that has come from my growing poverty, but a lot of my love for the thrift store comes from the fact that it just makes sense. Why pay $30 or more for jeans ever (I really have no clue what new jeans cost these days)? It doesn’t take long before some teen grows out of or becomes bored with her new jeans, donates them to the local thrift store and I pick ‘em up for a buck on half-price day. It’s beautiful. Someone else pays the price (often in more ways than one) and I get the goods. You just can’t get more American than that! And a person can get EVERYTHING at a thrift store. Need some jewelry for a special date? They’ve got it. Need an evening gown? A sweat suit? A winter coat? Underwear? (Yuck, I know, but they’ve got that, too!). Shoes? A lamp? A blender? Candles? Tupperware? Furniture? They’ve got it and they’ve got it cheap. And it’s not in some triple-wrapped package or “protected” by Styrofoam peanuts that you then have to try to find some creative way to re-use. Plus, any VOCs that were once present in an item have long ago been released and breathed in by some other poor chump and all that’s left to worry about are wonderfully natural body odors and household cleaning toxins. Of course, the most wonderful thing about shopping at thrift stores is that when you tire of an item you’ve purchased there (or anywhere else for that matter), you can stop by any random thrift store in the country and just leave the item there. No questions asked and no form to fill out (unless, of course, you’d like a tax deduction). It’s reducing, re-using and recycling at it’s very best.

Deseret* Industries (the Mormon answer to Goodwill) takes thrift store shopping to a whole other level and has, I admit, taken away some of the joy of thrift shopping from me. First of all, the stores are huge. Secondly, they’re packed (I’m not kidding). Thirdly, and this is where they really start to lose me), they’re expensive. I paid $6 for jeans there! And it’s not like the stores smell any better than any other thrift store. (Apparently, Mormons have B.O., too.) The closest and only (that I know) thrift store to me is in Provo – less than 10 miles away, but just off the BYU campus. It is always packed with college students and young families. I keep going there hoping that their prices will change or that they’ll get in a sewing machine or a cheap end table or lamp, but I am disappointed every time. It really bums me out. It’s like shopping at Wal-Mart only stinkier. Oh, how I long for a Salvation Army, Goodwill or even a Red and White.

*The word Deseret comes from the Book of Mormon. The Jaredites carried it with them as God led them from Babel to the Americas. Joseph Smith (first prophet of the LDS church) translated the word to mean Honeybee. Utah is now known as the Beehive State and the beehive is the state symbol.