Today is the second Saturday of the month. That means it’s our day to work at Hope Thrift. Of course, not counting today, there are only 11 days until Christmas Day, making this particular Saturday the worst possible day to be spending half of it doing anything other than Christmas stuff. But, a deal is a deal. We committed to work at the store on the second Saturday of every month. Period. So off we go.
The people we volunteer with are great people. I divide them by whether or not they are front peeps or back room peeps. The difference is profound. My wife is definitely a front peep. You will find her behind the cash register with Lynn Hewette. Today they will both be decked out in some ridiculous looking Christmas getup, both looking adorable. That’s a key characteristic of front peeps, they tend to be more—how shall I say?—aesthetically pleasing than we back room peeps. It’s not an intentional thing on the part of our managers, I’m sure. Robin, Renee, and Jennifer are all three wonderful folks and clearly in the front peeps camp. It’s just that if you spend enough time in the back room, or out at the dumpster, or unloading people’s cars for more than thirty minutes, you might have been a front peeps candidate when you arrived, but now you’re a back room peep all the way.
Usually on my shift I work with Christy and Brenda, two veterans of the back room. Christy can usually be found over at the toy counter, elbows deep in an assortment of puzzles, Power Rangers, and stuffed animals. Brenda is always tethered to the incoming clothes counter trying to decide if the mountains of clothes that get dumped at her feet every Saturday are suitable for resale or destined for the dumpster. She goes about this mundane task with what seems almost...pathological cheerfulness. When I arrive I am usually assigned book duty, that dreadful task of essentially throwing away 25 year old paperback classics like The Hardy Boys Meet Nancy Drew on Brokeback Mountain. Then there are always the hardback coffee table books which people have convinced themselves someone alive in 2019 would want to buy and place on their coffee tables. The 100 Best Selling Hats of 1957. The Encyclopedia of Cross-stitch. Everything You Need To Know About Origami. Once I manage to break away from that drudgery, I usually wind up at the dumpster taking out my frustrations by throwing glasses and plates.
Eventually, I end up roaming around the place looking for Dave. He’s the main guy in charge of heavy lifting. He also knows where every single thing is, knows where everything goes, and knows all the lyrics to every 70’s and 80’s tune that plays over the sound system. In other words, he is clearly the most essential volunteer at Hope Thrift. Whenever I get stuck and yell out, “Dave, what band is this??”, Dave can be counted on to provide the answer, “Come on dude, that’s Cheap Trick from 1977.”
The best part of a day at the store is the end when the front door gets locked, all the customers are gone, and the manager on duty gathers all of the volunteers together for a quick prayer before we leave. When its Renee, she looks exhausted. That’s because she actually runs the store. She’s the first one there, the last to leave. When we all arrive in the circle she asks, “Alright, is this everyone? We lose anybody?” It’s not a rhetorical question. The pace of work at Hope Thrift can be frenetic to the point where the thought that someone might be passed out under a pile of cardboard boxes a real possibility! Once everyone is present and accounted for, someone leads us in prayer. We are thankful that we have this store. We are thankful that we get to work here. We are thankful that we get to serve in this ministry. If you’re reading this and a member of Hope, you should volunteer. You don’t know what you’re missing.
No comments:
Post a Comment