Sunday on the way to church, headed south on 42, we passed somebody, the shiny morning sunbeams glancing off his head. Me: That man looked like a Mennonite. Husband: A granola Mennonite. Me: Why? Husband: He was driving a Prius. Me: Granolas aren’t rich. Husband: I think they are.
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Markus Zusak, Three Wild Dogs (and the Truth) , HarperCollins 2024 You pull down books from the library shelves that might stand a chance. Later, unrushed, you ripple their pages and think, No. Or you take a better look, maybe dive in. This one, I dove way early—and in the light from the bed lamp, shaking off the water, I yawned and hugged my head happily. The only photo I have, though, is from the Monday morning I finished. Past the windows the night blue of the sky, the same magical shade as the book’s dust jacket, had gone pale, rinsed of its stars. Baffling, perhaps—this used-to-be-dog-scorner lapping up some man’s whole long love story about his enormous, marauding pets. Grandgirl, the one who’s 13, keeps saying The Book Thief —it’s also by Zusak—is so-o-o-o-o-o good. If a person already saw the movie, must they read the story? I think they must.
Helen Garner, The Spare Room , Picador 2010 Rhona said I had to read it. Right away, on my way back from the library, idling at the red lights, I started. The friend is readying for Nicola’s visit—pushing the bed around so it’s on a north-south axis, and deciding on pale pink sheets, and casing and plumping the pillows in their crisp slips. Rhona knows me. (Though I’d never think to align a bed according to the polar regions.) But the thing turns out not to be the room, exactly. Nicola is expecting the three weeks of quack treatments she’s flown to Melbourne to undergo—ozone saunas and intravenous vitamin C—to wrench her tumors from her body. She’s already had a pair of molars removed because maybe heavy metals leaking from her fillings caused the cancer. There was a cabbage-juice remedy, too, she wanted to try, but the friend stopped her from sending the $4,000 check. More than the room, it’s the caregiving, the suffering, the rage.
It’s still here—the list. Youngest and I, the day she and her mother came, were about to rush off to buy clothes. I told her we would also stop at Food Lion, so could she please help me with my list. “Yellow bananas,” I instructed (meaning ripe). “Just write yell b, y-e-l-l b.” “And white beans,” I said, because I wanted to make soup, “w b-e-a-n-s.” “And I have to speak with a manager,” I said. The day before at Food Lion the cashier person had swiped my BOGO coupons but the discounts hadn’t registered on my receipt. “Argue,” I instructed Youngest, “a-r-g-u-e.” So while she waited in the grocery cart, the hunky kind with steering wheels and seat belts (both the driver’s side and the passenger’s), like she was my chauffeur or something, I took up my case with Lady Manager, pleasant about it. The office still had my coupons. Lady Manager, smiling, no hint on her face of what she was really thinking (“Dummy! Tightwad!”), gave them back. She said I could use them again. It wasn’t an a...
At Grift & Sift, Chapter 11 This, yet. Easter week, Grandgirl the Youngest accidentally left her packed bag behind in Pittsburgh. Only after she and her mom burst into our house did the knowledge dawn. Startled cries. I knew exactly what to do. In the afternoon, within earshot of Fitting-Room Lady, we combed the racks—Youngest and I—for enough things scruffy enough for scruffy Virginia. Leggings already with holes. A slippy top with sleeves we could shorten with scissors. And decent clothes, too, and even a taffeta ball gown, chocolate, with sashes. The smear of something on the skirt washed right out. You see? As is. The scratches and patches. The oldies and oddies. The frayed and the faded. The fled from and forgotten. Things can turn out not be calamities.
At Grift & Sift, Chapter 10 And a cross? Why would anybody hang one on their neck? The two on the pockets of my Grift & Sift skirt—if that’s what they are, crosses—are just for some chintziness. Sue’s skirt, I mean, if it was hers. But the Jesus-and-the-two-thieves kind, dolled up or not, smack too much of sorrow and shame. In my next-to-last chapter in Sticking Points (2011—nobody read it), obsessive-compulsive Anna toils over an article she might send to Harold Epp, the editor of her church magazine. Same as all his readers, she was raised on picture books vivid and cruel— I was enamored by Jesus’ birth in a barn, and after he grew up, his wild miracles. He went out and collected a ragtag assortment of friends, and dazzled different audiences with instant wine, fish and buns that multiplied, fixed-up legs, even the spectacle of somebody sitting up in his coffin. Yet Jesus was setting his face toward his pernicious destiny. On a dark night in Gethsemane, the evildoer ne’er...
At Grift & Sift, Chapter 9 Sometimes the music jars. All these Mennonite sympathizers, but the rock-and-roll oldies coming over the intercom system. The fitting-room lady sings along in her beautiful voice, a little bit under her breath. I love that. For a while, one day, I followed Tattoos and Black Dress and Joni Mitchell Hair around. Was this their first time? Gadding about, they jabbered and joshed and teehee-ed. “If you don’t love it, walk away,” bleated one. (I wrote it down.) I have no idea what they threw into their carts and left with. Maybe, had I paid attention, I’d have had less fun trailing them. Maybe they were aiming their hilarity at stuff I’d have snapped up—the things the hicks donate, or go for. Maybe they were laughing at me. The little boys’ booty, that day—heaven help us. Can’t somebody weed the toys better?
At Grift & Sift, Chapter 8 More and more the clothes’ softness matters. Tired parchment skin needs some sympathy. The funny-looking jacket thing I pulled off a rack months ago, 1XL, bear black? Fluffy and plump , it’s like wearing a bunny skin outside in. Our visit in March at Geoff and Alyson’s, I was able to draw up the hood against the New York cold. I couldn’t see around it, though. Alyson had to keep pulling on my arm, worried I’d walk into traffic. Then the next leg of our trip, in chilly Pittsburgh, Grandgirl sailed around the house in my coat, jubilant. She pretended it was her hair. She came floating down the stairs, her ebony mane streaming on behind. Now is its season for hibernating.
At Grift & Sift, Chapter 7 “It looks like a Keith shirt,” I said to my husband . T he lank fabric, the print. We might have your shirt, I told Keith at church. He didn’t bat an eye. Later, a different Sunday, when Paulson had the shirt on, I pointed it out to Keith. No, said Keith, not his. The denim skirts, too. I bring home one after another—there’s always some picayune problem (the trouble is really my body). Was the skirt Sue’s? The thought flickers (not naggingly), because I’ve seen Sue at church in denim. Crazy, I know. I’ve never asked—we’ve rarely spoken—and just the suggestion could make her queasy, if she takes her clothes personally. But then she wouldn’t be passing them on to the destitute, either.
At Grift & Sift, Chapter 6 Imagine the conversations. Not in the store, but later. Acquaintance: “My blouse! That’s my blouse!” Me: “Huh?” Acquaintance: “I’m pretty sure.” Me: “I took off the pockets, see? The chest pockets. Better, do you think?” Friend: “Mm, I like that blue.” Me: “Yes, me too. The blue with the black. But it had these epaulet things on the shoulders.” Friend: “What?” Me: “It made me feel like a Nazi.” Friend: “You ripped them out?” Me: “Uh-huh.” Husband: “Nice.” Me: “Are you sure? It needed a bunch of little iron-on patches.” Husband: “Turn around. Nice.” Me: “You think? Really?” The last one, especially—that’s a joke. He doesn’t even notice. I have to quiz him later. Did you like my such-and-such outfit? I ask, back home from wherever we went. Yeah, he says. I saw. Very cool.
At Grift & Sift, Chapter 5 I’m embarrassed that I go for shiny things, like raccoons do. Or just showy in general. Like, these shoes—the Jesus kind, like the sandals in the Bible storybook pictures. Though that’s not why I got them. What I loved, besides the straps, was the chunky heels and the zippers. But looking the shoes over, I waffled. I walked out of the store without them. When I went back, though, there they still were, reduced to half price, wanted by not another person in the store. Or else their feet weren’t big enough, which mine weren’t, either. But I was still happy. There’s something hideous about the shoes—I agree. Maybe their lizard look. But hideousness is fundamental to fashion. Just look around you. What’s ugly and what’s not is in the mind. It’s what drives consumption, fuels the beast.
At Grift & Sift, Chapter 4 Red, blue, green, yellow. Pay heed. Depending on the tag’s color, the item might be 50% off. On Thursdays the discount skyrockets to 70%. “As is,” the tags warn. Sometimes the words are circled. Then you know. There’s a rip. A stain. A chip, or a crack. But sometimes the back-room sorters and pricers fail to catch the boo-boos. You don’t look hard enough, yourself—don’t hold the shirt up to the light—and when you get home there’s a hole that’s maybe not really patchable. And no returning. Which brings me to Christopher and Maria’s song: Rusty floorboards, worn-out tires / We could reach the moon with all these miles / Broken tail light, no radi o / But it runs and it’ s for sale / As is . . . Bald tires, la-de-de-da, yet they go around. Dilapidated house, la-de-de-da, but oh the breeze. Wizened old body, la-de-de-da, but still two feet to stand on. As is, we get by. Grift & Sift’s junkers have some wear left—mostly. Also, the $ you wast...
At Grift & Sift, Chapter 3 Here’s the one cardinal rule. Don’t go looking for a particular thing you must have right now. You won’t find it. Just go looking. Prowling one day, I was hardly expecting palazzo pants. (Harridan, I want to say, but I just looked it up. Harem isn’t right, either). I can’t have had in mind these whatever-they’re-called trousers, all purple and gold and jungle-y, reminiscent of Bangladesh or maybe Jamaica, but there they were. The seams were shredding but I could live with that. This system I’m advocating isn’t perfect, because the thing you weren’t looking for but landed on, you maybe don’t have space for in your closet. And then you have to go back later to find the right top or bottom to go with it, if it’s a bottom or top, which violates the rule, plus aggravates the closet problem. Problem, I repeat, all capitals. Your eyes snag on something—in front of you, it materializes. Let’s not point out the obvious—that you’re a craven consumerist,...
At Grift & Sift, Chapter 2 The people out back at the loading dock are the ones I most love—the wiry, muscled men. One wheels out my fat chair on a dolly, and when I throw open the car doors and pop the trunk, considers the possibilities. He’ll try the trunk. Somehow or other he gets the lunker in. Of course he can’t shut the lid. I scrounge around for my husband’s ropes, and the man trusses up the legs or whatever part is sticking out, and stuffs rags around it to prevent (more) scratches, and off I go. I remember once, taking the usual route home at way less than highway speed, having to stop on the shoulder to tuck the cloth in better—it was flapping wildly behind me in the wind. Then I got back on the highway and drove on, just less flappily. I like to think I’m done bringing home chairs. How much longer will I be here? They’re too much of a headache, plus our house is full. But when you let your dog sit in them sometimes, and everybody eats in them, and they were ragge...
At Grift & Sift Not really. Sift, yes—at Grift & Sift, you have to pick through for the good. But nobody’s swindling. Not swindling me, anyhow. My snapping up something another shopper needs, though? Needs needs? Is this akin to trickery, even thievery? I try not to think about that—about robbing. Let’s just say that at Grift & Sift most everything is a steal. The place is usually aswarm. And toward the rear, beyond the swinging doors that say Do Not Enter, are lots more folks, volunteers, sorting the donations and fixing and pricing. I’m not sure I could work back there. I’d get grabby. It’d be too much of a struggle letting this or that perfect, plum thing slip through my fingers and get put out for sale. The lady guarding the fitting rooms keeps track on her clipboard of how many items you’ve loaded up on, and when you emerge from your cubby, static haired, your sheep and your goats in separate piles, she makes sure to corroborate. The limit is 6 pieces at a ti...