Yesterday, for the first time since the pandemic closed everything, I worked a volunteer shift at the Ann Arbor Thrift Shop. I’m excited to be there again. We’ve been in business since 1932 and provided millions of dollars, both in gifts in kind and in real green money, to individuals and organizations that need it. We’ve also provided one terrific, friendly place to shop.
I work as a clerk, and my new coworkers eagerly showed me the new systems put in place over the last couple years. All of them are better than the systems we had before, streamlining not only each transaction but the end-of-day routine as well.
What I’d really been looking forward to, though—what I’ve really missed—is the good-natured back-and-forth with coworkers and customers. And that’s where the day came up short. True, I got to see familiar faces among the volunteers and customers. The volunteers love what they do, and we have a greatest customers any shop could ask for.
Customers know interesting things. Once, when someone bought a carved pelican, I quipped, “whose bill can hold more than his belican.” (Not Ogden Nash, Wikipedia says, but Dixon Lanier Merritt.) And, in perfect rhythm, another customer chimed in with the last line, “And I don’t know how the helican.” When donors drop off items we can’t identify, customers always can. Someone will see them and say, “Widgets! My grandmother used to collect them,” and enlighten us. We even have a customer who regularly brings us flowers from his garden.
But yesterday felt a little off. There’s a physical barrier now between clerks and customers. It’s clear plastic, but it’s still there. There are openings in it, for passing items through and for paying, but the openings separate customers from each other more than before, which cuts down on exchange among them. Also, because of CoVid, we now restrict the number of customers in the shop at any given time. Thus, there are fewer folks to talk with. Our plastic barrier means we have to speak loudly, too, which cuts down on chitchat.
All told, the CoVid Thrift Shop affords less opportunity for cheery interaction with and among the people hunting and gathering bargains. And that interaction is in large part what the Thrift Shop a pleasant place to shop. Every shift used to include customers commenting on the fun; no one said anything yesterday.
On the home front, the dog has a lot to say, generally while playing. “I’m really quick,” he says, as he streaks off with his squeaky ball. “You thought you could get the ball that time, didn’t you? I gave you a chance. But you’re a human, no offense, so you couldn’t. You’re too slow.” I started noticing his use of “no offense,” when I began reading Spencer Quinn’s Chet and Bernie books. The fictional dog Chet uses the phrase all the time, in the same way. Rascal thinks showing humans how slow they are is hilarious, and he likes to demonstrate our inferiority with his toys.
Rascal is a terrier. While he grocks the concept of fetch, he believes that the only possible reasons for giving up a toy so I can throw it are that running after it gives him a chance to demonstrate his speed and executing the turn to bring it back showcases his agility. He’s just as pleased to come back with the ball, let me grip it, and not let go. He assumes a play bow—hindquarters up, head down—and chomps on the ball with exaggerated bites. Which squeaks the toy like mad, to Rascal’s great pleasure, and allows me to take it from him if I can time a grab in between chomps.
He’s also just as pleased, if not more so, to swing by with the retrieved ball in his mouth, act like he’s going to let me grab it, and then feint to one side or the other and take off. Sometimes he chooses the big-circle route through the living room, dining room, kitchen, and hall, with occasional forays into the family room. “How about I lead you a merry chase?” he chuckles while dancing ahead of me.
And sometimes he makes it clear that I have no hope of catching him. He makes tight turns around and through the dining room, taking full advantage of the fact that he can charge right under the furniture and I can’t. “You can’t compete with my natural superiority,” he laughs gleefully. “No offense.”
Things may improve at the Thrift Shop. Rascal assures me, though, that nothing will change at home.
8 July 2022