There is a Goodwill store nearby. I took a look at it at lunch time. The poster by the store door says “The bargain hunter’s paradise”. I have been curious at this Goodwill because last year when I was cleaning up my closet, auntie took all the clothes I didn’t want to the store.

This is Wednesday noon, and there are two or three shoppers, all white, and two or three salespersons, all black. 90% of the commodities are clothes and the rest are small furniture and decorations, such as vases and fake flowers. Almost all the items are below 10 dollars, and most of the clothes are around 3 or 4 bucks. Almost all the clothes look like old stuff, still wearable though.

There seem to be various thrifty stores like Goodwill all over the U.S. So does yard sale. I like yard sale as Americans do—I heard that people got an $8000 antique clock for 8 bucks at a yard sale. But I was surprised to see that Americans also got out their old shoes and clothes, and people did buy them.

So here is the part about Americans that I don’t understand. On the one hand, they manufacture almost everything that you can use once and dispose at will, while on the other hand, they don’t mind buying old clothes and shoes once worn by complete strangers.