Thrift Store Adventures: Personal Items!

I love finding anything of personal value at a thrift store. These items don't mean anything to an outside observer, yet somehow end up at a second hand store for just anyone to buy. Finding these things is interesting for a couple reasons:

1) Whoever previously owned the item clearly didn't care about it enough not to donate it. Who goes through their picture album and thinks, "Ya know, Grandma's been dead for years now. We don't need these silly pictures anymore. Let's donate them to Goodwill." WTF? It's almost sad when I find things like pictures or personal mementos, but highly entertaining nonetheless.

2) The thrift store thought they could sell this stuff. Sure, they have a pretty low standard on what makes it through the door, but still; who wants a shirt that says, "Barbi Sanchez-Cupcupboard's Bachelorette Party 1998?" On the other hand, how amazing would it be if Barbi Sanchez-Cupcupboard saw you wearing her bachelorette party shirt on the street years later!?

Anyway, on to the items. First we have this great mug of someone's dog:

I guess when ol' Fluffy finally bit the dust his image was too much to deal with at work everyday. So instead of weeping into his coffee, the owner figured he'd let someone else enjoy a mug with a grainy picture of his dog on it. To be honest, It's hard to tell whether that's a dog or a mop. It could have belonged to a maid who was just really into her work.

Next up is a small framed picture of a gorgeous couple:

What I surmise from finding this at the thrift store is that this couple did not last. And I cannot fathom why; how could you let go of a guy who has mauve-tinted glasses and drinks two beers at once? How could you leave a girl who puts up drunky pics around her house in the world's cheapest-looking frame? Their combined awesomeness apparently reached critical mass and exploded.

Finally, I found a caricature of a grandpa and his grandkids:

Either the kids are pieces of shit, or Grandad didn't include the kids in his will. Those are the only reasons I can think that this ended up in a thrift store. And even though they are assholes to their own family, they still feel the need to donate this to charity. (???) The date on the back said May 1994. 17 years. That means that all of those kids can probably drink now, so really, either of the above scenarios could be correct. To be fair, it IS pretty ugly. 

But wait, what's this? The two girls have little hearts popping up above their heads? Last I checked, people don't normally get love hearts above their heads when they see their family members. They are generally more of a lust thing, or used to represent love at first sight. However, the more I thought about it, the more sense it made:

1) I found this in Arkansas.

2) The grandpa has an ultra suggestive gaze toward the girls and has a pedostache .

3) That is the real reason this was donated. Too many weird memories.

As interesting as it is to think of how these things got to the thrift store, think of the person who buys this stuff. There has to be some sad, sad individual out there who doesn't have a family of his own so he buys up all this personal stuff and displays it in his home. He probably makes up intricate back-stories about everything and what his "new family" is up to these days. I would love to get a Christmas card from that guy. But at least that's better than this guy.