August at Experienced Goods
By Jennie Reichman ~ I was recently talking with a friend about cars. He is a proponent of leasing: “A new car every three years! Basic maintenance is covered!” Admittedly, there is an upside, especially if your priorities lean toward appearances and that new car smell. I briefly consider it every time I take my 8-year-old Subaru to the mechanic for a brake job or a mysterious clunking noise and end up shelling out hundreds of dollars for repairs. But I get attached to my cars, have an emotional relationship with them, talk to them encouragingly as they ferry me up Route 9 in a snowstorm and thank them when I pull into my driveway. From the 1978 Honda Accord that was my first car to the Forester I now drive, they have all been unique and sources of both frustration and gratitude. Leasing a car would be, for me, like leasing a cat, or a romantic partner. Yes, they slowly break down, yes, they become more and more of a money pit (the cars, not the cats or partners), but I love them and adapt to their quirks and needs. And ok, yes, I name my cars.
It also helps to work with a mechanic you trust and who has your best interests at heart, a rare bird, indeed. The shop I take my car to is such a place, with the added bonus that they offer loaner cars if you drop off your vehicle in the morning and need transportation during the day. I’ve been dealing with air conditioning issues lately and have had my car in and out of the shop repeatedly this summer. The most recent loaner I drove was proof that even the most homely, crotchety cars are useful if they get you where you are going. This sad little sedan with peeling paint and a barely there shifting column had the stand-out feature of the car alarm going off every time I unlocked the door. Ironically, no one would ever steal this car unless they were desperate, but gosh darn it, it's going to let everyone nearby know that it could happen. My mechanic was sheepish about it: “Yeah, it does that. But it runs!”
Is there a corollary here to Experienced Goods? Of course! Everything we sell has a history, was once loved (or not) and used (or not) and, when purchased at the shop, moves on to a new life with someone else. It's also amazing how attached we humans can be to our possessions, and how it can be hard to let them go. Donors often want us to know where their donation originated, who owned it, what its uses are. “Goodbye, old friend!,” they seem to be saying. “Bon voyage!”
There is an aspect to purchasing things at EG that is a bit like renting. Buy it, wear it or use it for a while, get tired of it and re-donate it. In the clothing department, I notice this when I open up a bag of donations and find clothes that still have our tags on them, maybe an impulse buy that ended up not fitting right, or having no real-life application. We recently had a shorts and swimwear sale and those items just flew out of the store on the really hot days, and I bet as soon as the weather leans toward fall we will see them coming back through the donations door. Think about it: You buy a pair of shorts for a dollar and wear them once. If you bought those shorts new and paid $40 for them, you’d have to wear them 40 times to get the same value. Bring them back and we will sell them again next summer and benefit Center for Solace in the bargain: Win-win. Each item we sell at Experienced Goods embodies its history and the hands it has passed through, a little richer and more “experienced” for every owner, sometimes with annoying, endearing, age-related quirks. And like my goofy loaner car, you could say, “Yeah, it does that. But it runs!”