Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Greedy fool

Forgive me, but I'm back on my high horse again about the absolute absurdity of the clothing industry. I'm wearing a shirt today that I bought at the thrift store not long ago. It's a rather plain plaid cotton shirt that is so hugely oversized that it looks like one of my father's old shirts. But that look rather appeals to me. It was in like-new condition when I found it at the thrift store. However, it was rather pricey at $14 because it has a Neiman Marcus tag in it. It's size 0, by the way--total vanity sizing. I thought, okay it's more than I usually pay but it's in great condition and I'll wear it, especially since it doesn't have to be dry cleaned, and I like wearing a size 0. The good news--it was made in England, not in a sweatshop in Bangladesh.

The brand is Eskander. It doesn't mean anything to me because I'm not a frequent flyer at Neiman Marcus. So I looked it up online. The stinkin' shirt--a shirt that looks like a shirt my father bought at J.C. Penney 40 years ago--retails for over $500. So some woman bought the shirt at Neiman Marcus, probably never wore it, and then donated it to the thrift store.

What in heaven's name are you people thinking? Do you know what $500 could do if you donated it to a charity like Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) that is doing relief work with refugees and others all over the world? Could you give the money to a local soup kitchen? I suppose that, if I challenged them, people shopping for $500 blouses in Neiman Marcus would think I'm a lunatic with no right to infringe on their right to spend their money as they please. It just seems the height of greed and materialism. I wonder how they rationalize such things.

So I'll schlep around town, to the grocery store and the paint store, wearing my shirt that cost someone $500. I have my own blind spots where I don't see my greediness and I can be a fool when it comes to hoarding shiny trinkets. But I feel like wearing a sign that says: "Some greedy fool bought this for $500 but the greedy fool wasn't me."

1 comment:

  1. What rich people do with their money will never make sense to me! I like to think whoever donated that shirt might have bought it discounted. My mom used to leave the price tags on some of the clothes she'd gift-wrapped for us from "the nice stores" so we could see what a deal she'd held out for. That first owner might not have been thinking, "Wow, do I really want to pay a hundred bucks for a shirt?" She (I've got to think it was a she) might have been stuck on "Ooh, look, this one's eighty percent off!"

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