They say the journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step, and this journey's going to start with some smelly hobo feet. After all, you came here for hobo stories, you were promised hobo stories, and I'll be darned if you're not going to get you some hobo stories.
Our story begins on an unusually hot day in London, England, "unusually hot" meaning that it's seventy degrees and some strange round thing has appeared in the sky - no one's quite sure what it is, maybe your grandpa remembers seeing it once in his youth.
On this day, I decided to go to a thrift store, or as they call it in England, ye oldde charity shoppe. (Everything in England is ye oldde.) Now, I have been to many thrift stores in my life, and there aren't many things I
won't do for a cute top at a reasonable price, but one day, a particular hobo almost pushed me to my limit. Almost.
I was in the Trinity Hospice just south of the Victoria Station. The annoying thing about this shop, and about most of the charity shops I encountered, was that they would only let you bring three items into the dressing room. And yet there were so many treasurers to be had and tried on in the store! A delicate white dress, a tee-shirt that said "Blow Bubbles, Not Bombs."
Oooh, I thought, I would look so cool and artsy and indie in that. Protesting war by wearing a shirt instead of actually doing something. And then all my super jealous friends would be like "So where'd you get that shirt?" And I'd say, ever so casually, "oh, in London." Isn't that why we all buy things, though? To make our friends jealous. But I digress.
On top of this limit, the dressing room also posed some problems. It was essentially a broom closet covered by a sheet, with a plastic chair and some dust inside. When I stepped into it, I remember wishing that they had left the chair out, since it was just taking up space. Little did I know how much I would really hate that chair by the end of that afternoon.
But in I went, with my three items, after asking the bored store clerk for permission (another annoying practice of charity shops). I didn't like any of what I tried, and went back out for another three. Another few rounds of three, some yeses and some nos, me running back and forth from the racks to the dressing room back to the racks. It was getting very hot in that tiny little store, and of course, there was no AC.
Finally, I decided I'd just about conquered the store, tried everything there was to try. The Bubbles not Bombs shirt, by the way, was almost just too tight, but I was getting it anyway. It was 3 pounds. I couldn't resist.
I went back to the racks for one last sweep, as I always like to do before I leave, and it was about this time that an a man wandered in. He wore a ripped and tattered black blazer, and his thin grey hair stuck out in all directions. His walked as though moving on an uneven surface, possibly because the soles of his shoes flapping open. Slowly and unsteadily, he approached the desk clerk and said, in a shaky voice, "Say do you have those brown shoes still? Saw 'em here last week. Hoped you set 'em aside." The clerk pulled out a pair of brown men's dress shoes. "Aw, you kept 'em for me did you!" The man exclaimed, smiling and opening his eyes wide. He thanked the clerk over and over, calling him a sweet boy.
It is hard to describe the kind of delight and gratitude that man had over that pair of shoes. It made me wonder about the last time I had ever seen someone else so excited, especially about something so small.
But back to my selfish ranting.
I didn't watch the man for very long, because something else caught my eye: There, hanging on the rack in this simple charity shop, was a beautiful grey blouse, with a swirling pattern of little stars, frilly sleeves and an open back. And it was designer. Ted Baker. A British Designer. So Posh. And for five pounds, so cheap. I grabbed it off the rack. When I turned back towards the counter, the shoe man was gone and had, I assumed, left the store, proudly bearing his new brown shoes.
I went over to the dressing room, but the curtain/sheet was pulled closed, and the store clerk told me someone was inside. So I waited. Fifteen minutes passed. I started to sweat, my stomach growled, and my arm started to ache from holding so many clothes hangers. I started tapping my foot in a prissy way, passive aggressively warning this person that the better hurry up. I shifted from foot to foot, fanned myself with my hand. I think my anger was making me hot. Who was taking so long in the dressing room? What, was she taking Facebook pictures of her outfits or something? Live-tweeting the thrifting experience? (Hey, actually, that's not such a bad idea...)
And then, with a flash of brown shoe under the curtain, I realized...it was him. The homeless man was inside, sitting on that chair, slowly slowly trying on his shoes. I imagined his frail, shaking hands languidly removing untying the laces, loosening them, easing the shoe off, squeezing the other one off, tying the new laces. And repeat. This was going to take forever. My stomach grumbled in protest.
Finally, he came out, and I ran in, all the momentum I'd built up in the past twenty minutes pushing me forward. I got into the dressing room - There was dirt all over the floor, and the chair was tipped over, and then it hit me - the smell. It is indescribable. It was like a mix of old shoes, garbage, sewage, moldy bread, a sinkful of dishes left unwashed for a month, spoiled milk that you found, curdled and brown, in the back of your car, long after you stopped buying milk from that store. A thousand rotten eggs baking in the sun. Orange vomit on a dirty bathroom floor. Essentially, it was the smell of someone who had not changed his shoes in a long, long time.
I inhaled and felt a punch in my stomach. I could barely breathe, but I was determined to try on that shirt. I tore off the one I had on, ripped the grey one off the hanger, threw it on over my head. It didn't fall off my shoulder or cling to me like a saran wrap, and that was all I needed to know. I took it off and ran out of there, paid for my purchases, and suggested to the clerk that he get some Febreeze, or maybe just a new dressing room.
But let me tell you, that smell will haunt me forever.
I left the store, and went off to find more charity shops, high off the thrill of good deals and hoping for more, never happy with just one top or, let's say, just one pair of shoes.
If only you know what I went through to get this top. Oh wait...you do. (Sidenote: Don't these pictures look like I'm trying to sketchily sell this top on Ebay? I assure you, I am not.)
