Long Beach, Washington - In the crammed interior of His Supper Table Thrift Shop, an elderly woman browsing the blouses passed wind. She moves quickly to the household section, where she pretends to be interested in a fringed orange cushion. I want to tell her it was okay. When you get to a certain age, you are sometimes unable to control your body. Some people shake. Others can’t see. Many pass wind.
But I didn’t talk to the woman. I continued going through the racks of clothes. Some felt greasy. There were a lot of extra-large T-shirts decorated with teddy bears. The familiar smell of old carpeting, abandoned guest rooms and suitcases entombed under beds rose up from the clothes. The smell was the same here in America as it is in South Africa. It smells somehow bereft. If you’re in a funny mood, it can sometimes smell depressing. But I plundered on, scoring five old-granny shirts and a kids’ T-shirt emblazoned with the badge of the local primary school, which I hoped would fit me. I have been eating fried clams and chips. I like to think positively.
I had found my way to Long Beach, a seaside town in Washington State about 30km from where I am staying, because of an overwhelming desire to shop. Long Beach is said to be the longest beach in the world. It is very long. So long that people drive on it in large 4X4s. Crabs die on it. There are tyre tracks everywhere.
I wasn’t interested in the neon tank tops with “Long Beach” printed on them in pseudo baseball font, sold in the tourist shops on the main road. I wanted the sad emporiums of frayed denims and miniature glasses that could be urine sample containers or vases for jasmine. It’s all about attitude. After being holed up in the woods for 10 days, I wanted – nay, needed – to dip into my wallet, produce money and carry something home. I craved capitalism. I yearned for stuff.
The desire was so strong that I risked humiliating myself by catching the Number 20 bus to Long Beach. I am not good with foreign transport. I never have the right change and I always encounter grumpy bus drivers. One in Edinburgh chased me off the bus because I dared to ask him directions to the castle. “F***ing tourists” he spat, his teeth the colour of eggs.
I also tend to find locals exotic, and end up staring at them for the entire journey, which makes me look like a paedophile or someone with mental problems.
This time, however, it was me who was apparently exotic. A woman with no teeth clambered on to the bus and introduced herself. “I’m Aaaeeeengee,” she drawled. “What’s yyyyer name?”
“Helen,” I replied, my accent all Duchess of Cornwally.
“Ma friiieeeeend in Colorado got a daughter called Heaven. It’s a real good name.”
When I travel abroad, I like to visit thrift shops not only for their cheap and mite-infested swag, but because they are a cultural barometer of my new environs. You can tell a lot about people from what they discard. Prague charity shops feature a lot of crew-neck acrylic jerseys and drab trousers in the same hues as the local cuisine. They speak of frugality and quietness.
British thrift stores are troves of middle-class splendour. Some of the clothes have never been worn and many feature sparkly bits. The awkward young men at the tills shake a little when they have to dig inside dresses to find price tags. There is abundance in these shops – cocktail dresses and souvenir maracas bought on a whim while on holiday.
Compared to South Africa, America’s thrift stores – even in this one-bear town – are larger and better stocked. Their fare is much the same – except for the knick knacks. Folks in these parts seem partial to a well-placed china doll or a miniature glass shoe big enough for random screws and the odd dead moth.
And when I walked past a clapboard house en route to catch the bus home – my backpack heavy with the lives of others – I imagined the interior of the house. There would be cabinets of porcelain terriers and blinking dolls with dusty eyes.
There would be framed photographs and vases of coins. And among this, a large woman would sit rubbing her heels in a stretched T-shirt decorated with appliqué teddy bears. A small-town existence in a large country on a very long beach.
Cape Argus