What the actual...

Okay.  Yesterday, I went to the local Red Rack thrift store.  My younger sister needs an old, beat up crock pot, so I went looking for one for her.  (I found it.  It's bright turquoise, holds about 5.5 cups, and should be about what she needed.)  I also went looking for jeans in size 4 petite.  I found jeans, alright.  I found second hand jeans, in the sizes I need, at prices I'd be paying for new jeans from Walmart.  

What.  

No.  

I am not paying new jeans prices for used.  No way, no how.  Especially not at a store where most of the stuff is...honestly kind of grungy.  Not "gently used."  I don't care if those jeans are name brand.  If they're half worn out (or more), I'm not paying more than five bucks for them.  

Thing is, if they'd been in better shape (my mother-in-law has found things in thrift stores so "gently used" that they still had original price tags attached), I'd have paid the $10-$16 per pair.  Not gladly, and I'd have not bought more than one or two pair, but I wouldn't have had to alter the ones I'd bought.  Because the thrift store had my sodding size.  In petite.  

That particular thrift store relies on things donated.  I know: I donate to them.  One of the ladies checking out in front of us had stuff we had donated in her cart.  

Taking worn out jeans, looking at the brand name, then slapping that big of a price tag on them because of the brand name is...not going to help them in the long run.  

 I also looked at a couple of chairs that I thought might be nicer to use when sewing than my metal folding chair.  Not a single one was anything other than beat up and rickety.  There was one rolling office chair that had, at one point, been quite nice, but the button-tufted leather was...cracked and ripped.  And they all had prices marked on them far higher than they were actually worth.  

There was a guy in front of us, wearing a nice, wool tweed blazer.  He pulled it off, pulled a tag off of it and put it back on.  I didn't see what he did with the tag...but Odysseus did.  He wound up wearing that blazer as he simply walked out, and never paid for it.  Hipster douchebag type.  

When we told the gal about it as we were checking out, she admitted that they have a lot of stuff just...walk out like that.  Told a story about a woman with over $300 of stuff in her cart attempt to just...push the cart out the front door, and only a hovering manager prevented it.  

 (First of all...$300 worth as marked on the tags?  Or actually worth $300?  Because if it was worth $300, I have no clue how she managed to push a cart that full.)

This is not something I condone.  I wouldn't have done it.  I didn't do it--I put the jeans I pulled out and looked at back on the rack--but with the way they overprice most of the things in the shop?  I honestly half wonder if maybe they don't create their own stated shoplifting problem.  

This doesn't mean I'm going to stop donating stuff to them.  But it does mean I won't shop there anymore.  If I'm gonna have to pay Walmart prices, I'd rather pay Walmart prices for actually new stuff.  Even if I have to shorten the pants legs.