Many times, in a charity shop a customer will ask if they can have an item reserved for them so they can come back and buy it. If they aren’t back after a day the item remains up for sale. However, I once broke that number one rule.
The lady entered the shop, she wore only a shirt and jeans on a cool spring day. Her cheeks flushed with red, she approached the counter in an exhausted skulk, like she had travelled many a great shop looking for something in particular.
“Do you have digger?”
Her eyes wide and hopeful like this ‘digger’ she spoke of was some popular piece of merchandise every shop knew about. I replied, “Like a shovel?”
“No. No.”
Her eyes wondered above me as if she was trying to collect the right words from the wall behind me. Her hard European accent returned with, “A plastic digger. A small digger.”
I smiled realising it was my fault for not understanding at first and I looked to my right where the kids’ toy section lay. It was unusual to have a specific request for a toy. By the tired complexion of her face and that she was too hot to even be wearing a coat suggested the importance of the specificity of this toy. However, I couldn’t see a kid with her nor a pram, nor a school backpack slung over her shoulder.
I said if I saw one in stock, I would let her know. I was even willing to break the shop’s rule on reserving items. I felt her desperation. She insisted, “I’ll return tomorrow - and more days. Until digger is here.”
Letting off a half smile so she wouldn’t feel unmotivated to ever come back, she walked out back onto the trailblaze she had set alight in the search for the digger.
I thought I wouldn’t encounter her again. Often when customers came in and they weren’t regulars they wouldn’t return if you didn’t have what they were looking for. But she came in, once a week. ‘Digger?’ I would shake my head and she would leave. She never had a kid with her though. But this item still seemed larger than her - like it was a missing piece that would solve a broken relationship. I wondered if she didn’t want to bring her child to the shop because she wanted to surprise him with the digger, to return home victorious.
After three weeks of donations, I opened one black sack and underneath a clump of necklaces and dresses that smelled of sharp perfume, I could see the upturned belly of a toy digger with its big wheels and red shovel at the front.
I priced the item at £8. Placed it behind all the other toys so no would hopefully find it. I would let her have it for cheap. 75% off. But there was only one thing that could put the brakes on this plan and that was a stern buyer. You often couldn’t identify who would be one of those people by the looks or dress code but when they pulled up to the counter and placed the likes of a dress, a shirt, a pot, some jewellery down with a expressionless face that shot a look of cold professionalism like buying items was part of their job, well, that was basically the truth. Those buyers often went on to sell those items to their customers online. And unfortunately that fear was rendered real a day after the toy was put on sale. A tall lady with that cold professional look like it was all business strolled into the shop. Her matter-of-fact facial expression offset by the dressing gown she sported. She made straight for the clothes rails and started picking out a blue jacket and some jeans.
A few moments later and she reappeared from the dressing room, dressed up for the day. Labels dangling from the backs of her clothes. She pulled a necklace from the plastic model at the front and moved her hoarding shopping style along to the kids’ toys section where she, of course, plucked out the red digger from near the back of the toys. After all, the digger was made by LEGO so these types of hoarders have a good eye for what will resell. She placed the bar code tags from her clothes on the counter ... and the digger. I could have easily just scanned all the items and watch her leave, as I felt myself getting caught up in her whirlwind shopping style. “Any chance of a discount on this?” She wiggled the digger in front of me.
I said, “I’m sorry it’s, LEGO and we don’t get many of those in here so we can’t lower the price.” This was a lie. Even though a part of me knew I was going against what the manager would have wanted. Our take for the day was low. £78 for four hours of opening.
“Ok. That’s fine.” And she reached into her purse which was probably bought that day too from another charity shop she rinsed.
I felt hot. Pained with regret. I should have priced it higher or bought it myself and given it to the mother. I said in a flustered, stuttering manner that I had just remembered about this being reserved for another customer and I should have written on it. My lie didn’t fly over the lady’s head. She stared through me, my lack of professionalism not part of her world. I was stealing money from the charity and her type of spending was a charity shop’s best friend.
I flicked my attention to the staircase next to me to wait for my manager to steam up the stairs but luckily she must have been either on the phone round the back or too engrossed with stock-taking. The lady smiled with her mouth in a way that suggested that this bargain wasn’t worth the difficulty and she rolled the truck to the side of the counter like it had no value. She picked her items off the counter and threw them into a plastic bag like litter you’ve just picked out of a bush.
I waited two more tense days of watching the kids’ toys section with mild anxiety and sure enough, at around 3pm on a Thursday, the mother resurfaced in the doorway. The clink of the door opening, and I smiled at her feeling my eyes growing wider as she approached. I moved towards the edge of the counter to be ready to show her the digger. “I have a digger.” I said ‘I’ instead of ‘we’ almost to justify my efforts, like I had gone the extra mile, not that I butchered a deal to sell the truck for £8 and effectively feel like I’ve taken money from this charity.
Those words didn’t paint any kind of expression on her face, more of a confused frown. Then she smiled like she remembered. “Oh, no, thank you. But now. He likes dinosaur.”
Her words blew a fuse in my head. All the moments of me overthinking and overanalysing were up in smoke. She headed towards the toys again and fingered through the dinosaur toys of which, thankfully, we had many.
I realised it can be so easy to overthink a first encounter. I promised myself, moving forward, that I would try not to take these small interactions and spin my own fiction on them. The lady didn’t seem shamed that she hadn’t delivered the digger when her child most needed one. She didn’t seem tired or angry at the ever-changing landscape of her child’s interests. Kids move on to the next obsession. And I should have moved on to the next sale. I guess the shop’s rule was there for a reason. I looked over to the digger. It had two buyers, but was never bought.
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