Crap For Sale! Eugene Edition

For a lot of my life, I shopped extensively (at times exclusively) at thrift shops. This obsession with people's old clothes subsided a bit after Randi and I were both done with college and working full time. At that point I upgraded to buying old stuff that hadn't been worn by other people (at least I think that's what Ross Dress For Less sells). It was amazing how much grosser someone's old polo shirt seemed when I had cash in my pocket.

Anyway, when I went back to school, we were suddenly poor again and I realized that I would need to start doing the thrift shop thing again if I wanted to buy clothes. "No big deal," I thought, "Eugene has a bunch of thrift shops...St. Vincent de Paul's, Goodwill, Value Village...I should be good!"

Here's the thing: apparently people's old crap costs as much as new stuff in this screwball town....sometimes even more. Seriously. I was shocked to walk into what I understood to be a thrift shop and see a worn old dresser being sold for $200. We figured there was just something strange about that particular shop and that we could find good deals elsewhere. Not so. All the thrift shops in town charge outrageous prices.

After a while, we discovered that this phenomenon wasn't limited to thrift shops. As we went about searching for stuff on craigslist and went to garage sales, we realized that EVERYONE here sells their crap for ridiculous prices. It's like the people here think all of their personal property is just like a house that appreciates in value over time.

Hippie Husband: Hey Hon, I am thinking about selling this tie-dyed shirt at our block garage sale on Sunday. How much should I sell it for?

Hippie Wife: Well, you paid $7 for the shirt and the tie-dye kit cost $4. Plus you spent a half hour working on it, which is worth like $4 (Alec's note: Hippie Husband only makes $8 an hour as a bagger at the local co-op natural foods store). So that is $15. Of course, we need to make a profit, so you should sell it for $20.

Hippie Husband: Whoa! That's exactly what I was thinking! That's the same price I charged for it at the last three garage sales we had!

Recently Randi and I went to an estate sale, which, BTW, is kind of strange. You walk through some recently deceased person's home and rummage through all of their personal belongings.  You don't really think about it until you get to some seemingly personal items (like a personal collection or something).  At that point, you start to feel that same pang of guilt that struck you when you were a kid reading your sister's diary (if you had a sister, that is).

Anyway, as we were looking through this dead dude's stuff, I came across a treadmill.  It wasn't anything fancy -- it looked like a mid to late 90s model, but I have kind of been on the lookout for a good deal on a treadmill (since it rains so much in the winter in this godforesaken place).  Anyway, I saw a sign on it that said $75.  What a deal!  As long as this badboy worked, I was set!  However, upon closer inspection, I realized that the $75 price tag was for an old, used Playstation 2 (which you can buy for $30 online).  The treadmill actually cost--no joke--$775.  There was a sign on it that said, "Originally paid $2,000."  OK, I don't know what treadmill prices were in 1997, but you can buy a pretty nice brand new treadmill for less than $775 today.  See.

After thinking about it a lot, we've come up with a few reasons for the outrageously-priced-used-crap phenomenon here.

1.   Thrift store shopping is hip.  Eugene is full of hipsters (ugh) and retro is in.  It is cool to wear brand new clothes that look old.  It is even cooler to wear clothes that are actually old.  These people will pay a premium for old.

2.   The environment, man.  Eugene is also full of hippies and environmentalism is also in.  OK, so caring for the environment is a good thing.  However, so many of the people here are so unbearably pretentious about environmental causes that when people compliment me for riding my bike to school and work, I am tempted to burn coal and spray aerosol cans the whole ride (so that, you know, I can offset the offsetting of my carbon footprint).  But I digress.  By buying used crap, people can satisfy the "reuse" part of the 3 R's.  Sellers of used crap prey on this.

3.   Fair trade.  This is another one of those hippie things.  Again, fair trade is great, but I think people here believe that there is something morally wrong with low prices.  It's like, if they sell their old garden shovel for less than $14.99 they aren't getting a fair deal and the capitalist pigs have won and people in Africa will die.

4.   Unemployment.  When we moved here, Oregon had the second highest unemployment rate in the nation (suck it Michigan)!  Eugene was even worse than most other places in the state (there may be a correlation between the lack of jobs here and the city's absolute contempt for big businesses moving in...just saying).  Apparently things have improved slightly and a number of states have fallen behind us.  However, I think some people try to sell their crap for a lot of money because they actually need it.  Tough to make fun of these people.  Now I am sad.

There are probably other reasons (when Randi and I brainstormed this, I wrote down a list that I can't find right now), but these are the ones that I remember.  So, if you plan on moving to Eugene, don't count on finding a cheap bike or grill on craigslist when you get here.  You are better off buying it at a thrift shop in your hometown and then FedEx overnighting it here.