Vile Charity Shop Harridans - Pt 1

There is a crime committed in this story. But under the circumstances totally justified.

Charity shop digging. The art of searching for good shit amongst the general SHIT of a charity shop. My field of expertise is vinyl. Using the golden rule: If you've never seen the label before and it looks interesting - Buy It Anyway (and of course using the wonders of Internet phones as a back up) i have a pretty good success rate with my areas charity shops.

For the last 6 months or so i check my immediately local shops roughly once a week and then once a month on a Saturday do a tour of all the shops in my triumvirate of local towns.

Rewind to last Saturday. Nothing much going on. Phone call made to my friend Matt (a local DJ and producer) and a time is set to meet up and start our tour of duty. The first couple of shops are bereft of vinyl and it is only when we head a bit further out that a few random record are purchased (an old Prelude disco 12" and a Gladys Knight and the Pips LP from 1973 in good nick). Just before we catch the bus to the next town we pop into another shop in town and bingo what do we have here. Next to the old and unmoved stack of vinyl that we have gone through many times before is a large cardboard box of 7" records. On closer inspection it doesn't look good. The records are virtually all without sleeves and the condition is generally not very good. Nonetheless out the records come and are split between us to look through. The quality of the records generally matches the condition but i manage to pull out an old Stax 7" and look over at Matt and he is holding a record with a drawing of a fist on the centre label asking if i know what this as it looks interesting. I immediately recognise the label and the small logo in the bottom left that reads - PAMA (turns out it was this record). I immediately tell him he's a lucky git and he better be taking that as its vintage reggae.

Suddenly our quiet perusal is interrupted by the most foulest of all creatures that reside in a charity shop. The middle aged female manager. Old ladies you can wrap round your finger. Young woman you can flirt with or act dumb. Men are no problem. But theres something about bored semi-retired middle aged women that think they personally own all the shops stock that turns my stomach.

"What are you doing" she nearly crys out.

"Erm just looking through some records" I say (In hindsight maybe a more menacing opening would have been better like "We're from the Charity Shop Siphoning Agency, just checking you're not skimming the profits") but unfortunately my honest answer wasn't the best of choices.

"You shouldn't be looking at them records"

"Oh. Why not?"

"My man has been through them yet" This refers to the so called "expert" some Charity Shops have who go through the donated records to in effect take the best ones for themselves and leave the dross for the general public (am i being too cynical here?).

"Oh. Well sorry but how were we to know this. The records are on the shop floor so we thought they were for sale"

Not wanting to argue anymore she started grabbing the records back and putting them back into the box. I thought it was wise to mention that the records weren't in very good condition anyway (as i said before most were without sleeves).

The reply that came back summed up the sheer witch like evil stored in these odorous crones

"Good!"

So on that note i nodded to Matt. He stashed the 7" he found in his coat and we exited post haste.

Moral of the story? I doubt it!

PS I went back in there this week and spent some money. Im not a complete cunt!