Mary Jo Update #38 - Battle of the Goodwill Surplus Store Stars

We had an appointment at the outpatient clinic this morning. The blood labs showed that Mary Jo's blood counts are continuing to improve. Her WBC went from 2.5 on Thursday to 4.4, and her ANC went from 1.37 to 2.15.

Good news on both accounts. Mary Jo got some magnesium because it was low again. The best news from our visit was when Anne, her nurse practitioner, told us that we would not have to go back to the clinic until Tuesday at 9 am.

When you are spending so much time hanging out at the outpatient clinic, the hospital, or the apartment, and since Mary Jo isn't really supposed to go anywhere else anyway, you look for most anything that might be interesting to do to add some excitement to your life.

When we here the last time, a lady named Rosie over at Hope Lodge put us on to a Goodwill Surplus Store that they have here. The lady who told us about it buys articles that are left in abandoned self storage units, and sells the stuff in a consignment store that she owns in Kingsport, TN. She supplements what she buys from the storage units with stuff from the Goodwill Surplus Store.

The surplus store is where they send the overflow donations that they don't have room for in stores. 99.9% needs to be taken to a dumpster somewhere. But, sometimes you can find something that you can use in the other .1%.

I'm not sure how it is over there on weekdays, but it gets pretty wild on Saturdays. Today, a woman who I believe to be Haitian nearly got into a knock down, drag out fight with a couple of other women who she accused of stealing stuff from her basket. A Goodwill referee had to go over and break it up. No doubt, you could do a reality show from there on Saturday mornings

Anyway, the way it works. They roll out these big bins of junk. Everybody gets there position around the bin, but the rooters can't start rooting until the Goodwill referee says they can.

The price of the stuff that you buy is not by the item, but by pound. The more that you buy the cheaper it is. Under 30 pounds you pay $1.99 a pound. 30-50 pounds is $1.39, and over 50 pounds is $.59 a pound. I'm not sure how you can find 50 pounds of anything worth having in there, except maybe women's handbags and accessories that you are going to resell. But, If you can find over 50 pounds, you can get a good deal.

They will roll out a bin with probably 200-300 women's handbags in it. When the referee says go, the rooting commences. Some people are rooting through the handbags for money are jewelry that was left by the owner.

Others are like Rosie looking for purses that are name brands that they can sell in a mall peddler's or consignement. Every now and then, there's a Dooney and Bourke, or some other brand that women pay alot of money for.

I wasn't in the handbag scrum. I was just looking for a nice, like new leather computer bag. I found one. Paid $3.27 for it. Anything, to help the Nashville economy out. When I got it back to the apartment, there were four Italian coins, five Belgian ones, and six German ones.

Since all of these countries use Euros now. I don't they are worth anything, right now. However, the internet said that they may have value to coin collectors in about 100 years. Now, all I have to do is figure out how to live to be 165.

Oh well, they will always be that treasure that I found in my Goodwill computer bag. I will always wonder who owned that computer bag, and what happened to them, what kind of business they were in, and why they carried those European coins in their bag. BTW, Mary Jo didn't go in.