I made a pity purchase today.

There was this trashy little shop with an emaciated woman sitting by a 1970’s cash register. A deep layer of dust was forming around her as she sat skeleton-like on a little bar stool behind a cracked glass counter, and I could imagine her sitting there until spider webs delicately attached her blonde wig to her nicotine-stained fingers. So I'm poking around and attempting to look for something cheap and interesting; and she keeps on being so polite and helpful and trying to help me find things in my size. All of her stuff was overpriced and ugly, and there wasn't another soul in the store. And damn, I just felt bad for this poor woman in her crappy store trying to scratch out a livelihood on other people's used clothing (and failing). I mean, really – that’s when you know you’ve hit the bottom of the barrel retail-wise. When you fail at a thrift store. So I bought a necklace I didn't really want because I just didn't think I could leave the store without something. I thought as I was buying it – “maybe she’ll eat something tonight”. Is that wrong? Does this happen to anyone else?

Maybe it's just me. Ah well.