Charity shop sale - West London

TOO MUCH

£1 sale!!

Notices smotherrhe Large Cancer Research Charity Shop window.

I join thethrong of customers, mainly middle aged to elderly women. One or two brave mums shove their double buggies inside, ignoring the wrath of the staff and other customers whose only aim is to be first and get the most cheap stuff.

Our faces are set hard against frustration, disappointment, a life's experience of rip-offs, cheap knock offs and of being sold short.

Low expectations. 

If we can't aim higher at least we can grab more from the bargain basement.

There's tension, an alsmost aggressive unmet set of needs.

The fitting room is stuffed to the gills wuth black bin bags, summer clothes bursting the seams and pouring out. It is now September and the consumer season has almost rolled on to Halloween.

'There's no where to try the clothes on' I say.

'Not for the sales' says the charity shop helper 'it's been manic'

Ditching all my dignity, I slip their clothes on over mine. The long mirror is obscured by clobber and cluter and schmatte except for a small rectangle near the carpet.

I duck and I make snap decisions 'yes, no, maybe, come on get out'

No body else does this, most of the crowd of women simply buy armloads of the second or fifth hand clothes without trying anything on at all.  I buy one top, drab but waerable.

Back home I search for the online definition of 'feeding frenzy'

The computer gives me a good answer to my search.

Feeding frenzy is the 'frantic and competitive behaviour that happens when a group of predators are overwhelmed by the quantity of available prey.'