Would Have, Could Have, Should Have. (What If?)

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Posted By: bawdycrank

Yes, I have one, vivid memory that pains me to this day. It was a place called Quality Mart, a huge thrift store my mom would take us to in the mid to late '70s. Every now and then she would bring home an old table or set of chairs and sock them away in our junk room for yet another restoration project. We bought clothes there, too, a pair of pants for 95 cents, a blouse for 65 cents. We didn't have much money. My brother and I would get toys there, sometimes, in large plastic mystery bags which were the size of a pillow case and stapled shut. You had to turn the bag over and over to see if there was enough good stuff in there to carry the Hamburgler doll with the pee stain.

The owner was a man who looked as old as the linoleum but he was probably in his fifties, and the linoleum was no doubt younger, and more alive. One of my mom's friends called him Rigor Mortis, or Rigor for short. He'd stand by the large glass doors near closing, his ever present cigarette quivering upon his lip. His attempts at speech would send it bobbing violently to his unique language, which was a cross between a mumble, a nasty rattling cough, and the promise of a massive coronary or stroke.

Around the front register were the glass cases for the better stuff: china dolls, rabbit stoles, finer costume jewlery and the like. Well, one day there was one of those fat bags jammed with stacks of T-205s, T-206s, '33 Goudeys, and God knows what else, but all early baseball from what I could see. A couple thousand cards at least, and a Ruth was showing. It was nine bucks. I ran to my mom and she said "No" and I could not beg that one to save my life. Nevermind that I actually had the money at home, what was left from a whimsical bout of thrift which saw me accumulate $28 in Christmas and birthday money and which enabled me to indulge in endeless decisions over how I was going to blow it. But this was the Holy Grail, I knew it even then, a once in a lifetime chance. I asked the guy at the counter if he'd hold it for me. He refused. Where was the English lady with the monotone voice who was always, but always, at the front counter? And who was this guy? I'd never seen him before. The glass case robbed me of my only trick of hiding goods behind the snow chains or under the scraps of tapestry. Back to mom. I could spend my money how I wanted, but she was not going to help me blow all my savings on baseball cards. Absolutely Not. I had no other choice but to leave the bag in that glass case for everyone to see while I ran home to get the money as fast as I could. It was almost three miles and I'll be damned if I didn't get to my room and back in under twenty minutes. But it was gone.