All I Wanted Was a Butter Dish

Thrift stores seem to attract the crazy, and the one closest to my house (I can see it from my house. Urban living is cool!) comes with an extra special dose of crazy because it supports a cat shelter. Not an animal shelter. A cat shelter. And, as we all know, cat people are stone cold crazy.

It’s a good thrift store, though. Oddly, they seem to get lots of collections as donations, so one day you’ll go in and there will be 50 elephant statues. Another time it was dolls of the world. This time, they had just received a boatload of cheap expensive jewelry…you know, those silver hearts or crosses with tiny diamonds from Sears that cost about $100. It was all from one lady who apparently loved to pick up a little something every time she went to a department store.

I passed the REAL 10K GOLD FILLED jewelry and kept moving. I was on the hunt for a butter dish. I have been keeping my butter messily wrapped in the foil it came in for oh, about 10 years since I broke my last butter dish, so I figured it was time, and God forbid I should spend $8.95 on a real butter dish at Target. Nope.

I found an antique butter dish, if your definition of antique is anything over 20 years old. Simple, plain glass, helpfully marked 2 PIECES $1.

l also got a few Christmas mugs because I have the fantasy of being the type of person who bakes tiny perfect holiday cookies for…the mailman? My stylist?…someone…and wraps them in a cute Christmas mug and puts a perfect bow and a little ornament on them…ah the mugs were only $1 each, so what’s $3 to indulge my Martha Stewart delusions for a month or so until I forget about them and remember only on December 28? Totally worth it.

I took my treasures up to Bev at the counter. No, I don’t know if her name is Bev, but she LOOKED like a Bev. A cat-loving Bev.

She held up my butter dish.

“This,” she said, “should never have been marked $1.”

She fixed me with her gimlet eye, as if this oversight were somehow my fault.

“One dollar? Never should have been.” She regarded me suspiciously.

I shrugged my shoulders, feeling suddenly guilty.

“Oh well,” she huffed. “I guess a DOLLAR for the cats is better than NOTHING.”

What is the etiquette in this situation? Do I offer more money? Do I put the butter dish back? I decided to hold firm and say and do nothing.

Bev wrapped my purchases, muttering “a dollar!” under her breath several times.

I skeedaddled out of there as fast as I could. I did put my 16 cents change in the donation jar, though. 16 cents for the cats is better than nothing.