“I can’t lower the price ma’am. Do you still want it?”
She gives a firm shake of the head in response, and the cashier reaches for the next item.
In five minutes, we leave our local Goodwill with $140 worth of clothes, knick-knacks, and accessories. I trail behind my mom with a shopping cart. I experience burning-cheek sensations of frustration and embarrassment.
When she asks me to put away the shopping cart I refuse, instead slumping into the back seat of the car, and yanking the car door shut behind me. …show more content…
I am angry because we’ve spent the past four hours at Goodwill, angry that she bargains over small prices, and angry because I feel sorry for myself.
I hate that everything has to go her way. Why is it so difficult to go anywhere with her? I watch my mom take the shopping cart to the front of the store. I cry a little. And then I laugh, because I am being melodramatic. The day will go on.
This type of situation was common. Throughout middle school, I was my mom’s chosen traveling companion to the local Goodwill. I enjoyed the trips, but they also frustrated me, because through them I realized the flaws in our relationship. However it is the continual examination of these flaws that has strengthened our connection and my desire to learn why people do the things they do.
I think about my mom and me.
We have varying opinions in the smallest of things, and we let each other know about our differences. Sometimes we do this by arguing. But these differences allow me to dismantle what I think is right and wrong, question myself, and discover what I truly believe in.
When I am around another person, we share the same experience in variant perspectives. We are products of the same world, yet very different worlds, and I aim to understand that difference. I want to know how and why things are the way they are, focusing on linguistic construct as an influence to human development. Language is entirely freeing and yet restricting, as each language hosts unique expressions, emotions, and traditions, and I want to know of a bigger world than the one I know now.
I’ve found a sort of massive world in Goodwill, which showcases the intersection between different cultures and environments, and thrift shopping has become one heck of an adventure! Amongst a world of differences, there are a multitude of similarities, and through those similarities I experience simple pleasures in
life.