The Salvation Army

On a househunting trip with my boyfriend, we stayed at the Fairfield Inn on Lima, right next to this Salvation Army. It seemed almost serendipitous, as I was just saying I wanted to hit up some thrift stores this weekend. We braved a whole 50 ft of March winds and rains to walk over here. Coming from Ann Arbor, I was excited to see what Indiana thrift stores might hold, especially given Ft Wayne’s apparent penchant for goodwill. Unfortunately, I was not so impressed by this particular Salvation Army.
There are really only so many things to rate a thrift store on, mainly organization and cost. The costs here were average ($ 3-​$ 3.50 for women’s blouses) but the organization was the worst I’ve ever seen. All the clothing racks had piles of tchotchkes on top. There clothes were pretty disorganized, with sweaters being in «sweaters» and «blouses», and random chunks of clothes that don’t belong in a section. I did walk out with 4 blouses, and I’m pretty happy about that. I was willing to give this sad Salvation Army 3 stars, until I got home to wash my clothes. All the price tags were stapled onto the shirts, in pretty high-​visibility places. Buying second-​hand clothing is already a treasure hunt as it is, but even my good finds now have holes in the front of them. Ironically, the bandana I bought did the price tag attached in a normal, hanging way. Not that I would have cared about the holes on the bandana.