I was a little concerned about the Grams. She’s been in an absolute funk in recent days. I was going to try to cheer her up, but a phone call from Wales solved the problem.
The call was from Emlyn and Marian. “It’s amazing. I was just thinking of calling you!” said Grams. After Emlyn regaled Big Guy with his tales of finding spanners at the Costco in Liverpool, Marian got on the phone and she and Grams talked about the usual stuff. I wandered out of the room.
Then, I heard gales of laughter and came back to see Grams wiping tears of joy from her cheeks. Marian was telling her a story about her latest adventure in Paris. Here is the story she told:
Marian had taken her elderly Auntie to Paris. Auntie was visiting from Australia and had wanted to see Paris. Being from Australia, Auntie thought that Paris was closer than it actually is to Wales. True, there are ‘peeps’ who do fly over to Paris for the day to shop, but our Marian is not one of them.
Auntie held up pretty well to the walking and touring, but one day she became quite tired in mid-afternoon and retired to their room for a wee lie-down. Marian decided to go for a walk. She went to the park nearby and sat on a bench for a while (one of my favourite pastimes whilst in Paris). Then she went to a market and bought some cheese to take home.
Walking along the street, she decided to scope out the restaurants near the hotel for their evening meal. She found a couple of Italian and a French restaurant. They all looked quite good and Marian was pleased. As she turned from the French restaurant to go back to the hotel, she saw two women across the street. These women were putting what looked like brand new women’s clothing into ‘Hefty’ Bags (bin liners). They weren’t tossing in the clothing. They were neatly folding and putting it in with great care.
“That’s odd,” thought Marian. The women calmly filled the bags and then walked away. Marian stood there for a mo’, gobsmacked. Why would women throw away what looked like perfectly good new designer clothing? She looked left and then right, no one was paying any attention to this treasure trove. Maybe she was wrong, maybe it was just old rags. Well, she would never know is she didn’t go look.
Yes, our Marian walked across the narrow street and quickly dipped into the bags. She didn’t want to be seen as a ‘dumpster diver,’ so she casually put her hand in and felt something that seemed like a beaded piece of fabric. She thought, “Ooh, that will make a lovely evening bag.” She grabbed the fabric and put it in her cheese bag. Then, as nonchalantly as she could she strolled at a brisk pace down the street.
She didn’t dare look until she got back to the hotel room. By then, Auntie was awake and Marian told her the amazing story of the bags of clothing. When Marian pulled her finds out of the market bag, they turned out to be two beaded silk designer tops. They looked new, hardly worn. She was thrilled.
That evening, Marian and Auntie went to eat at the French restaurant across from the treasure-filled bin liners. As they sat at their window table, they could see the bags of clothes across the street. By now many people had been through the bags. The clothes had been neatly folded before, but were in disarray now. Auntie had been sceptical before, but now she believed in the magical bags of clothes. A woman with a pram came by and filled up. Then, another woman came up with a trolley and started to load up.
After dinner, Marian and her Auntie very casually strolled over to the bags. There were still copious amount of clothing. They dipped in and pulled out gorgeous things. This time Marian didn’t have her shopping bag with her, so they couldn’t take too much. C’est la vie.
When Marian got back Wales she was talking to one of her daughters-in-law and wondered out loud why someone would put perfectly good clothing in bin liners and walk away. Her d-i-l said, “Conspicuous consumption. Wealthy people do that in order to be able to go out and buy new. They were just making room in their closets.”
Grams laughed, “Marian, somewhere there’s a CCTV with you on it doing a bit of ‘dumpster diving.’ Either that or it was “Candid Camera. I love it! You know, if I had been there, I would have picked up a couple a bin liners just walked off with them, just like St. Nick.” She laughed and laughed. She hasn’t laughed that hard for ages.
Yes, the photo is ‘photoshopped.’ That’s Grams not our Marian – I couldn’t find a picture of Marian doing anything as silly looking as that. With Grams it’s easy, she’s always doing something silly.
A dopo e Moochas smoochas,
Please give what you can to Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders).
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