March 23, 2009

• Designer Clothes from Dumpsters

  This morning, I heard a discussion on public radio of the “culture of poverty.”  They talked and talked and failed to reach a conclusion on what that phrase really means.  Some people believe that being born to and growing up in poverty causes a mentality that keeps a person in poverty.  Others believe that families are poor because God made them that way, if God likes them he will give them money, and if they have aspirations above their stations it will be bad for both them and society.  Still others believe that people born to poverty can “better” themselves if given a level playing field.

  As I view reality, opinion A above is demonstrably true in many instances; opinion B is nonsense and I am being kind and generous expressing that in such mild terms; opinion C could be true, but how would we know?  Our society often doesn’t even give the poor what they need to survive, much less to thrive or prosper, and still there are individuals who take their disadvantages as challenges and excel.  I would also quibble with the concept that a person is made better by the mere fact of gaining prosperity.

  My attention was caught recently by a featured blog asking if wearing designer clothes really indicates that the wearer is a snob.  Okay, I know it’s unfair picking on that.  The blogger is obviously young and naive, culturally disadvantaged through having had a limited range of social contacts and experiences, and probably economically privileged.  I had to comment, anyway.  I denied being a snob, said I wear designer clothes often, and I get them from dumpsters.

  My family lives below the poverty line.  There is no question of that.  But we do it with some style.  We don’t struggle… much.  Sometimes we do without some things.  Many things most Americans take for granted, we simply accept are beyond our means, but we have lots of things that people with greater incomes than ours do without.  Some of that is just the result of choices.  A family with marginal resources could cut the food budget so they can afford a better house, or do without an internet connection to afford music lessons.   There are many such differences, based on preferences or values.

  When I go to town, I see people walking around in worn clothing that is clean, but was obviously cheap to begin with and has been washed many times.  Then I see them climb into a shiny new car or truck.  They made a choice, one that is not open to my family because the shiny new vehicle would be way beyond our means.  I have also seen looks of astonishment on some of those faces when they see us, in our designer clothes, crawl into my rusted-out old Subaru.

  I wonder, sometimes, whether those people don’t know that they could have designer clothes at no cost, not even what they pay for their WalMart specials, and that they can maintain their wardrobes more cheaply by throwing away their dirty clothes than by washing them at the laundromat.  Is it that they don’t know, or is it that they would rather run around raggedy in their shiny truck than dive into a dumpster after designer clothes?  Idle curiosity… I don’t need to know.  Here’s what I need to know:

  Clothing found in dumpsters is likely to originally have been more expensive, and be in better condition, than most of that found at a Salvation Army or Goodwill store.  Middle- to lower-class people are more likely to donate their castoffs to such organizations than rich people are.  They are also more likely to wear their clothing longer before discarding it, and/or to wear it out and turn it into rags rather than discard it.  Of course, the neighborhood where the dumpster resides has a lot to do with the quality of its contents.

  The neighborhood where Greyfox has his roadside stand in summer, a long strip of cabins and storage units known variously as Felony Flats or Ghetto Lakes, seems unlikely to produce much high class mungo (AKA “scrounge” or “salvage”).  We were surprised by the bounty he found there.  Residents tend to be transient.  Many land there fresh from a divorce, or temporarily on their way out of Alaska.  Some land there when they fall on hard times, and when things only get worse they sneak away owing rent and leaving behind things they can’t carry — things that astound us by their variety and value.

  It is true that I could maintain my wardrobe less expensively by tossing out the dirty clothes than by shelling out the $30-$35 it costs for a trip to the laundromat — and my hoard of dirty clothes would take maybe three or four of those five-load trips to launder them all.  It is not as if there isn’t a steady supply of wearable garbage. 

  I have thrown away a few things, one trash bag full in the past year, since I have been both too broke and too ill to do the laundry.  The few things I toss are generally not worth keeping: ragged, moldy, etc.  I’m hoarding dirty clothes.  I have to do something about that.  I could give up my internet connection to pay for one laundromat trip a month, but let’s be real here.

  I’m in a bind over this, really.  Greyfox keeps giving me good clothes, but I like my good old clothes too, and I’m strongly programmed against waste.  It is becoming an issue of storage space, too.  If I don’t keep the things, I should at least give them to someone who can use them, but it is so infra dig to give somebody dirty clothes.  Donating them to a thrift shop would only cause somebody inconvenience and unpleasantness, and the clothes would be thrown away anyhow — see my bind?
  

  • 4:44 pm
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