thrift store pacifier

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My youngest son, Nate, never used a pacifier.

He’s a smart kid.  He knows exactly what a pacifier is for.

But he never used one.

That’s why it was such a surprise in some ways to glance over at him the last time we were at the “dirty” Goodwill Store and see him engaged in something that kind of grossed us out.

I say “surprise in some ways” because it’s never completely a surprise when a four-year-old boy does anything strange.  They are inventive and productive in the ways they can be weird.

The “dirty” Goodwill is one that is kind of a clearing house for things that are too strange for the other Goodwill stores.  You can find some good deals there.  It’s more like a traditional thrift store than a lot of the bigger, nicer Goodwills….messy and jumbled…full of buried treasures.

When Jenny looked over at Nate, he was riding on a rocking horse that looked like someone had dragged it out from under a trailer somewhere.

Maybe they sent it up from New Orleans after Katrina hit.

It’s hard to tell what kind of journey a lot of the items at the dirty Goodwill have made.

Riding a nasty horse isn’t really cause for alarm.  Germs are everywhere.  You can’t escape germs.  You can’t “anti-bacterialize” the whole world.

There’s nothing wrong with a few germs.

But when Jenny took a closer look at Nate, she realized that there was more to the activity going on than just rocking.

He was canted over at a strange angle…and there was a 5 inch piece of string attaching his mouth to the plastic horse.

When she followed the string from the horse to his mouth, she saw that it was attached to something made of soft plastic that he’d put in his mouth and was actively sucking on.

OH MY GOSH…IT WAS A THRIFT STORE PASSY!!!!!

It was a crusty, brown with dirt thrift store pacifier.

Nate had found one of the grossest things you could dig up in any thrift store…and he had it in his mouth!

GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT!! GET IT OUT!!!!

Who knows what motivates something like that.  Like I said, he’s a smart kid…he knows some of the score.

Thrift store pacifiers are pretty gross to suck on, though.

Actually, I do the former owner a disservice.  It’s not so gross in its original state.  It’s just something some little kid sucked on…nothing really gross about that.

It is just the thought of a piece of soft rubber attached to a plastic rocking horse, bobbing in the waters of Hurricane Katrina and then making its way to a thrift store a little ways above Greenville, SC…and then making its way into our little son’s mouth….well…

THAT’S PRETTY FREAKING GROSS. IT’S REALLY PRETTY FREAKING GROSS.

Nate will survive this latest escapade and so will we.  It’s a learning thing…you learn not to suck on thrift store pacifiers as you mature.

You mature and you don’t put items at the thrift store into your mouth.

THRIFT STORE PASSY?!!!  REALLY?!!!

About Peter Rorvig

I'm a non-practicing artist, a mailman, a husband, a father...not listed in order of importance. I believe that things can always get better....and that things are usually better than we think.

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