Dear Diary... today I bought a little girl's journal

Thriftko is a consignment shop much like The Salvation Army store, except the money you spend doesn’t go to a good cause. Shopping at Thriftko is a lot like dumpster diving, except you are expected to pay for the trash you collect.

Second-hand stores like Thriftko are great for putting together Halloween costumes because of the variety of old clothes you can find at yard sale prices. Unfortunately, mostly because of all that ancient clothing, the air quality in these stores hovers dangerously around toxic levels. A Thriftko in my town recently moved into a new building, so it was the perfect time to peruse the refuse without inhaling 50 years worth of mothballs.

Whenever I encounter a yard sale or a flea market or a consignment shop, I’m always hopeful that I will stumble upon some long lost treasure that the experts on Antiques Roadshow will appraise at thousands of dollars. It hasn’t happened yet, but during this most recent trip, I did find something almost as good as treasure: a little girl’s journal!

 
I don’t know what inspired my girlfriend to pick up this pink spiral notebook, but we were both immediately thankful she did. I was under the impression that Thriftko acquires the lion’s share of their merchandise through donations, but now I think they are just taking people’s garbage. There are plenty of periodicals in the “literary” section at Thrikfto, but one would not expect to find a used diary amongst the John Grisham novels.

I left the store without the journal that day, but it has haunted me ever since and I knew that I must buy it and share its contents with the world. I went back today and—thank Jesus—it was still there. The price etched into its cover read 49 cents, but the cashier didn’t seem to notice and rang up a miscellaneous price of 69 cents. I wasn’t about to argue over 20 cents. I would have paid 100 cents for such a prize.

Stickers. Nothing out of the ordinary here. Everyone loves stickers. And look, the stickers spell "KATHI". Maybe that's who this journal belonged to. That's an odd spelling, but we can blame Kathi's parents for that. It also looks like Kathi was describing herself with the stickers. "Kathi is h..." Is what? Maybe we can find more clues on the next page.

Kathi is h[orticulturist]? On this page we learn that Kathi likes flowers and likes to paint. I hope that is paint.

Now we're onto something. Roses are red. Vilets are bule. When I look in your eyes... I look at you? That is very profound.

Pig nose.

Poor Kathi. Now I think it's clear why she turned to her journal and away from society. If that Twilight Zone episode has taught us anything it's that people with pig noses are scary unless everyone has a pig nose and even then, it's probably pretty freaky.

Everybody drew these things!

Thank you Kathi. Thank you for (unintentionally) sharing your life with the us. There were no dates anywhere in the journal, so it's hard to say when these entries were written. Kathi could be 30 years old now for all we know. Maybe someone Kathi works with will show her this blog and she will post in the comments section. I would encourage that.

(The hardest part about writing this particular blog was washing my hands after each scan.)