some notes

When you go to the Standard in Summer, on a beautiful balmy evening, you sit inside.
When you go in Winter, you sit outside, because it's the coldest day since last August, and your breath flags speech like a cartoon bubble.

When getting your hair cut, do not take a book like Marley and Me to read. You will have to keep putting the book in your bag, explaining to the stylists and the wall of mirrors why you're crying in 10 words or less, when really you need a couple of inches.

You get told - You'll love $$$$$$ - by many people, fellow thrifters, for months. So you finally go there at the height of school holidays and it's not only thrift Kmart but Kmart on speed. Walking from the car, you hear the sound of crashing glass from the delivery van. Probably a crate of crockery and probably not given a second thought given the volume of cast-off glassware served up for recycling at the Recycling Factory. Inside, more glass gets broken as tumblers are taken off packed trolleys and squeezed next to flutes and vases. Kids run manic around the racks and racks of slacks and dacks and frocks and coats with cigarette burns on the pocket. It is so loud and vast you have to head to the parkas to take stock amid the excess and cacophony, and then flee into the carpark, free.