The MLP Arena
Pony Talk => Pony Corral => Topic started by: kingluke on April 11, 2019, 09:55:05 AM
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Hello,
So I went to two thrift stores today. (No pony luck, but a nice yellow sweetox neopet plushie for 50 cents, yay)
The first thrift store was fine, and where I found the plushie. The second I have at least spend 10 minutes trying to find the toy aisle...
So do you have any thrift stories? Was it good? Bad? Did you come back/never come back for any reason? But like only because of the store/people,not necesarily because of any good finds.
I would love to hear from you.
cheers,
Luke
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One time, I was at my new favorite thrift shop and I had gotten a good score of G3. I was super excited! I went to check out. The check out person had just gotten done tearfully hugging the older woman in front of me (ok...probably a relative or something?). When she greeted me, it was like something straight out of a Barbie movie. She was uncomfortably cheery and it was rather offputting. I haven't seen her since which makes me wonder if the retail hammer finally cracked her spirit.
My other story is that I went into a consignment shop for toys and the lady asked if I had my parent with me...I told her "I'm an adult." They didn't have ponies that day anyway...
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I was at a local thrift store with a cart full of ponies and was asked of i was asked the age of my child
I don't even have kids lol
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One time, I was at my new favorite thrift shop and I had gotten a good score of G3. I was super excited! I went to check out. The check out person had just gotten done tearfully hugging the older woman in front of me (ok...probably a relative or something?). When she greeted me, it was like something straight out of a Barbie movie. She was uncomfortably cheery and it was rather offputting. I haven't seen her since which makes me wonder if the retail hammer finally cracked her spirit.
My other story is that I went into a consignment shop for toys and the lady asked if I had my parent with me...I told her "I'm an adult." They didn't have ponies that day anyway...
Okay they might have accidentaly sold their marbles XD.
Post Merge: April 11, 2019, 11:28:43 AM
I was at a local thrift store with a cart full of ponies and was asked of i was asked the age of my child
I don't even have kids lol
They always ask mew if I want things gift wrapped in toy stores. Im glad im not alone
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I have a hard time with our local thrift store. It has this huge AC unit that just seems to roar and pound. It makes me feel like I'm underwater. Add to that they never seem to have ponies and I'm just as happy to stay away. The disappointment + overall experience makes it not worth it to me. :P
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It's actually one of the best charity shops near where my London accommodation is, but they have a heater/aircon RIGHT above where you queue to pay. So if there's someone buying something and you have to wait (and there always is), trying to wait where it's clear you're in the queue - without being cooked or blasted - is interesting.
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It's actually one of the best charity shops near where my London accommodation is, but they have a heater/aircon RIGHT above where you queue to pay. So if there's someone buying something and you have to wait (and there always is), trying to wait where it's clear you're in the queue - without being cooked or blasted - is interesting.
oh dear, don't burn/freeze.
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It's actually one of the best charity shops near where my London accommodation is, but they have a heater/aircon RIGHT above where you queue to pay. So if there's someone buying something and you have to wait (and there always is), trying to wait where it's clear you're in the queue - without being cooked or blasted - is interesting.
oh dear, don't burn/freeze.
It tests your dedication to buying the ponies, that's for sure! ;)
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A few near where I used to work, one where I tried on some clothes, the zipper jammed and I had a mini panic-attack in the changing room. The staff were really sweet, offering me a drink and cutting me out of the clothing (I was so embarrassed - but the panic of the stuck clothing brought me out in a sweat and my breathing went crazy).
Walking into one of my local charity stores last year and seeing G1 Nursery + accs. That was a great experience! There is a perma-drought of G1 around here so finding them felt so good!
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It's actually one of the best charity shops near where my London accommodation is, but they have a heater/aircon RIGHT above where you queue to pay. So if there's someone buying something and you have to wait (and there always is), trying to wait where it's clear you're in the queue - without being cooked or blasted - is interesting.
oh dear, don't burn/freeze.
Im sure it does, any ponies you left behind because of it? Just curious.
It tests your dedication to buying the ponies, that's for sure! ;)
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Best experience: Finding Spanish piggy Minty at Value Village . . . in Seattle.
Worst experience: Finding a single lamp from Paradise Estate in a baggie at Value Village and never ever seeing the playset there even though I visited daily for weeks after that, LOL.
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Having a discussion with a cashier about how great it is to see Disney's recent offerings of characters of color. That our kids and little cousins can finally see themselves in the merchandise. I love meeting fellow Disney fans.
Worst was when someone snagged a mug right out of my shopping car. I'd turned around to grab a book but I was standing right next to my cart! After that, I started using a basket or bringing my own reusable bag.
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My best is kind of find related still... back in October 2017 I was at the local Goodwill, looking at the toys of course. I found a G2 (bed canopy Light Heart) and as I was walking around I saw a little girl holding another G2. She tried her best to beg her mom into letting her get the pony but her mom made her put it back, then I grabbed it. :P It was the mail order, Seabreeze.
Worst.... two of my more recent trips to the same Goodwill, there's been this man who is obviously just a reseller. I'm fine with resellers generally (I mean, my mom is one, she enjoys thrifting houseware stuff and resells it at her booth in an antique mall, but there's a right and a wrong way to thrift to resell...). He just, puts a significant amount of the toys from their bins into his cart, like enough to cover the whole bottom of the cart and fill a few of their $5 toy bags. It's annoying and when he's there it's impossible to look at things myself, kind of really pisses me off tbh. Give people who are actually interested in the items a chance to look first, dude.
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My worst is that I go to thrift stores, full of hope. But I just don't find ponies. It's so disheartening. But I keep going anyway because I can't help myself. In fact I will try again today.
And the best: the second G1 I ever found in the wild. I was about to go and saw her on my way out in a store that never before had sold toys. She cost hardly anything, and I will keep her forever and I really don't care that she is 'only' Cotton Candy.
Second best: was not actually at a thrift store, but at a toy fair. I asked a lady if she had any ponies and she told me that oh, no she always kept all My Little Ponies for her daughter. But I bought a bag with a G3 in it from her. She was very rude as well so I felt feathers and didn't even tell her what had happened.
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We went into a charity shop once and the shop assistant charged up to us and said in a very haughty voice 'Can I help you?' (I've never been asked that in a charity shop!). We were like 'um, no, we're just browsing....'. Then she watched us menacingly while we looked round. I don't think she wanted us there! Maybe she thought we looked like potential thieves or something :lol:
Re buying toys when you're grown-up, when my mum finds ponies or dolls and they ask who they're for, she says she has a little girl that likes them. In reality, I'm 26, but I suppose I'll always be her little girl?!
Because I'm pretty shy and unsociable, my favourite kinds of shops are the ones where they just sell you things and don't make too much conversation :blush:. Unless of course it is the kind of conversation that goes 'oh I see you are buying a pony, we have a big box of those just come in, would you like to look at them, if you buy them all we'll give you a discount' (this has never happened, but I live in hope! :lol:).
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Unless of course it is the kind of conversation that goes 'oh I see you are buying a pony, we have a big box of those just come in, would you like to look at them, if you buy them all we'll give you a discount' (this has never happened, but I live in hope! :lol:).
Funny you say that, but it's amazing how the promise of ponies can suddenly make me want to communicate :D I haven't had this happen in a charity shop yet, but at a carboot sale, many times. It begins with...
"There's some more of those somewhere...hang on a minute..."
And that's me sold :)
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hm. My worst story is very WYP and not appropriate for PC.
My favorite find for sure is an orange space age flip clock. :)
flea markets tend to be more my thing rather then thrift stores.
Because I'm pretty shy and unsociable, my favourite kinds of shops are the ones where they just sell you things and don't make too much conversation :blush:. Unless of course it is the kind of conversation that goes 'oh I see you are buying a pony, we have a big box of those just come in, would you like to look at them, if you buy them all we'll give you a discount' (this has never happened, but I live in hope! :lol:).
TBH if you are friendly enough, some places recognize you as a regular and will do that.
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I'm not sure if I really have a worst experience (aside from days of just not finding anything). There's a couple bargain shops we've been too that were pretty yucky, so we've never been back - but they were more like liquidation stores.
Best experiences - finding Oakley in a bag of other random toys (just his face poking out between) :heart: and the Lullaby Nursery (with larger furniture) for $5.99.
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I don't think I've ever had a particularly bad experience in a charity shop. I know the people who run all of the ones near me, so usually it's just a nice catch up whilst I'm making a purchase.
I think my favourite finds that were non-pony was a gamecube for free (they said they didn't have the facilities to test it, so gave it to me!) and a megadrive with ten games for £25. I think I also got an N64 for £10 several years ago.
Pony wise, I've had a handful of G1s over the years for a pound or 50p each, and probably nearly a hundred G3s.
I usually get better finds in charity shops than carboot sales etc, that's for sure.
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Seeing the box for the Rainbow Wishes Amusement park, running up to it, and realizing it's empty. :hmm:
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I'm an assistant manager at a very big Oxfam shop. My best and worst pony experiences are in the same story.
Someone donated a G3 lot which had lots of ponies I wanted: Dibble Dabble, Dream Blue, Tulip Twinkle and Wind Drifter. I was really happy to have them and bought them straight away in the middle of my shift. Because the shop was quite empty, I started brushing and styling their hair between customers. In charity shops this sort of thing is fine and a lot of volunteers read books etc whilst they are waiting on the till.
A customer comes up to me, laughing and says "oh those ponies aren't yours, are they?"
I laugh with her and explain that actually they are and I'm an adult collector. I tell her how happy I was to have found them, and put her things through the till. She pays for them and looks at the ponies and then to me again. She says "Aren't you a bit old for them though? I've always found something really creepy about those adults who collect things like my little pony and don't take them out of the boxes". It probably shouldn't have bothered me that much, but it did in the moment. Perhaps I should just have told her that they were for a fictitious little sister/cousin/daughter etc
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I have way too many good stories since I've found almost all my collection at thrift stores over 20 years. I've found 57 ponies this past October, another year found 30 ponies 6 were the MO sparkle set. I got a near complete paradise estate from an auction. I got satin lace and tux N tails, 5 of the pearly babies, adult seapony, baby sweet cake few months ago.
Worst was when I decided to go to another thrift store before my usual place and when I got there a re-seller had got to them first. The other bad was finding mimic with a chewed horn and foot. Also the time I saw a squished spider in a bag :(
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I don't go to a lot of thrift stores, mainly because we don't have that many around here, but also because they never have ponies. I did find a Baby Bouncy (Surprise Newborn) for €0,50 once, but that was in The Hague (other side of the country for me). So I guess that's my best experience, pony-wise. I did have a lot of great non-pony experiences though! I often find beautiful witchy clothes for cheap, and last year I found a perfect cabinet for my beeswax collection. :D
As for my worst... I don't have one specific experience, but there's this thrift store in a village nearby where they are always incredibly rude. The store is run by a group of rigid, ill-tempered oldsters with no life. They enjoy watching your every move, and butt in whenever they can. Usually to imply/flat out tell you that you are too fat to fit into the item your were looking at, and to make sure you put it back so someone worthy can buy it. :hmm:
My other story is that I went into a consignment shop for toys and the lady asked if I had my parent with me...I told her "I'm an adult." They didn't have ponies that day anyway...
I was once given a lollipop at a Chinese restaurant... When I was 20. :hmm:
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Let's see... I've never found any ponies while thrifting (I don't do it very often, but I have tried in the past)
On the positive, at the flea market I've found some really cute vintage stuffed animals for pretty much nothing (the tiger and lion, the panther was my mom's):
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As well as some great records, odd action figures, and some pretty good vintage clothes.
On the negative... there's not much to thrift at around here, she major brand thrift stores are... honestly pretty sad here and I don't care to go in them if I don't have to. The antique malls do have a couple of sellers that sell ponies - for way too much! One sells poor condition common G1s for $50 bucks a pop, another tries to sell very common (like Sunny Daze) G3s for the same price or more. The same ones have been sitting in both of their cases for years.
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I was at a local thrift store with a cart full of ponies and was asked of i was asked the age of my child
I don't even have kids lol
I have a phantom Little Niece for situations like this! :biggrin:
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I'm an assistant manager at a very big Oxfam shop. My best and worst pony experiences are in the same story.
Someone donated a G3 lot which had lots of ponies I wanted: Dibble Dabble, Dream Blue, Tulip Twinkle and Wind Drifter. I was really happy to have them and bought them straight away in the middle of my shift. Because the shop was quite empty, I started brushing and styling their hair between customers. In charity shops this sort of thing is fine and a lot of volunteers read books etc whilst they are waiting on the till.
A customer comes up to me, laughing and says "oh those ponies aren't yours, are they?"
I laugh with her and explain that actually they are and I'm an adult collector. I tell her how happy I was to have found them, and put her things through the till. She pays for them and looks at the ponies and then to me again. She says "Aren't you a bit old for them though? I've always found something really creepy about those adults who collect things like my little pony and don't take them out of the boxes". It probably shouldn't have bothered me that much, but it did in the moment. Perhaps I should just have told her that they were for a fictitious little sister/cousin/daughter etc
Yikes! It’s actually creepy she goes around calling strangers creepy. What good did she think would come of that statement?
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I was at a local thrift store with a cart full of ponies and was asked of i was asked the age of my child
I don't even have kids lol
I have a phantom Little Niece for situations like this! :biggrin:
I say they're for my 'little' sister (*cough*who's18yearsoldnow*cough*). I feel bad about it but...it's kinda hard to explain an adult buying a whole bunch of toys to some people. Although occasionally depending on my mood and if the person seems nice enough, I'll say something to the effect of 'I collect and restore old toys'. I find people who shame others for their hobbies to be sad, boring individuals. Some people knit, others like to garden, party or go to bars with friends, I collect colorful plastic equines *shrugs* To each his own.
Best thrift experience:
I mean I could talk about the Rosey Posey thing again but I feel like I've told that story way too often already so...
Finding a Starshine plush in a bin at our local Goodwill in a tiny town in Vermont when I was little. I had wanted a G1 plush for awhile (I loved G1s and a soft G1 I could cuddle? Ultimate life goal for young me) and finding one on my own in the wild was a coolest freaking thing EVER. I still remember the excitement I felt when I saw her hooves and tail and I was like 'oh my gosh that's a pony plush!'
My worst thrift store experience, hmm...
Probably when I was probably 7 or 8 (my little sister was maybe 3 or 4 at the time) and an old man came into the thrift store, grabbed a whole armful of plushies, and then turned to me and my little sis and gave us this nasty grin and proceeded to describe, in detail, how exactly his dog tears them to pieces. It was really disturbing for two young kids, and entirely unnecessary. I do not understand why people feel the need to do this.
Other than that...this isn't a thrift store but at a garage sale once (again I was around 7 or 8), I was looking through a box of toys and this nasty older lady came up, snatched the box, and glared at me while shouting about how they were hers and I shouldn't touch other people's things. There was no 'sold' sign on it and she was nowhere near the box at the time that I was looking at it. How the heck was I supposed to know she'd bought the whole darn box?
*shakes head* People can be unbelievably rude sometimes.
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I'm an assistant manager at a very big Oxfam shop. My best and worst pony experiences are in the same story.
Someone donated a G3 lot which had lots of ponies I wanted: Dibble Dabble, Dream Blue, Tulip Twinkle and Wind Drifter. I was really happy to have them and bought them straight away in the middle of my shift. Because the shop was quite empty, I started brushing and styling their hair between customers. In charity shops this sort of thing is fine and a lot of volunteers read books etc whilst they are waiting on the till.
A customer comes up to me, laughing and says "oh those ponies aren't yours, are they?"
I laugh with her and explain that actually they are and I'm an adult collector. I tell her how happy I was to have found them, and put her things through the till. She pays for them and looks at the ponies and then to me again. She says "Aren't you a bit old for them though? I've always found something really creepy about those adults who collect things like my little pony and don't take them out of the boxes". It probably shouldn't have bothered me that much, but it did in the moment. Perhaps I should just have told her that they were for a fictitious little sister/cousin/daughter etc
Yikes! It’s actually creepy she goes around calling strangers creepy. What good did she think would come of that statement?
The ponies I had weren't even in the boxes as well. A completely useless and unnecessary comment if you ask me, she should have kept her mouth shut
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I'm an assistant manager at a very big Oxfam shop. My best and worst pony experiences are in the same story.
Someone donated a G3 lot which had lots of ponies I wanted: Dibble Dabble, Dream Blue, Tulip Twinkle and Wind Drifter. I was really happy to have them and bought them straight away in the middle of my shift. Because the shop was quite empty, I started brushing and styling their hair between customers. In charity shops this sort of thing is fine and a lot of volunteers read books etc whilst they are waiting on the till.
A customer comes up to me, laughing and says "oh those ponies aren't yours, are they?"
I laugh with her and explain that actually they are and I'm an adult collector. I tell her how happy I was to have found them, and put her things through the till. She pays for them and looks at the ponies and then to me again. She says "Aren't you a bit old for them though? I've always found something really creepy about those adults who collect things like my little pony and don't take them out of the boxes". It probably shouldn't have bothered me that much, but it did in the moment. Perhaps I should just have told her that they were for a fictitious little sister/cousin/daughter etc
Yikes! It’s actually creepy she goes around calling strangers creepy. What good did she think would come of that statement?
The ponies I had weren't even in the boxes as well. A completely useless and unnecessary comment if you ask me, she should have kept her mouth shut
Would have been so tempted to say that I find it creepier that people think they have the right to pass judgement on other people's lives like that. I mean, it might be one thing if you are a family member and your loved one is in debt because all they do is buy ponies, but judging someone you've never seen before like that is way worse in my view than having a harmless interest.
Creepy people are everywhere. They're mainstream...
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New worst thrift store experience from a few days back, entirely unrelated to ponies or anything really, but it happened in a thrift store. It was at a Goodwill that I'd only been to once or twice before, it was on Thursday. There was this old man yelling at like, everybody, from other customers who dared to be near him and at an employee after he told him to leave the store since he was yelling at people for no reason. The employee yelled at him to quote "get out of my store" (maybe he was the manager then?) and this old dude was yelling like directly in his face, he was forced out of the store. You could tell from the way he acted and sounded that he was definitely under the influence of something. After he left for awhile and my mom and I were checking out we heard from another employee who went out of the store to see what happened after he was forced out that he then was in the parking lot (or another lot?) near some fast food place surrounded by police and he got himself arrested. According to her, he got high on aerosol in the men's bathroom at the Goodwill or something and then started yelling at people when he got out. I guess he had a knife on him and was using it around the police in the parking lot? Wild.
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I think this will hallways be my top worst thrift experience. I was looking through Halloween costumes and some lovely person left snot (still wet) on it. Put my hand right in it. There was no bathroom and I had to leave the store and walk to a coffee shop to cut off my hand (aka wash it 50 times)
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Welp, just had my worst today.. Hopefully this doesn't go into inappropriate detail...
Went to the neighborhood thrift store to check and see if they had chairs suitable for me because mine is in sorry shape (I am a rather heavy person...). And I had to contend with an obnoxious fellow shopper, a possibly-intoxicated woman who kept talking to me when I didn't want to, asked me weird questions, took exception to me wanting to check for a weight rating on the bottom of a prospective chair, and insisted I make unwanted and inappropriate physical contact with her.
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Welp, just had my worst today.. Hopefully this doesn't go into inappropriate detail...
Went to the neighborhood thrift store to check and see if they had chairs suitable for me because mine is in sorry shape (I am a rather heavy person...). And I had to contend with an obnoxious fellow shopper, a possibly-intoxicated woman who kept talking to me when I didn't want to, asked me weird questions, took exception to me wanting to check for a weight rating on the bottom of a prospective chair, and insisted I make unwanted and inappropriate physical contact with her.
Yikes! :shocked:
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Luckily I can't remember a worst experience (and I decided not to try to think hard to remember one :) ), but I have several good ones - I cannot choose a best one. I am the type of collector who enjoys her collections the most when found accidentally. I think it is in the associated situation, the circumstances - if I intentionally search for something on eBay and buy it, or go to a shop and buy something that is sold in stores at that time, I never enjoy it as much as I do collection items I accidentally stumble upon. Thus most of my collections are made up of items found in charity shops, thrift stores and second-hand stores. This makes it hard for me to choose top ones, but here are top pony-related ones that come to my mind now:
- finding a whole bag of G1 ponies (12 IIRC) - looking these up to ID them was what got me into collecting ponies more actively (=I always bought G1 ponies if I found them in the wild ever since my childhood, but after this I started to just randomly search for them on online auctions too. And this was the lot that made me stumble upon, and then register to the Arena :cool: ). The lot also included Macau Lemon Drop <3
- finding Mountain Boy Lightning in a toy bin in a second-hand children's clothes store
- entering a small shop in the evening, to find Seashell sitting on a shelf facing the door, looking right at me as if she was waiting for me to arrive and pick her up after school :inlove:
There was a second-hand toy shop I accidentally stumbled upon as a university student, when visiting a fellow schoolmate living on the other side of the city, to get something from her. Most of my best memories relate to this shop (and now that I re-read this before posting, I guess the wors memory too). It has since closed (due to bad management after an owner change), about which I was initially sad, but today I wouldn't even be able to visit it regularly, so maybe it's better then - I would just be sad about all the possible missed opportunities. Back then I visited the shop on a weekly basis, and found some awesome finds there. That's where the above mentioned lot comes from, but I also found tons of Furbies (another main collection of mine) and Moxie Teenz Tristen (the first doll I bought as an adult, the one who started what since then grew into a huge collection...). The lady who was first the owner/manager knew me and put Furbies aside for me without me asking for it - when I entered, she pulled up a bag of sometimes 5 Furbies, and said "I knew you would eventually come again, so I put these away for you". She was just so lovely... but then she went on matermity leave, and wasn't able to handle the shop stuff anymore. The new manager prohibited putting stuff away and introduced other weird rules which eventually drew customers, and then a shopkeeper away, who started up her own shop (which was also lovely - and she herself too! But back then I already was a worker and wasn't able to visit that often due to my working hours clashing with the opening hours of the shop. That's where I found Seashell), and customers slowly started not to visit the old shop anymore. It really wasn't worth it anymore: they didn't restock (it used to be a pay-per-weight shop which completely changes its stock on a weekly basis. Later they switched to changing monthly, offered visibly lower quality items for the same price, and then never restocked anymore), the manager and shopkeepers were rude, and I guess after awhile it just wasn't affordable for them to run the shop anymore. The shopkeeper who started up a new shop also closed down her shop due to rental issues, and the last time I heard of her she moved to a part of the city very far away from me. I don't know if she ever managed to reopen her shop there (she did plan to), but I think at this point it's OK. To go to that part of the city, spend time at the shop, then come back would literally take half a day away from me. I just let it go, but I do miss those days...
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Not pony related but for work experience I worked in the British Heart Foundation charity shop, I saw this original Care Bear plush like my Tender Heart Bear, it was priced at £10 but I got it for £4. That was a good experience.
Bad experience
Looking for toys for baby Terry and these children thought they could have them, but they didn’t get them.