Yesterday morning when casually browsing a charity shop in Manchester, I heard a few giggles and gasps come from a few of the volunteers. “Can you believe someone would hand this in?!” One of them said. After a minute or so my inner Nosy Nancy couldn’t take it much longer and so I went over to see what all the fuss was about. “Would you buy this?” one of the members of staff asked, holding the below CD in front of me while being careful to cover the model’s penis with his finger.
Yep, that black squiggle was me.
After pulling a face that Nick Hewer would have been proud of, I handed the CD to a fellow curious shopper who let out a huge gasp.
“Well, he’s certainly a big boy!” An elderly woman said, as I tried to not burst out laughing.
The front of the CD had a picture of a topless woman on it. I won’t bother sharing that side though, because since breasts regularly make their way into tabloid newspapers, I wasn’t even that shocked. I’m amazed that someone thought that it was okay to hand this into a charity shop though, and it got me wondering what other weird items have been handed in before.
Charity shop volunteers must have to wade through so much rubbish to find things that they can sell, and it must be pretty frustrating when people dump bags of items outside their doors that are pretty much worthless.
Just look at these shoes!
#charityshop Sign in my local Age UK charity shop pic.twitter.com/B9PzyLPdoQ
— Martin Brunt (@skymartinbrunt) January 19, 2015
And if you’re keen to see just what goes on behind charity shop doors thanks to the alarming amount of junk that volunteers get lumped with, give this episode of Mary Queen of Charity Shops a watch.
So I’m calling all past and present charity shop volunteers! What’s the weirdest thing that you’ve ever discovered when unpacking a bin bag full of second hand treasures? And if you haven’t worked at a charity shop before, have you ever spotted something odd that somehow slipped through the net?
Today’s charity shop session was a success, and I ended up buying two absolutely gorgeous dresses that just need a little bit of alteration before I can wear them.
Editor's picks
I’ve worked in charity retail for almost 6 years now and some of the naughty items, we have found included a lady finger, cards with naked ladies in various positions and willy warmers… Unfortunately we also get a lot of rubbish: dirty underwear, used deep fat fryers with the old fat in it and i once had a lady offer me a mop which she herself described as pretty minging. Needless to say i declined that donation.
But usually for every really bad donation you receive 2-3 really good donations. Last week we had 3 bags of brand new designer-ware. Donations definitely keep the job interesting :)
Hi Katie. Those donations sound awful! Especially the dirty underwear! A friend of mine says he was in a charity shop a few weeks ago when he overheard a member of staff saying that someone had handed in some used and unclean adult toys. Why do people think that is an acceptable donation?!
I’ve been thinking about doing a bit of charity shop work and it’d be a great way of finding some great stuff like the designer clothes, but sifting through all those bad donations must be tough.
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