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Back in the 80s I dropped out of college awhile...got a job at an outlet for a chain of thrift stores (for the sake of anonymity I will refer to it as "VV")...I started out a cashier, made $4.50 an hour...but grew tired of that and aked for a backroom job, and soon the opportunity came and I accepted the job of "sorter"...which meant I went through the boxes of donations and inspected and sorted them out to various departments (men's, women's, children's clothing, domestics, miscellaneous {ie everything else})...without going into detail it was a racket...in fact I just got the idea to write a book about it!
The store was high volume and well known...the company owners made a ton of money and they owned their own Lear-Jet...(useful for flying from store to store, they were all over the West)...the manager of my store was borderline psychotic, though...what could have been a cool job was in fact pretty stressful...employees couldn't work fast enough! "Faster faster faster!" was my paradigm there...
Anyways, about the underwear....I got to see it all! Let me tell you this...we did NOT wash anything we got that we put out for sale...
I ended up spending a week in the hospital(not fun either) with an IV in my arm because I had an acute case of hepatitis (thankfully type "A", but very severe) that I got from working there...during that time I had to pee in a bottle and gee it looked just like root beer! The boss called me in the hospital and gave me a raise and gushed over how sad this was, and so forth (later I heard from fellow employees they were mortified about being shut down by the Dept. of Health)...oh yes I and they both were visited by them!
I went from 175 to 149 lbs. in one week...I was so weak I could not climb a stairway without stopping for breathe...I was at home for three months, went back to work early (against some's worries) because the manager said I would be allowed to perform at my own rate...Well, on the morning of the second day back the hag called me into the office and asked if I could work faster(there is a special place for her I know)...soon it was like I was never sick at all...
Anyways I digress...want to know what "donations" I was lucky enough to open up? How about a used bedpan full of dried up shit for starters? Or the time I opened up a plastic sack and immediately felt pinpricks on my arms, and found them covered with hundreds of starving fleas (the sack was full of dog hair and who knows what else?)
Oh I forgot this thread is about the dangers of used underwear...I've forgotten to add that although we did not wash anything before presenting it for resale (including underwear) that IF a customer was to ask if we washed clothing before reselling it we were to say "yes!" Luckily I never had to say that myself because I didn't deal with the public...but let me tell you I saw the dirges of humanity's throwaways....sexy panties labeled "Monday" through "Friday" with skidmarks for example? Underwear in general full of shit stains, piss stains , menstrual (and I'm sure other) blood stains, kept in moldy boxes chewed through and full of rat feces, you name it I saw it...although nothing so bad we had to call the cops on, thankfully...But it opened my eyes about how filthy people can be (including those in the thrift store "industry")
Yes, retapping these unthought of memories makes we want to puke, but I know if a garment did not seem visibly soiled I would get shit for "garbaging" it...(yes my rejects were inspected)
Like I say, I feel like I could write a book about this, I worked there for not quite 3 years, I have not even touched upon the sex and dope and murderers!
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