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Today’s good deed required a covert action. Lord deliver me.
Today’s good deed: HIDE SOME MONEY IN THE POCKET OF A COAT THAT’S FOR SALE
I’d make a terrible secret agent. I’m less 007 and more Maxwell Smart. I’m not the cool, slick, hip person that you think I am. Au contraire, mon frère!! I’m clumsy, a nerd, a horrible liar, and I crack under pressure. The first time I played the game “Murder,” I confessed to being the murderer the instant I was interrogated.
I chose a Goodwill in North Hollywood to do the deed. My heart began to race the second I approached the store. I’m sneaking money into a pocket, not taking money out of one. Why am I so nervous?
A cashier makes eye contact with me. “Welcome to Goodwill!” She’s seen my face! It can be readily identifiable in a line-up. I immediately walk away from the coats.
I roam in the book section for a bit. Books calm me and right now I need calming. I don’t need to pee my pants doing a good deed.
Last year, sales from Goodwill stores funded employment training, job placement services, financial education, youth mentoring and more, to 9.8 million people in the United States and Canada. So just by shopping here, I’m doing a good deed.
I found a brand new notebook and a brand new photo album. I’ve been meaning to send some pictures to my Godmother. This will do nicely. Okay. I’m calming down.
There are always some groovy albums in a Goodwill store. This store has ‘What’s Up Doc’ on laser disc. Barbara Streisand, Ryan O’Neal, Madeline Kahn. Such a funny movie. Okay. I’m calm.
I go over to the coats and find a hip, grey, suit coat to slip my $5 in. The coat pockets are still sewn closed! No one’s cut them open yet!! Come on, people. Work with me!!!
Wait!! I can just grab a few coats, take them to the dressing room, “try them on,” and slip the money in there! Genius!!
I grab a royal blue Ralph Lauren jean jacket and a purple H&M blazer. They’re both waaaay too small for me … so I whistle. I whistle like someone who is trying to get away with something but trying not to be noticed. Weak.
I’m a horrible liar so I try on the jackets. This way if someone asks me I can say honestly that I was in the dressing room trying on clothes. It was like stuffing 10 pounds of sausage into a 5-pound casing. I slip $5 into both jackets’ pockets.
Each August before the start of the school year, my Mom and I would go shopping for new school clothes. I was blessed. Both of my parents worked, and though we weren’t rich by any means, we could afford to buy retail.
I imagine some mom and daughter shopping at this Goodwill for new school clothes. I’m hoping the young girl reaches into the pocket right before school and finds her surprise. I hope some kid who normally wouldn’t have $5 to spare, soon will.
I hang the two jackets on the returns rack and avoid the impulse to run out of the store like a banshee with her butt on fire. As nonchalantly as I can, I take my notebook and photo album up to the front and pay for them. I leave the store without having a heart attack.
I will never know who finds the money in those coat pockets, but it makes me happy to think about it. And they’ll never know who put the money in there … unless … they have surveillance cameras.
My heart’s pounding again.
Photo (Flickr CC) by Robert Couse-Baker
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Holly Walker
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