To think that I found it in Thrift Stores

For as long as I can remember my family has done a secret Santa gift exchange amongst ourselves, where we all draw a name of one of our siblings out of a hat and have to give that sibling a gift. My younger sister and I have gotten each other a few times in recent years as we've both been getting older and we've somehow developed a similar taste in knick knacks and doodads. She picked my name last year and went shopping at the Salvation army. This particular Salvation Army was the biggest Thrift Store I’ve ever been to, and had multiple shelves simply stocked full of knick knacks, doodads, bling, and trinkets. It was the perfect place to shop at, and a recurring favorite of mine. My sister found this pair of wax squirrel candles the glitter ever so slightly in the light and knew she'd found the perfect Secret Santa gift for me. Everything was well until she made it to the register to pay and found she was short by a few dollars. Reluctantly, she put one of the squirrels back and trudged out the front door; one squirrel was better than no squirrels, and was still a great gift. Once she was back in her car she looked in her cup holder and found enough money to buy the formerly forsaken squirrel. She hurried back inside and told the lady at the register "I found enough money." The lady told her she was glad because she didn't want to break up the set and my sister walked out of there with dos ardillas. Come Christmas Morning and I’ve opened my Secret Santa gift I love the squirrels, but then she tells me “there’s a story too.”

I was in a production of Bye Bye Birdie in 2019 and I needed to look for 50’s era clothes for my costume, because just wearing a white t-shirt wasn’t gonna cut it for me. My search led me to a local thrift store in my hometown and I did find what I was looking for, but I also found something I didn’t know I was looking for but sorely needed all the same. At the time I was between backpacks-- my old backpack I’d had for a little over two years and it had served its time well-- and wasn’t sure where to look, when I saw it. Sitting there, in the room marked ‘everything $5’ I saw the backpack that would change my life forever. Eh, maybe not. All the same I knew I needed it. It was the perfect combination of Hobbits of Middle Earth trudging to Mordor and modern innovation that suited me fine. To round things off I had exactly ten dollars left to spend in my budget for the day and both the shirt I needed and the backpack were sitting comfortably in the $5 room and my budget. The day was on my side.

I recently joined Tik Tok and I've been making the odd video here and there (honestly sometimes they're very odd), but I'm starting to get the hang of it. I'm planning out some better content now, practicing dances, writing scripts, keeping records and plans of sounds I’d like to use. I've been wanting to do a video of outfits inspired by Disney characters after I saw a girl do something similar and it looked like fun. As I was planning it out I knew I didn't have a top for Hercules since I’d never been able to dress up as him for halloween. Hercules is arguably one of the most important characters to me, so I went shopping. On my travels, amidst racks and racks of extra larges and off colors I found this, arguably the most perfect Hercules-inspired Alan-outfit shirt ever. I knew I needed it, so I bought it, and continued to procrastinate making the video.