Honesty.

Dang, it tries my patience sometimes.

On Wednesday, I went to the thrift store that seems to have severely overpriced furniture, but also has cool stuff like the blue glass cake plate and the aqua Pyrex, with weekly markdowns.

So I got this:

I remember when I first saw it for $29.92. I loved it, picked it up, tapped it, and it sounded great. Yay. But not for $30.

I think last week it was down to the $14.91 price. However, I saw the $6.96 on Wednesday and HAD to get it! No chips or anything on the lid, but the gold has worn a bit around the rim of the lid. AND it's Austrian. Pretty. (I tried to find the pattern on Replacements.com, and think I found it - $117.95. A same dish by this maker, just with a different floral pattern, is $155.95!!!! Yikes. I'll have to investigate further.)

So, I go to pay, and had also gotten a book about Victorian customs $2.92, I believe), a 60¢ Mary Engelbreit mug, and was thinking about this aqua vase. I asked the lady to ring up everything except the vase first because all I had on me was $10 and they only take cash.

I get frustrated with this place because it's at the end of my thrift store "rounds" and it closes at 6 - SO early, and they only take cash. So half the time I'm all rushed there.

Anyway, I ask her if she knows what color tag will go 50% off ... they do that on Fridays. There was a neato Grandma's Flower Garden quilt top I was looking at $14.xx, so I wanted to wait for 50% off. Actually, it wasn't there anymore when I checked on Wednesday (it was there Saturday, maybe), but I just wanted to know.

She says she thinks it will be 50% off, she's wrapping the dish in newspaper, and she goes to give me the total, and I'm like - "Did you ring it up?" She totally didn't!! Dang. I could have afforded the the vase if I'd let her do that. Ha! So she realizes she didn't, thinks about unwrapping it to check the price, then asks me, and I tell her, and she says "I trust you!"

So she puts it in and gives me the total, and it's $11.34 after tax. Crud. I ask her to take off the Engelbreit mug, then. She's looking at the register, then starts digging in her pocket, and I'm like, what? Is she going for a key to the register or something?

She ends up throwing in the extra buck for me (I had 34¢) just to not have to do an override. She asked if I was there often, and I said at least once a week, and I thanked her and told her I'd pay her back next time I was in.

So there it is. An Austrian covered dish for $7, A TOTALLY REPRESENTATIVE SYMBOL of my unquenchable habit of being honest. Urgh. I think that's worth at least $7.

That's what I'm gonna think about every time I look at it. That's not so bad.

I also stopped by last night on my way home from work to try to give her $1 (even though I only had $20 coming straight from the ATM!), but they had just closed, the door was shut, they didn't want to let me in, and couldn't understand what I was yelling through the glass door since they didn't feel like opening it!! So I left. Will try again next time.

While I was taking pics, though, I found a HUGE chip on the bottom of the dish, another with another smaller chip on the inside lip of the bottom. Boo hoo. I will have to be careful because the big chip flaked a little bit, too.

I think it's a pretty good deal, though, and at least the chips are where I can't see them.

That's the bummer about that place, they have nice stuff, but sometimes when you wait for it to go lower, it's been all dinged up and whacked about in the meantime. Like that set of Japanese teacups and saucers, with the teacups all broken now, in the bad! Tragedy.

But hey! I'm honest.