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Aug9
More Adventures at the Thrift Store
As I mentioned in a post last week, I am volunteering at my local thrift store again. My plan is to work there once a week, though I won’t always know what day I’ll be there. Despite my love of routine, there are so many variables that affect my ability to be out in the world that I’ve decided (gasp!) to be flexible about it. Here are my basic guidelines:1. If I’ve done something out in the world one day, I can’t work at the store the next day.
2. If I’m feeling overloaded one day, I can’t go to the store the next day.
3. If I go to the store and immediately see that it’s too crowded and noisy (even when I’m wearing ear protection), I need to leave and come back another day.
4. If I go to the store and it starts out quiet, but later becomes crowded and noisy, I need to leave for the day.This past Thursday, I wore my new Peltor Optime 101 noise-blocking headset on the way to the store. It blocks most sounds completely and keeps the others far enough in the background to give me some distance from them. For the first time, I understand the concept of “background noise.” Once I got to the store, I walked in and scoped out the situation. The environment seemed both quiet and uncrowded, so I decided to give it a try. When I went into the stockroom, I took off the headset, said hello to everyone, and asked the housewares manager whether I could work in the linen section. She said she’d love me to. And then, just when I could have taken refuge among the napkins and tablecloths, I summoned up the courage to tell her what I needed regarding my sensory issues:a) The best place for me to work is in the housewares section, because it tends to be quieter and less crowded than other sections of the store.
b) I need to wear my headset during my shift to fend off sensory overload, so if anyone needs to talk to me, he or she should just tap me on the shoulder, or jump up and down in front of me, to get my attention.She smiled and said both were fine. So, I stopped holding my breath, put my headset back on, and began bringing order out of chaos in the linen section.Being there with my headset on was an interesting experience. Shortly after I’d begun my shift, a guy that I know from one of the antique stores in town noticed the headset (unless you’re legally blind, you couldn’t miss it) and asked me whether I have sensitive hearing. So, I took off the headset for a moment and said, “Yes! Very!” I then told him what I’d told the housewares manager about getting my attention, and he immediately started doing a little dance in front of me, which made me laugh. It was another reminder of why I moved to this town in the first place: I’m not even close to being the most eccentric person here.After that, I concentrated on folding the towels, napkins, and other linens and making them look orderly on the shelves. I even reorganized the shelves that hold the fabric remnants. The fabric had been placed on the shelves in no particular order, so I took everything down and organized it by color. When I was done, the shelves practically shouted “An Aspie has been here!” That was fun.About halfway through my shift, the store got a little more crowded. More people were coming into my area and looking at the stuff I was folding and arranging. Being in such close proximity to people is always difficult for me. I generally need an arm’s length of space in order to feel comfortable. With people so close, I had to shift my focus and move my ordering process elsewhere for a little while. It was hard, but I managed it okay.Perhaps because my sensory needs were well taken care of that day, I began to notice my emotions much more than I usually do when I’m out in public. I began to feel sad that I had to wear the headset, because it meant that I couldn’t chat with the customers or readily help them. While I could certainly take off the headset (or even move it back slightly from my ears) in order to hear people speak, it didn’t make for easy interaction. The customers were much less likely to come up to me and ask for my help; in fact, only one person did so on Thursday. In my pre-headset life, at least a half-dozen people would ask me a question on any given day. So, while tuning out sound allowed me to more comfortably focus on my task of organizing objects, it also took away a part of the job I’ve always really liked.The more I felt the sadness, the more I understood something about my experience of overload in general. When I start any kind of task, I am “switched on” to that task, and I’m ready to continue the task until something breaks my hold on it. Being switched on when putting objects in order is usually not a problem for me, but being switched on when I’m helping customers is very tiring. When I was working at the store without ear protection, people regularly asked me questions about where to locate things, and I always enjoyed being able to help them. The problem was that once someone asked me a question, I got switched into “relating to people” mode and was endlessly ready for people to engage me. The result was that I was wide open—mentally and emotionally— to anyone who walked in the door. No wonder I came home feeling overstimulated and exhausted.Clearly, I cannot be switched into “object ordering” mode and “relating to people” mode at the same time. From a sensory point of view, blocking out sound makes an enormous amount of sense, but from an emotional point of view, it’s a bummer. The only way to get past the sadness is to look at what I do best and what I enjoy most when I’m at the store: I organize things into orderly patterns. Not only am I good at it, but it also gives me a great deal of satisfaction. I’m also good at relating to people in a structured environment—but only for a few minutes. Could I do it for an hour? Sure I could. I could also drive my car into a brick wall, but I don’t really care to have the experience.At any rate, on Thursday, I finished with the linens after about an hour and a half, and I began to organize other objects in the housewares section. Pretty quickly, I realized that I’d gone over my limit. I could feel the disorientation start, and I figured out why: I have to structure my work by task, not time. I need to define a task that will take me an hour and a half at most, and when I’ve finished the task, I need to know that my day is done. I do not need to start ordering anything else in the store (even though my Aspie brain keeps saying, “But, but, but…You’ve only organized one part of the store. What about everything else? Wouldn’t that be fun?” )Once I’d called it a day, I went looking for the folder in which to write down my hours and discovered it in the possession of the new volunteer coordinator. It was a great opportunity to introduce myself and to talk with her about my sensory needs. The store manager had already briefed her about me, so I didn’t have to tell her much. I simply said that I needed to wear the headset, and that I was going to try and come into the store once a week, although the day might change from week to week. She was very supportive about all of it, and we ended up having a good conversation.Before I left the store, I discovered a treasure: an old Brownie camera, with the flash attachment and some bulbs still in the box. I don’t know how many of you remember Brownie cameras, but the first camera I ever owned was a Brownie. My parents gave me one in 1967, when I was nine years old.When I saw it at the store and started playing with the various buttons, it brought back a flood of memories. In the back of the camera is a little circular red window that allows you to see which frame you’re on. You advance the film manually until you get to the next number. A roll of film can have 8, 12, or 16 exposures. I would not have remembered any of this stuff without seeing the camera. It was such a rush. My husband thought I was a bit nuts to buy it until I explained to him that I have very few things from my childhood, and few really good memories, and that using my Brownie camera is one of my favorite memories of all time.Here is the front of the camera with and without the flash attachment:
Here is the top of the camera:
To take a photo, you hold the camera at waist level and look through the top. Here is a picture of my brother standing on the steps of our house and taking a picture with the Brownie. (The other person in the picture is a girl who lived two houses away.)
In this photo, I’m sitting on the front steps holding the Brownie:
The following photo is one that my brother took on the first day we had the camera. I’m standing at the end of our walkway, and I’m holding my baseball glove over my right shoulder.
I’m amazed by how strong, confident, and happy I look in this picture. I remember the day very well. We were so excited to be taking these pictures. The technology seemed so advanced! Of course, I never imagined that I’d be taking digital photos of a Brownie camera, or putting these old Brownie photos on a website. It’s incredible how much has changed since those days.© 2009 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg11 Comments11 Responses to “More Adventures at the Thrift Store”
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John Dale Lyons August 9th, 2009 at 10:26 am
It’s important to keep artifacts from one’s childhood.
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Rachel, did it bother you that people were looking through the linens you’d just organized? That would bother me very much (though I would try not to let it show, since I know it’s an “anal” reaction and not very people-friendly.)
My first camera memory is about the same age you are, maybe a year younger, when we bought a Polaroid. Talk about advanced technology….Photos Developed Right Before Your Very Eyes! When we finally get the last boxes unpacked, I’ll see if I can find some of my Polaroid photos…I want to scrutinize my childhood photos, anyway.
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Argghh. Well, I just hope everyone enjoyed whipping through time in the first sentence of the second paragraph in my previous comment.
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Saja,
I have several internal reactions to people going through the things I’ve just organized (but I say nothing):
1. Irrational fear: “Oh, no, please don’t touch everything. Don’t you realize that when I organize things, I want them to stay that way FOREVER?”
2. Relief: “Even though you didn’t pick out anything to buy, thank you for looking and for not tossing everything upside down in a pile.”
3: Gratitude: “Thank you for picking out so many things to buy. The few things you left tossed in a pile will only take a few minutes to reorganize.”
4: Despair: “Why did you just toss everything upside down in a pile without buying anything? Are we reaching the end of civilization? Or is it all over and I’m the last one to know?”
5. Acceptance: “I know that the entire store is a large, complex, Buddhist sandpainting that will be dismantled the moment it’s finished. Therefore, I silently thank you for tossing everything into a pile without buying anything. I have learned a new and much-needed lesson about the ever-changing and fragile nature of all things.”
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Rachel, LOL. I totally hear you.
If I internalized the realization that the things I organized at the store (jeez, what a bunch of z’s there) would be disorganized when I next returned, then I’d be fine with a messy pile the next week when I arrived. But having people picking the linens up while I’m still organizing, or even where I can see them….that would be very difficult.
Hmmm. I wonder if I can translate that first sentence into something workable here at home.
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Great news- glad you had a great day. I love my Brownie too… and I’m too young to know what they are!
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Very cool camera! Glad the store went ok
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when i worked in art supplies, for about fifteen years total, i would break open a case of coloured pencils, pastels, crayons, whatever, to put on display in the glass case by the cash. i would take so much pleasure in organizing them chromatically before putting them out. i tried to spend as much time as possible doing things like this. i wonder why my old boss was so impatient about it?
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I can’t imagine, Ben. Didn’t he realize that the universe depends upon ordering things by color whenever possible?
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Okay the camera is WAY COOL. That is so awesome!!!!!!!
The rest of the entry I just keep nodding and going “Uh huh, uh huh, I know EXACTLY what you mean.”
It makes me want to go back to the Clerk’s Office and sort, label, and file the files. Mmmmmmmm, sorting and organizing. Yum.
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I can relate to this article! First off, I love shopping at thrift stores. You never know what you’ll find on a given day. Most of what I have at home comes from various thrift stores. About the organization: when I get into one of my modes I will go nuts and organize stuff very specifically. Of those that are actually on a shelf, my books are grouped according to category: cooking, automotive repair, etc. I do this with my extra car parts also – Plymouth parts on set of shelves , truck stuff on another, etc. My problem with organization is that either I’m very neat or its just total chaos. I generally dislike messes and lack of organization, but sometimes when I’m stuck in a depressed mood, I will loose all interest in even picking up the Sunday paper for days! I also work in a Clerk’s Office and while the paper files are going away (what am I supposed to organize NOW?!!) I spent many years as a Records Center Supervisor sorting out files and making them nice and neat.
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Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg
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