Monday, September 28, 2009

Twenty - Four

Occasionally, we are the recipients of bags of clothing for my kids. I always appreciate these gifts. It is how we manage to keep four very active kids dressed. But occasionally, we open a bag and wonder...

what?

Ok - there was the time when we were given an entire adult size green striped pajama - one piece.

Then the interesting negligee. Ok, it is bad enough to think of wearing someone else's used negligee, but I know who gave it to me... so when I see her sitting so nicely dressed in church, then there are brief moments when my mind imagines her in that.... no! What?!

The few times we get a bag of T-shirts that have long ago seen their best days, I still smile. They make great cleaning rags and painting shirts.

But today, when I opened a bag and found no fewer than twenty-four little girl's two-piece swimsuits (all sizes 4-6), I wondered. I know the family who gave them. They have one daughter. So.... twenty-four?!

Never mind that half of these are the little two triangle tops that I seriously doubt I would put on my daughter. 24? There are some nice ones in there, but 24? None of them are worn out or anything, but 24?! I only have one daughter. We could go for almost a month at the beach (are You listening, Lord - sounds like a great idea), and she'd never have to wear the same one twice.

There were also somewhere near twenty-four pairs of boy's suits, but too big for my boys, so I passed those on.

I think I'll let her pick two. Anyone got any great ideas what to do with the other twenty-two?

8 comments:

Cindy said...

no idea on the 22 extra suits...

but, I'm laughing my head off!!!
I soooo know what you are talking about!!


but, this one wasn't funny....

once I received a huge bag of clothes for me....from a widower...
his late wife's clothes....
the whole bag reeked of cigarette smoke. (that poor woman died of lung cancer!!!) I just couldn't do it. I put all the clothes in the trash.

Ellie said...

I am so allergic to cigarette smoke, I would have likely done the same!

Oh, we stayed with someone this summer who said to us as we were going to bed (we had talked about how we liked our mattress we bought because it is nice and hard), "If you like hard mattresses, you'll like that one. It was "John's" favorite, but after he died, I moved it to the guest room and bought myself a softer one."

Ok, "John" died of a heart attack in his bed!!! So - umm - thanks for telling us we are now going to go sleep on the mattress that your husband died on!!!

Cindy said...

that's a good one!!!

One place we stayed many years ago...the bed broke in the middle of the night. the whole thing just fell right to the floor while we were asleep. woke us up of course...so in the morning we told the hosts what happened...and they laughed and laughed and said...oh that happens all the time!!

they could have at least warned us!!!

Ellie said...

Good thing it was just while you were sleeping! Can you imagine if it was while you were doing something else? Try explaining that to your hosts!

Cindy said...

laughing again!! I know...we thought of that and decided we would have just omitted that little bit...

Alece said...

24!?

kimom said...

Awesome! LOL. We got someone's half-done craft projects and 2 wool sweater vests 3 sizes too small. What were they thinking? 24? We sent them straight to goodwill.

The next week someone opened their trunk after church with another 'bag of stuff' I cringed. I'm a horrible liar. BUT, to her credit this time it was all brand new outfits in correct sizes for all 3 of my kids. You win some, you lose some. 24?

Ellie said...

You never know. I think what is stopping me from just handing these to another second hand place is the fact that they are almost all brand new. In fact only three show any signs of being worn. On closer inspection, I realized they were all from the same store/name brand. So, perhaps they came from a "what didn't sell", but still, why 24 all the same size?

I think I will take them to the kindergarten class and let the mom's all chose one, and the rest... well... if you have a four year old girl, you'll know what she'll be getting from me for her birthday! (no, I wouldn't!)