The three hipster children who see life in clothes worn by many others take over the Ventura thrift stores. They briskly piled into the rented mustang with grins about to burst as their eyes scurried back and forth between each other. Their investigation was now in motion ready to take off and soar to new heights.  Sliding hanger after hanger with stapled price tags we each found a treasure in this scavenger hunt. They raced like gorillas pounding on their chests swinging from each pole of clothes to the next, ravenous for a golden banana under all the leaves and branches. Their converse brushed the cold grey cement propelling themselves into rugged ripped carpet rooms where thousands of people have already walked through many times.

 

These people who walked in were usually ordinary because they had some passion to see something beautiful in a material that has been worn before. The sweaty smell of clothes that may not have been washed sit there on old rusted hangers. Although their friendship was irresistible they found greatness and laughter in the worst moments possible. They lived for these cheap, worn down, sweaty ugly places until their tummies growled from the hours they spent distracting themselves with goofiness.

 

They stepped out of this imaginary world of past items people once enjoyed, to have these items now rub off on their personality and now they leave for their hunger. Their converse step back onto the cement to walk a few feet to see a glass window towering over them. They each saw their reflection with faces of exhaustion like zombies, but if they looked harder they could see the lipstick red booths and the red and white checker board floors. The sky was indigo blue and the stars twinkled under them with the glowing red lights glowing around the outline of this diner. They dragged themselves into this retro restaurant, as music filled the silence of this empty room. This didn’t matter to the three of them because they could imagine girls riding on roller blades and twirling in their poodle skirts. They plumped themselves into a booth as if they filled each booth in this whole entire room. Then the waiter set menus in the center of our table like the clue to the missing treasure to our scavenger hunt.

 

Then her voice vibrated through them:  "What can I get you all started with?" The woman's voice lingered within me as I sat as one of the girls into the booth staring at the material world in my hands and then this question dropped to my heart. I thought I could order anything in the entire world if I manifest further than the world appealing to my eyes. I could take something worn down to find my heart's true desire. We could all take a simple memory like the thrift store and reveal a story that may not have been told the right way.