The things you can pick up in charity shops: second hand books, old Levi's, rollerskates and… hundreds of pages of confidential US military data?Yes, in a move that may see nuclear warheads away from Iran and towards the local Salvation Army shop, a man in New Zealand managed to buy an MP3 player that was rammed full of the personal data of US soldiers from a charity shop. There were names, phone numbers, social security numbers and mission briefings. Wait a minute… mission briefings? You mean someone actually stored their mission briefings next to their Phil Collins Greatest Hits album and collection of Rage Against The Machine singles?
Annoncering
It certainly makes that presentation box of soap you bought your auntie look a bit half-hearted, doesn’t it?But, of course, we have known for many years that charity shops are the true resting place of the world’s filth, misanthropy, perversions, loneliness, violence and chronic hygiene. A few weeks ago I bought an old Clinique beauty therapists' dress from a charity shop in Hackney (thinking I could be like one of those Agent Provocateur girls, but with a slight undertone of painful depilatory techniques) only to find a pair of dirty knickers in the pocket. After the vomit had subsided, it made me feel like I had walked in to someone else’s Mills and Boon-esque retail fantasy: a quick facial with this season’s latest colours before throwing off my knickers to enjoy a good old fashioned lesbian romp astride the collapsible chair in the middle of Debenhams.And if you think dirty underpants are bad, then spare a thought for my friend Steven. He picked up scabies in a charity shop. He tried on an INXS T-shirt in PDSA, and liking it, kept it on. A few weeks later the doctor diagnosed him with scabies mites under the skin.In my seasoned charity shop career there have been countless editions of Dream Phone (including one that the previous owner had scribbled over so all the guys had the names of, I presume, the boys from her class that she fancied), photo albums with just one mysterious snap of a man in a stained T-shirt and no pants pointing at a plastic chair on his patio, the "Natural Born Griller" T-shirt from a Mongolian BBQ joint, size 24 neon knickers and more copies of Whitney Houston’s Whitney album than anyone should ever own (one).I just can’t wait until I manage to nab Margaret Thatcher’s handbag in Belgravia’s branch of Oxfam. I bet it’s full of gum shields.
