(no subject)

Six years ago a worker at an Erica's Thrift Store in the Birmingham area dumped a cart of donated items out onto her to sort. As she digs through the stuff her hand slips into something soft and wet. She pulls the mountain of crap aside to see what's underneath this time. Is it a squirrel? Raccoon? Did some kindly old lady decide to donate a could of pork loins again? (All of these things happen.) nope. This time someone donated their unwanted baby. Dumped the thing right into the big donation box. It died.

Big nightmare at the time. No one likes a dead baby. No one likes a mother who would do that to her kid. No one likes the idea of finding that on their sorting table. Bad mojo. Bad PR for America's Thrift, which has a reputation as a fine upstanding non-baby killing organization.

Full disclosure - i've had dealings with America's Thrift corporate. They're dicks. Some of the middle management are great people, but the corporate guys are crooked bastards. Don't donate to them. Ever. The stuff they can't sell in the stores isn't given to charity. It's shipped to Afghanistan and Russia. Y'know how Nico Bellic dressed like he came out of the 80's in ratty worn clothes in gta4? S'cause the style over there is alla the crappy clothes your grandmother donated to America's Thrift when your grandfather died.

(personal politics makes me dislike the idea of giving aid to terrorist states, or people who would otherwise like to kill me for enjoying freedom and capitalism.)

In any case, I was watching local news and saw that in order to commemorate the 6th anniversary of this event America's Thrift is asking everyone to remember that if you do t want your kid, please don't throw it in a thrift store donation dumpster. Instead any police station or fire station will take it. Thank you.

Okay.

The cynical part of me is screaming that this is America's Thrift's attempt to use a dead baby to get free publicity. I know from experience that if you wanna promote your store for free on the local news, charity is the way to do it. worked wonders for my fcbd event. (I wasn't using a dead baby tho.) I also know how rotten AmThrift's leadership is.

I'd love to know if I'm biased or if my hunch is right.