Touring in my own town: Second-hand Shopping

Okay, so I need you guys to cut me a little slack on the final day of "Touring Castro Valley".  You see, one of the wonderful things about living in Castro Valley is that we are really close to awesome things.  Proximity and access to awesome are essentially the same as possessing awesome, right?  Right!  Sweet, now that we've agreed upon that fact, I can confess that my favorite thrift stores are actually in San Leandro and Hayward.  (I totally didn't mean what I said yesterday, Hayward. You're the best!)  Mere miles from my current residence you fill find treasures such as these:

Thrift Town.  I buy almost all of my clothing second-hand.  I like how Thrift Town organizes their clothing by colors AND size.  Very helpful.  And every now and then, a treasure such as the couch above will appear.  That beauty was $39.99, AND it was available on Monday when everything in the store was 30% off thanks to the Martin Luther King holiday!  Some lucky potato bought that couch for $28!  Unreal deal.  Anyway, I know where I'll be on February 3rd—scouring the racks during the annual 99¢ sweater sale!   

And my most recent discovery is Eco Thrift.  Whoa.  Quite an impressive outfit (no pun intended) they got goin' there in what is clearly an old warehouse.  Sweaters for days.  And coats!  Oh my little pony—the coats!  The photo above does not do the styles nor the colors justice.  Peas, swings, and belted maxis; mustard, light camel, and lemony-lime.  There was one in the perfect shade of red, too.  I wanted them all, and tried each on in vain.  As my grandma says, "Some days you don't make a dime," which I think roughly translates to, "You can't always get what you want."  So true, Mick and Grams, so true.  Still, when a wool coat only costs 200 dimes (before factoring color tag discount), it can be a challenge to walk on to the next rack.
       

Today was green tag day, so the vintage JC Penney "ski sweater" above was 50% off, and therefore could've been mine for $9.98.  Alas and alack, 'twas not meant to be.  Like the aforementioned wool coats, it just didn't fit properly.  Le sigh.  But, behold!  Le purr:   

I pretty much guaranteed securing Grand Prize should I find myself at an Ugly Christmas Sweater Fête next holiday season.  The teddy bear(?)'s face is pretty effed up.  And his scarf is three dimensional.  As are the jeep's tires.  Truth be told, though, I think it's so ugly, it's kinda cute.  Like a chihuahua.  Or monchhichis.