How to Advertise at This Site

Google shows that a lot of you readers are looking for a way to advertise your sites, cheap. That's not a problem if your sites comply with the rules. Like everything in cyberspace my ad policy has grown and changed, so here are the new rules...

1. The cheapest way to get advertised here is just to make, sell, or do something that a member of this web site finds worth advertising. In that case we may advertise your product or service free of charge. But you must continue consistently to please us. If disappointed we may feel especially obliged to warn people so that they’ll not be disappointed too.

If you are an elected official to whom one of us has sent an Internet petition or a real letter, your replies and further e-mail will appear here free of charge, as received, as being part of the public record. The cheapest advertising an elected official can get is a public record of having represented constituents well.

Though all posts at this site are tagged “Posted by Priscilla King,” because that’s how our hosted system works, at least theoretically four other living people have the right to post their own writing here under their own screen names.

2. If none of us has used your product or service, you must pay to advertise it and the post that mentions it will mention that it’s a paid advertisement. Paid ads may or may not relate directly to written content. Products and services advertised in paid ads may be available in countries other than the United States where this web site is read; Google publishes the blog in many countries and may offer automatic translation into their languages.

a. Paid ads may consist simply of links, with or without pictures. You may post a paid ad as a comment, in which you may make any legitimate statement you choose to make about your product or service, or have a link and/or graphic appear in the original post. The price is $5 per link.

b. Paid ads may appear in product-supportive posts if your product or service is reasonably compatible with this web site. Topics of these posts do not need to have appeared at this site before. Posts will not claim that we use the product or service if we don’t. Posts may include favorable comments on your web site’s design or content, your product’s or service's Amazon ratings, the look of your product, any public statements of support for any cause we may also support, etc., if those comments occur sincerely to me or to someone who agrees to be quoted.

The price for product-supportive posts generally reflects the length of the post and any research it may include. Since Fiverr adopted an alarming policy of automatically accepting jobs before freelancers actually see the offers, I’m no longer available there, so here is the rate schedule I used to have or would have displayed at Fiverr:

(i) “One screen” posts are short (500 words or fewer), simple posts that use up very little memory and are most likely to be read by people using older laptop computers, tablet computers, or cell phones. This is a large audience so don’t underestimate the reach of posts that are accessible to them. Short simple posts cost $5. They are most likely to be read during the week they appear. People who are employed in your business—your employees, or your competitors’—will keep coming back to older posts in this category. Prospective customers, not so much. You may want to consider paying for fresh short posts each month. A short post may contain a small picture and typically contains one or two links.

Short posts may be “search engine optimized” but should not look obviously “keyword-stuffed.” Thus, if your product is “flower arrangements for weddings,” it would include related phrases like “bride’s bouquet,” “bridegroom’s lapel,” “bridesmaid,” “mother of the bride,” and “souvenirs for guests,” but in a short post, trying to work in “flower arrangements in bride’s bouquet” and “flower arrangements in souvenirs for guests” would look repetitious and actually be down-rated by the more sophisticated search engines.

(ii) Typical blog posts contain 500 to 1500 words and may contain more links, pictures, and keyword phrases. Paid ad posts usually include general information about a product or service—its history, how it’s used, interviews with people who use it, how to maintain it in good condition, etc. I don’t do fiction about alleged users whose livestock and even relatives were all just collapsing with anemia from mosquito bites until someone sprayed some Flit and they all instantly revived blah blah. I do posts that summarize what customers post about a product on shopping sites; if you’re getting full marks from a majority of customers, that’s worth posting about. (Posts about products’ customer ratings do have to mention what people don’t like, but in the case of good products this tends to be product-supportive anyway, showing that people who don’t like your product are really looking for some other kind of product and should save their time by buying that.)

Pictures in paid ad posts should be either your original artwork, photos, or business logos, or the original work of artists credited with by-lines and links to their web sites. Pictures can be what Blogspot defines as medium-size (like the book jackets and Petfinder photos, taking up about half the width of the blog column, which Blogspot keeps narrow for viewing on small devices; up to 200x400 pixels). Pictures in a $10 paid post must be simple JPG, no animation, no sound, no cookies.

Links to sites other than your own (shopping sites, informational sites, books or news media that you quote or that mention your product or service) are good in a paid ad post. I personally like “linkfest” type posts, but some people hate them enough that generally one link to 200 words is considered the right ratio.

Different search engines use, and continually update, different algorithms so there are different rules about how to do SEO. You get analytics as well as keywords (how many people searched for a keyword, what else they searched for, which countries they were in) by subscribing to SEO services, which I recommend to . You get the same keyword, phrase, and question lists by checking Bing, Google, and Yahoo yourself or paying me to do that. A typical blog post usually has room for 15 to 20 keyword phrases and questions. Often the questions organize themselves naturally into lists with headings, which I think are overused on the Internet, but that’s because they make documents easier for some adaptive devices to handle.

Some ambitious blogs pay for batches of blog posts—often five per week, one posted each working day—on an ongoing basis. There’s no extra charge for long-term contracts to write this kind of thing. The more detailed your instructions, the better you’re likely to be satisfied with the posts you get. I once wrote blog posts for a Quora-style forum where the specifications were that each post had to get the discussion going with two substantial “comments” adding information (and keywords) below the main post. That level of fiction is not an ethical problem for me, as long as I have seen or heard real people expressing the different opinions for which the fake comments made room. I could not currently write a post with a “comment” representing an honorable person defending glyphosate, because anyone currently defending glyphosate is at best ignorant and out of date, and would have to sound like it. I could not currently write a “comment” representing a bigot as an intelligent, decent human being. I could easily write posts with “comments” representing someone who admires Donald Trump and someone who hates him, or someone who enjoys driving a car and someone who’s willing to drive only after others have demonstrated that they’re unfit, because I know real people who honestly express a full range of opinions and experiences on that kind of topics.

(iii) Original offline research is appropriate for some typical blog posts or full-length articles. I love doing original offline research but it costs money—$50 per day plus travel expenses, and where I live, travel expenses usually involve paying a driver $50 per day too. Interviews with some types of people, such as artists, inventors, publicists, politicians, park rangers, public safety experts, and evangelical religious people, are easy to get at no charge. My whimsical “interviews with animals” are usually suggested by observing animals’ behavior and/or animal-related issues in the news, and cost nothing. Interviews with eyewitnesses, survivors, and scientists doing independent research or teaching, cost money; I recommend $50 per eyewitness or scientist, $100 per survivor. If you talked to survivors of combat, personal tragedy, or controversial surgical procedures you’d probably want to offer them more than $100, but there might be good budgetary reasons why they wouldn’t take more than that if you offered more than that—or there may not. Original offline research is recommended if you want to cite the latest scientific studies, which are often available to university libraries and paying members of professional associations only.

I offer original offline research in university libraries on legal, medical, scientific, and technological topics. I’m literate, if not fluent, in those dialects. Remarkably few people are willing to pay what it costs, but I do it, happily, when paid.

(iv) Long blog posts or traditional magazine articles contain 1500 to 5000 words and may contain even more links, pictures, and keyword phrases while keeping the same proportion of those things to words. In theory the basic fee is still about a penny per word for writing off the top of my head, plus about $50 per day for research, but it’s harder to write a worthwhile long post without some research. (Internet research only still costs $50 per day, but typically takes less time, and is one of the few services I offer for which it is feasible to prorate charges for fractions of a day. Generally, if I leave the house or the computer center and/or talk to people, that’s a day.)

In the SEO for a long post it’s possible to aggregate different unrelated keywords if the article presents information linking, say, “glyphosate,” “cancer,” “autism,” “gastrointestinal diseases,” and “obesity”—or perhaps “walking,” “cardiovascular health,” “weight control,” and “mood boost,” or “honeybees,” “flowers,” “beans,” “vegetables,” and “global food supply.”

(v) Long “reports” or “e-books” really are mini-books of at least 25,000 words. Blog sites aren’t set up to handle them. They’re formatted to look like and/or be printed as real books. They can contain long quotes (with permission), graphics, and tables. They can contain a lot of things, depending on who’s going to e-publish them. Traditional short books can be e-published with the option to print on demand, free of charge, on Amazon and other sites; often they serve as promotions for full-length books. Amazon loves audio-books and will accept live interviews (if people speak clearly) and live music to which you have the copyright. If you’re paying for professional website management, you can publish the same script as a book and a movie. Despite my well-known abhorrence of unnecessary “updates” I do like exploring new useful applications of technology, and some apps are so easy that people like you and I can use them to build high-tech e-books. Generally I don’t consider myself a skilled professional even with simple, printable graphic design; my simple, printable graphics work, but eye thinkers might think a specialist’s graphic designs are better.

E-books are lovely tie-ins with products or services. E-books about the Bible can be printed and offered to visitors in a church’s vestibule. E-books that trace the history of food products and give recipes make good gifts, can be developed into publishable books, and can be used to promote food products you sell. A popular way to write a long novel, these days, is to write a series of four or five related e-books, typically introducing the characters in the first novelette free of charge at a web site and offering their complete story as the printed book. This can also be done with fun facts about different products you sell, with e-books on topics like beads, pendants, headbands, bracelets, and combs, or coffee, cocoa, soup, ramen, and mug cakes, or whatever. What’s an AirBnB without an up-to-date book, or basket of mini-books, about your town and its attractions? If people visit your town to celebrate an annual harvest festival, music festival, or sports event, why not a book about the festival and what it celebrates? Even people who won’t buy your products might buy your books, if they’re fun to read, and I believe I’ve made mine fun to read.

Because e-books are usually designed for sale rather than being published free for the world to see on the Internet, SEO is usually irrelevant—and since clients often rewrite them, have them rewritten, or pull them down once the full-length book becomes available, they don’t stay online and are hard for people checking my writing credentials to find! That’s all right. Once you’ve paid for an e-book, it’s yours. I keep only the right to mention that I sold someone a book manuscript with a working title which is probably different from the title of the client’s published book.

E-books start at $300. Different publishers recommend different formats for e-book manuscripts. I offer three popular formats: Microsoft Word .docx, PDF, or Google Docs. Amazon specializes in converting your scripts to Kindle and will also convert your printed script to an Audible audio file free of charge.

Should you or I read your e-book aloud as an audio file? Some publishers like to work from their own studios and employ their own professional readers. If you’re not working with one of them, and if you have decent recording equipment and a reasonably clear voice, I tend to vote for reading your own scripts. Intonation conveys meaning and most books contain sentences that people other than the author are likely to read with the wrong intonation for the intended meaning. It’s worth the effort to read sections and practice until your audio documents sound “professional,” or at least easy to understand. It’s also worth asking a few e-friends in different countries to determine how accessible your version of English is to a global audience. For maximum reach you may prefer to work with the publishers’ BBC- or NBC-English-speaking readers.

A good e-book contains general information about a topic with only a little product-specific content. A topic like “cell phone etiquette” or “things people are doing with cell phones” suggests a book that at least mentions the special quirks and features of most or all of the cell phones that were on the market at the time of writing. You can include specific instructions for using your own cell phone app, and some publishers will include links to product sales pages in an e-book, but books gain credibility by being independent of the product they support.

3. For me, writing is a window not a mirror. I enjoy learning more about topics on which I’ve not considered myself expert enough to write a lot of blog posts. I paid for psychology courses, not entomology, at Berea College (although my faculty adviser did believe that much can be learned about neurology by studying insects). I started writing about caterpillars because nobody else wanted to do it that year, and kept on because it was a nice spacious friendly niche market—there are more people who want to know what they should do about a creature they find in the garden than there are people who want to be entomologists and answer their questions. I’ve seriously considered pursuing a degree in entomology for that reason. I’ve learned a lot about cars, solar collectors, coffee, “Study Abroad” programs, online courses, furniture, and whatnot from paid writing projects; I’m always interested in learning about the topics that interest you. And yes, even when I personally have reservations about a product or idea, I’m interested in knowing why other people may like it.

By “reservations” I mean everything from “Printed newspaper subscriptions are something I’d buy if I had more income, but I can’t afford any” through “These baby supplies may be very nice for babies; I’m glad I personally have never had a baby” to “I’m glad I don’t have to own any car and I wouldn’t have this particular model as a gift, so it’s interesting to observe how many people like it and why.” I write about cars I wouldn’t keep, about places where I couldn’t be paid to live, about politicians for whom I have no vote. That’s cool.

There are, however, some products and services I don’t want this web site to touch, even if I’ve written about some of them anonymously at writing sites, including though not necessarily limited to...

* Pornography

* Paid sex, dating, or phone chat services, even if they try very hard to be legitimate social sites for nice people who want friendship that could elad to marriage

* Any kind of drugs, including alcohol as a beverage

* Any birth control product. Even though this web site doesn’t discuss the details, having a policy that people who can’t figure out the details for themselves are either too young or too unimaginative to be thinking about sex, this web site has a policy that if people choose a healthy natural approach to sex they don’t need to buy the products. (Even though some people enjoy playing with the products, anyway...that’s the kind of personal quirk this web site does not discuss.)

* Any dietary supplement, exercise product, safety device, etc., that’s marketed as anything beyond what it is in objective fact. The position of this web site is that it’s best to start by choosing healthy ancestors and then make the choices that maintain your good health for the next ninety years after birth; we don’t need to spend a lot of money on health-supporting products and services. It can be hard to draw a hard-and-fast line about things like noting that the right kind of massage, at the right time, can promote healing from wounds, and a phytochemical in a certain food may build resistance to a certain disease, and shrieking that, e.g., kudzu roots are THE CURE to cardiovascular disease that THEY don’t want YOU to know about. (Powdered kudzu root does in fact contain a phytochemical that can help lower blood pressure. Don’t spray your kudzu—those roots are worth money. Digging up kudzu roots promotes sweaty, aerobic exercise, which can also help reverse cardiovascular disease.) Generally this web site is open to publicizing facts about foods, exercises, nutrients, massage, and protective or adaptive gadgets, but its tolerance for hype is low. I like to see the warnings and contraindications for what you do recommend and a realistically skeptical view of the hazards of what you don’t recommend. I don’t like any effort to tell the general public, across the board, that anything is “good for you” or “bad for you”: you don’t know the reader’s actual medical profile. Just the facts, please.

* Any encouragement to pay third parties just for handling money

* Any encouragement to operate on borrowed money or in debt

* Any encouragement to lend money at interest

* Any form of gambling, from lotteries to insurance. Buying lottery tickets can be a nice public-spirited way to make a donation to charity or fund a special government-promoted-but-not-tax-funded project, and there can be benefits in taking out insurance, but this web site is not going to market such things.

* Any chemical “pesticide” spray that’s misrepresented as a way to “control” anything.

* Any product that’s advertised with pictures of bare skin (or other body parts, including, for the sake of consistency, hair), especially in a disease condition

* Any product that’s associated with censorship, especially if that censorship has appealed to “junk science.” Junk science is produced by either or both of two deviations from the scientific method: (1) denying the limits of scientific knowledge and thus confusing theories with facts, or (2) beginning with an attachment to a particular outcome and setting up or reporting studies in a way that supports your bias. In recent years both of these errors have led people to scream about “the science” when they meant unscientific and counterfactual drivel, thus giving science a bad name.

* Any site that’s slanderous or hateful, with specific reference to (1) Christian-phobic content, (2) content that denigrates women, and (3) content that smears all Republicans as racists. I am not and have never been a member of the Republican Party, and sometimes they annoy me too, but be reasonable!

There probably is content Out There that will be added to this list if it’s shown to me.

Generally I’m sympathetic to ads for things like

* books

* newspapers

* magazines

* web sites

* electronics

* non-perishable food

* dishes and kitchenware

* clothing

* shoes, hats, “fashion accessories”

* furniture

* handcrafts

* original arts and crafts

* toys, especially if they don’t plug into walls and don’t make noise

* pet supplies

* household supplies

* farm supplies

* gardening supplies

* camping equipment

* sporting goods (other than weapons)

* stores where readers can buy perishable food, weapons, and other things that aren’t suitable for selling online

* social events that are open to the public

* sale days at stores

* one-time ads you used to place at Craigslist before that site got so messed up

* musical instruments

* music recordings

There are probably other categories I would have added if I’d thought of them. If in doubt, ask.

Chatabout

What is Chatabout? It's not really a blog site; it's a chat site that invites people to leave 20-word comments on different topics. Having to stick to the topics keeps the chat polite and sociable...I think the reason why people hang out on Chatabout is that we get paid per comment. I've spent a few online days, or parts of a few online days, there. Even earned a tiny Paypal payment.

It is possible to view a selection of the comments one specific person has left at Chatabout. Here are mine:

http://chatabout.com/profile/view/63718

Or search for a topic of discussion and see how many people have left comments on it. Foods, flowers, animals, entertainment, stores, restaurants, products, and similar polite topics have pages.

Chatabout users can post questions and collect answers, or browse through other people's questions and leave their answers, through this index page:

http://chatabout.com/answers/

Or chat about recent news stories, indexed here:

http://chatabout.com/news/

Many bonuses are offered to Chatabout users. A lot of them will involve filling your in-box with spam and may demand personal information that it's not advisable to share on the Internet. Some of them seem to be legitimate...for example, today there was a bonus offered for posting anything about Chatabout on a blog.

How to Be a Woman Priscilla King Envies

I've written about being envied by other women, so it's time to write something about women I envy. Well, not to the point of its becoming a Deadly Sin, but enough to make me think "She's so lucky, she's so blessed, I envy her."

And, local lurkers, yesterday afternoon I just set things up for you to be "her."

I went into Mountain Treasures, bought a large bag for $2, and filled it with a few books and some name-brand clothes I would wear in Washington. Then I bought another bag and filled it with jeans and jerseys to wear if I get to work on another remodelling project this summer, which I want very much to do. Then I bought two more bags and filled them with all that nylon and polyester fabric that no fashion-conscious female would actually wear in this century, but it's sturdy and should make lovely linings for knitted handbags. I have lots of leftover yarn and would like to knit some unique handbags. That's $8 altogether, and rather than wait and see whether I could jam those four big bags into a car, since it was four o'clock anyway, the storekeeper just hauled the bags up to the Cat Sanctuary in a truck.

Where does that leave our local independent charity store? Stuck with five racks of adult-size clothes, not to mention a whole room of child-size clothes, I can't wear. But I wish I could.

I'm a "Winter." I have no hang-ups about wearing makeup in a cold, dry climate where it stays on and feels nice, but I live in a warm, damp climate, so I try to avoid wearing makeup at all. If you wear only your own colors, you can do this and people won't ask whether you've been ill.

So, still on the rack when I left Mountain Treasures, there were beautiful pale pink and blue "Summer" blouses...that would make me look as if I hadn't washed my face lately, and I have.

There were fashionable "Autumn" sagebrush and willow-leaf green dresses...that would make me look jaundiced, and I'm not.

There were durable, practical brown jackets...you should be getting the picture now.

Also there was an utterly cool sweatshirt, not noticeably worn, with a message like "I Want My Senior Discount." This is for someone who may still occasionally be mistaken for a student due to things like slimness, black hair, energy, running down the street, playing with kids, etc., but is at least 55 years old. I want this shirt, but somebody else out there could enjoy it during the years before I'm old enough to wear it.

Also there were a lot of men's things, and things for women who are taller, shorter, fatter, or thinner than I am. Things that will look good on somebody else, not me. Somebody else is lucky. I envy her.

I didn't even look at the children's things, although I know people are always looking for bargains on little boys' jeans and I've seen several pairs in this store. The Nephews go to school in other states. Somebody else has children who live at home and go to a local school. Sometimes I envy her, too.

And books...I found a few treasures. One reader's trash is another's treasure. Somebody out there has yet to read Russell Targ's wild and crazy "memoir of a blind biker," Do You See What I See. Lots of people just automatically assume it can't be true, rather than read about the technology--and the legal fine print--that allow it to be true. ("Legally blind" includes a lot of people who can read and walk around with glasses. Targ's one of them. Now don't you want to read about how it's possible for him to ride a motorcycle?) I read that book. I sold it to one of the storekeepers. You have yet to read it, whoever you are. In a way I envy you, too.

Local readers, the Mountain Treasures store has been given clothes, books, hearing-aid batteries, fake turquoise bead jewelry, I even saw a HP DeskJet printer in there, to sell to raise money for local food bank, shelters, and disaster relief programs. These are local people's efforts to keep local people independent after small-scale disasters in their lives. They are the places where you or I would go if we lost everything to an earthquake or a forest fire. And the store has been receiving truckloads of summer clothes, which the Experience Corps workers who run the store are eager to put on the racks, but they can't start putting the summer things on the racks until you clear some more winter things out of the way.

And now you know we're not talking about the nasty spun-plastic things out of somebody's grandmother's closet. There are still some cotton-lined nylon jackets in the store, but I cleared out all the nylon dresses and polyester pants suits for you. We are talking about natural fibres, fashionable colors, designer labels. We are talking about things you'd see young, rich women wearing in affluent suburbs of Washington.

So please go out to the west end of Jackson Street, across from the Citgo store, go around to the back of the block to find the door to the first floor (the ground floor will become our new police station), and buy a whole bag full of garments that might be called bargains for $2 each, only, during the rest of this week, you can buy them for $2 per bag. I may recognize some of those bargains on you. And I will envy you.

Last Call for Winter Gear Bargains in Gate City

Calling all local lurkers! Do you have children who are likely to need winter gear in a larger size next year? Is your winter gear showing wear? If you had another trench coat to wear, would you send the one you wore yesterday to the cleaners right now? Would it just be fun to have a new sweater or a fashionably silly knitted scarf? By the way, could you use another pair of jeans, a coffee mug, or a baby blanket? What about batteries for a hearing aid, toys for the baby, or a preposterously fancy bead bracelet?

If so, this is the week to visit the Mountain Treasures store, above the new police headquarters and the Citgo station on the west end of Jackson Street. That would be #372 West Jackson Street, according to this web page:

http://www.ddcinc.org/MTStore.htm

Scroll down until you see a map, and you can find the store on a map on this page:

http://explorescottcountyva.com/summary.php?category=gatecity

If you scroll down far enough you'll find a listing here, too...

http://www.trailsrus.com/swvirginia/scott.html

...but the store doesn't actually have a telephone. Employees give their cell phone numbers to sincere, serious shoppers.

About a year ago this web site discussed this store here:

http://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2012/03/where-can-you-buy-book-you-can-buy-from.html

This is the week when you can still pick and choose, when you're likely to find half a dozen options in whatever category you're looking for, and buy one and get one free. Clothing (men's, women's, children's, some extra-large sizes), linens, shoes, books, household items, lots of dishes and pots and pans, baby things, and the preposterously junky jewelry is on display at the checkout desk.

Next week, anything that's left from this week goes into the bag sale. Big bags...but the designer-label clothes that look like they've never been worn will have disappeared.

I was in the store yesterday and saw only one of the books I took in last spring still on the shelves. That means the shelves are packed with a whole new assortment of books. Not the usual assortment of moldy three-year-old bestsellers and waterlogged romance paperbacks, although there's a bin of romance paperbacks too. There are some substantial books that would interest adults, some old schoolbooks, and a wide assortment of books for children and teenagers. You might find a bargain on a book with collection value--check titles on Amazon.

Then there's the rack of coffee mugs...matched and unmatched, plain and fancy, sentimental and goofy. And caps, bags, lamps, dish racks...

But mostly what needs to be cleared out of the way so the store can display warm-weather clothes are the winter clothes.

Regular readers may remember my Yahoo articles about thrift store prowling in the big city--making a day of it in Bethesda or Arlington, or a real shop-till-you-drop sport of it from Route 450 on the D.C. border to Route 1 through Laurel. Bargains, bargains, bargains, and all in a good cause. How can a little store in a little town compare...? Well, the answer is, not as poorly as you'd think. Gate City is not Bethesda, but some of us do donate decent stuff to our local charity stores, of which Mountain Treasures is one. Since I found out where the store is (it doesn't face Jackson Street, you have to walk uphill to the back door) I've been back every three to six weeks, and I have found things in there that I would have bought if I'd found them in Bethesda--same prices, same quality.

Will you find things in there that you'd pick if they were in a huge store? Very likely--if you get in while the buy one, get one free sale is on.

Will you find things to inspire your creativity? Absolutely. If you sew or quilt, secondhand clothes just beg to be made into something new and unique.

Will anybody be disappointed? Adayahi used to warn me about having a display that was "just for the ladies." His theory is that women are more likely to buy things in stores that provide something for the men to look at too. I see quite a few men's clothes in Mountain Treasures, and some books, but I don't see the display of hardware and electronics he used to insist that I maintain. However, I did see, yesterday, six or eight unopened cards of batteries for hearing aids. I've not often seen that in thrift stores and want to encourage everyone to go out and look for them while they last.

Will anybody get more than they had any reasonable right to expect? Anything can happen when you confide your needs to an older woman in a small town. When people in stores talk about what they want to buy and sell, instead of merely gossipping, all sorts of profitable connections can be made. One day when I took in some cookbooks someone was desperately in need of a piece of furniture I'd been trying to sell for years.

Can you afford what you want? Probably. Most garments cost one or two dollars. Most books are fifty cents or less. Housewares, make an offer. If you are really in dire straits, this is a charity store, they care about poor people, they won't let anybody go without adequate warm clothes. If they think you look cold you may have to discourage them from thrusting warm clothes upon you.

Will you be embarrassed about shopping there? Hah. As I observed about another charity store, another year...just avoid fighting over the same bargain with the boss. Everybody in Gate City loves a bargain and I've seen the old families and the civic organizations well represented in this store.

Just hurry out before what you want is snapped up. Yesterday the women's winter boots went fast. It may be already too late to buy a pair of dress boots this winter. Flannel pajamas? Warm neck-snuggling scarves? One, two, three, go!