Tim & Chuck

CH. 12:: Thefts & Fleas

Carly's "Mr. Hyde" personality.

Following the disaster day that shall remain undiscussed for the sake of Tim's sanity, Tim had slowly begun to adopt an open door policy of sorts for his home somewhere along the way. He would generally leave the door unlocked while he was home until it was nightfall, and most of his neighbors enjoyed this and took full advantage of it; and no one enjoyed it more than Carly.

It had become a common occurrence for her to go over to Tim's house to do her business admin work; she claimed that "the change of environment helped her think" and "Tim always had the best kind of snacks stashed away in his pantry." Of course while this was true, all of the neighbors knew that it was all an excuse as far as Carly was concerned, but Tim remained blissfully unaware as usual.

One Saturday morning, Carly sat on Tim's bed chewing gum and scrolling through her website on her laptop, as various items proverbially flew out of his closet.

Tim was "spring cleaning", even though it was the first week of August. Not that he had that much clutter. Who was he kidding, he definitely had way too many things that fell into the black hole of his closet.

He wouldn't personally say that he had a hoarding problem...but he definitely had a hoarding problem. "Spring cleaning" was a good excuse to finally get rid of all of his old clothing that no longer fit, the Easter baskets from two years ago, and the random golf clubs that were stuck in a corner after that one golf tournament his dad dragged him to a month prior. Although perhaps he should hold onto the golf clubs...just in case?

"Your closet is sad. We should go thrift shopping."

Tim almost forgot that Carly was in his room, and it startled him so much that he banged his head on his walk-in closet shelf.

"What?" Tim's head emerged from the chaos to look at a grinning Carly.

Carly blushed a little and tucked a hair stranded behind her ear. "I said, you need some clothing variety and we should go shopping."

Tim narrowed his eyes. "I believe you used the term 'sad' the first time."

Carly's mouth opened and closed as if she was rethinking the impending words. "Well...well sad meaning very...limited! I mean not sad as in you don't have clothes, you do, just not...good ones? I mean, no no, they're great, and you look great, you just need variety!" Carly stumbled over her words while simultaneously telling herself mentally to shut up.

Tim blinked. "Ok...? But I don't want to go to the mall and spend hundreds of dollars on just two pathetic pieces of cloth they call 't-shirts '."

Carly laughed. "Oh no absolutely not. We can go thrift shopping."

"Theft shopping literally makes no sense. And that doesn't sound like something I want to do." Tim replied blankly.

Carly stared at him, then proceeded to die of laughter on his bed. "Not THEFT shopping, THRIFT shopping! You know, when people go to a store and buy good but reused stuff? The deals you can find are amazing and you never know what to expect!"

Tim continued to blink at her, clearly not understanding what she had just described even though he had definitely been on a handful of occasions.

Carly began to squirm under his blank stare. "You DO know what thrift shopping is...right?"

Tim face-palmed. He probably had looked and sounded like an idiot. Suddenly he felt like he understood the mind of Frederick just a little bit more. "Yes, ah yes I do, sorry; I'm not sure why I confused myself. I mean, if you really want to we can. I've never really done that before."