Day Trippin: to the Elkton, MD Goodwill Supercenter

What’s better than an old-fashioned trip to Goodwill? An old-fashioned trip to a Goodwill Supercenter!
This past week has been a mashup of crazy and ridiculous. I rarely entered the outside in daylight and became a phantom of the night—a wandering vampire (but the good kind of vampire, if there is such a thing). So being the Day Trippin’ columnist, and the fact that part of the column’s name is “day,” I made myself less crazy, put on a pretty dress and headed out the door with my two comrades, Krista and Leilah. We set sail to Elkton, MD where the Goodwill Supercenter awaited us.

Located on Route 273, the Goodwill Supercenter appears very small on the outside, so you can imagine our confusion when we pulled into the parking lot and saw the front entrance. But in light of the afternoon and the thrill of adventure, I parked and headed to the store. An overflow of sale items awaited us outside: shoes upon shoes were stocked on tables, and 50 percent off dresses lined the walls. We picked some out immediately to try on.

Then we headed inside. To our amazement, the store was huge. Overwhelmed by the size of such a place, we grabbed a cart and threw our dresses in. We just stood there with the cart for some time, not knowing where to begin. “I’m so overwhelmed by it all,” Krista said. “Where do we start?!” I exclaimed.

We headed toward the clothing and shoe racks, where I found a few nice fall shirts to try on. Then Krista brought over a beautifully awful pair of platform boots—vomit green with bright red shoe laces. Laughing at the absurdity of them, we came up with the idea of each finding an ugly outfit each, trying them on and taking a picture for the article and, of course, posterity. I grabbed the platform boots immediately and found a lovely tunic and a strange belly-dancing shirt to put over that. I ended up looking like a strange anime character. Leilah found a magical harvest shirt to put over an incredibly bright sequined pink skirt with snow boots. And Krista looked like someone from the 80s with a strange denim skirt that tied in the back.

After finding a of couple bags, I spotted a brown shirt that looked nice from afar. So I picked it up and asked, “What do you think about this?” Leilah eyed it and replied, “I think it’s a...” and pointed to the tag which read maternity. Needless to say, I put that back immediately, laughing at my obliviousness.

With our shopping cart as full as our cluttered minds, we finally headed to the dressing rooms to try on what we had gathered. We put on the ridiculous ones last, laughing as we did so. It was hard to take a picture of ourselves, so I, being the columnist, threw embarrassment to the wind and asked a woman walking by if she would be so kind as to take a picture of us. She laughed and when I explained why we were dressed so absurdly, and she was more than happy to take our picture. We chatted for a bit, and then she handed the camera back to us, smiling and telling us to have a good day.

I wound up buying a couple of shirts, a bag and a book (because you can never have enough books)—spending much less money than I would have at a regular store. I absolutely love Goodwill and their great prices. This was such a great place with so many more things to see than any other Goodwill I have been to. Of course, the prices were a bit more expensive, but definitely worth the trip.

Go to the Goodwill Supercenter; have an adventure, laugh at some absurd things there like a Star Wars weapon book or a Zelda: Warrior Princess-looking dress. Make some memories at places like this because small things matter too.