Rick # 3

This post is the third volume in my stories about Rick, my co-worker at Goodwill. You can enjoy volume one and volume two on my old blog.

Earlier this afternoon, I was cleaning out my desk and stumbled upon an old binder of mine labeled "flows." It was a collection of all of the debate flows I had from my freshman year of college, saved and organized neatly with a typed index. I re-read them each a hundred times that summer, trying so hard to get better. Stuffed in the back flap was a slip of paper that brought back memories. It was a list of potential slogans for Goodwill.

See, working at Goodwill was incredibly boring...the same old routine would have driven me insane with monotony had I not found some way to distract myself with humor and/or some other form of mental stimulation. The debate flows, and the dozen books I read that summer, took care of the mental exertion portion of my sanity, while the slip of paper, along with Rick, took care of the humor.

It started when the manager announced at the weekly staff meeting that the umbrella Portland branch was holding a competition to see who could come up with the best slogan for their store, with a $50 gift-certificate prize...to any Oregon Goodwill. Like Tim Robbins in "The Shawshank Redemption," Rick and I just needed something to keep us busy, so we took it upon ourselves to submit the most clever slogans we could come up with. Our ideas were on the slip of paper in the "flows" binder, my favorites including:

--Goodwill: Oregon's answer to Jimmy Carter!

--Goodwill: If you're not with us, you're against us!

--A good day begins at Goodwill. A bad day begins anyplace else.

--Goodwill: A garage sale...with a PULSE!

Sadly, we were snubbed by the elitist fucks at the Portland branch who rejected all of our suggestions, but we still had a really fun time putting them together!