A record of (Fully Unofficial) Macklemore Thrift Shop Challenge

Psst- We are bouncing around the West Coast this weekend with a talk and signing in Portland on Saturday at Rejuvenation at noon (for more info call 503-238-1900). Then on Sunday we will be in Palo Alto at 11am at the West Elm on 180 University Avenue (RSVP here). Parking is not enforced on Sundays so you can park anywhere, or you can purchase a visitors pass at Palo Alto Civic Center and park in any of their plenty all day.

There are two irrefutable facts about me. 1) I tend to fall in love with rappers and 2) I am a fool for a good thrift shop. So when those two passions collided in the form of this Macklemore & Ryan Lewis song called Thrift Shop, the Internet at large was swift to clue me into its awesomeness, which began around the fall of last year and continues well into 2013. So to anyone who commented/tweeted me the link, thank you for giving me my official jam of 2012 and 2013. The clip below is the clean radio edit of the song (if you are on a smart phone click here to watch it) but here is a link to the official non-clean video (warning: it is a bit, um, saltier).

And now that the song is starting to get some radio play (seriously, they’ve began playing it here in Richmond!) it gave us an idea. As J-Boom and I pulled into a thrift store while it played, I was like “Ooh look at this, it is so meta, a song about thrifting is playing while we are going thrifting.” And then John turned to me and said “We should do a Macklemore Thrift Shop Challenge.” And boom. Simply like that I fell more in love with my husband.

Here is the deal. This “Challenge” is in short an excuse to all (virtually) go thrift shopping together and share our spoils, plus there is a scavenger-hunt-ish element tossed in for good measure. So it is meant to be a pleasant low pressure Friday lively-fest. And simply like our little Pinterest Challenges, if you’d like to partake and journal about it, we will do a little linky thing next Friday so everyone can share their go-to finds. There are simply THREE things you gotta do to play along (well, four if you count blogging about it later, although of course you can play along even if you do not have a journal).

Step #1. Go to a thrift shop with – simply as the chorus of the song says – “$20 in your pocket” and take a picture.

Step #2. Spend that $20 any way you’d like and photograph your spoils. They can be home related, fashion oriented, kid focused, anything. And you do not necessarily need to make them over or repurpose them at all (although that is totally allowed too!). It is simply an adventure in seeing what people all across the country (the world?) can score with a twenty at a thrift shop. And if you do not find sufficient items to spend the whole twenty, there is no pressure to buy weird things to meet that number, so it is more of a cap than a you-must-hit-this-exact-number thing. This is not The Price Is Right.

Oh yeah, and we will reveal our spoils with everyone else next week…

Step #3. Find one item (or more) referenced in the song and snap a pic. Here is the scaveger-hunt-ish element that we tossed in because we are weirdos. And you get bonus points for doing something ridiculous with the item in the photo. After all, Macklemore has some fairly strong confidence when he’s rocking those footy pajamas.

If you are like John and have a terrible time deciphering rap lyrics, we have listed some of the items you could hunt for here: clothing with fringe, an all pink outfit, moccasins, a velour jumpsuit, house slippers, a brown leather jacket, a keyboard, a kneeboard, shoes with velcro, luggage, a plaid button up shirt, flannel zebra jammies, PJs with built-in socks, a telescope, and of course… a big a$$ coat.

Feel free to interpret the scavenger hunt items as literally or as loosely as you’d like. The point is simply to have some good clean thrift shop lively. Glad hunting! We will be back next Friday with a rundown of what we found, and we cannot wait to see what you folks score as well.

Viva la thrift shop!