My love affair with Marden's has undergone several phases. As a kid in the '80s, it was the place I never wanted to be seen with my parents but secretly loved because I could find cool stuff there and actually convince my parents to let me get it. By the time I hit high school, I became resolved that all my friends shopped there anyway, so I might as well suck it up and admit I loved it. (This admission was aided by my brother's employee discount during his high school-long tenure in the Marden's hardware department. It didn't hurt that the discount encouraged my folks to spring for an ever-so-slightly scratched hot tub.) I furnished my UMaine dorm room with a cheap futon from Marden's and bought my first set of real, non-plastic dishes for my first real, post-college apartment. Today, it's a combination of campy fun and necessity--seriously, who could turn down a pair of shoes for $4? Not this lady.
Marden's, for those uninitiated non-Mainers, is a large warehouse of surplus and salvage items at heavily discounted prices. You can buy beds, sofas, craft supplies, department store cast-offs, slightly irregular designer jeans, kitchenware, hardwood floors, closeout books, nonperishable food items, and, well...a bunch of other stuff. And, most recently, wedding gowns. Yup. If only I were getting married so I could say, "I got my wedding gown at Marden's for fifty bucks." (Don't feel too bad; I bought a strapless ball gown instead. Why? Because it was $25!)
But also, there's the fugly. Oh, the fugly. The faux-fur vests, spangled tube tops, and nicked ceramic figurines that populate Marden's sticky shelves, their orange price tags layered over with each price cut and deeper discount in a prolonged effort to UNLOAD all that crap. Sure, some people actually buy it--my dear, departed great-grandma's collection of porcelain jewelry boxes, gold-painted Virgin Mary plant pots, and oversized muumuus was unparalleled. Every Marden's trip (I average about one a week), there's something that makes me wonder aloud, who even manufactures this shit, let alone buys it? Recently, I decided to start documenting the adventure. Hope you join me!
Sarah
...to horrify the Queen.
...if it were a disco-themed wedding.
...before I drag Prince Harry into the palace coat closet to make out. (Bet he'd enjoy an older woman.)
British press: "Who are you wearing today?" Duchess Sarah Tildsley Penberton of Bangorburgh: "Marden's."
Meredith wants me to post this as a tribute to a certain elementary school teacher of ours who probably would have worn it to class with sequined stirrup leggings. (We kid because we love.) But even she wouldn't have skinned a zebra, a tiger, and a leopard and sewn their hides together into this heinous "shirt."
These are sort of like what happens in Maine when we're right in between winter and spring. But we can't decide what to call them. Help!
As if Auguste Rodin's Thinker sculpture hanging from a Marden's shelf wasn't enough of a wtf moment, the middle Thinker appears to really want to show us his crack. Thank Christ their junk is kinda blurry.
