I hate my thrift!

[Originally posted to rec.games.video.classic. "Thrift" is slang for a thrift store--a store usually run by a charity that sells used items donated to them.]

I hate one of my local thrifts. They have insane prices, but I have to keep going back because they tend to get in more of what I'm looking for. (Unfortunately, it's so dry here that even they don't get in much in the way of video games.) Here's an exchange I had with the cashier today:

I put on the counter a C-64 magazine and paperback. The price sign by the register says $0.25 & $0.50 for paperbacks, but nothing about magazines.
"$1.25."
"A dollar? For a magazine?!?" I ask. I had been expecting 15 to 25 cents.
"For a computer magazine," she says as if this makes perfect sense.
"But it's over ten years old!" (It was from 1986.)
"It's an antique then, isn't it?" she says incredulously.
"Then you can keep it," I say in a bit of a huff.
"Be happy to," she responds icily. I paid my quarter for the book and left.

The cashiers at this store get to set the prices. Nothing is marked, although there is aforementioned sign giving prices of the more common items. They apparently have some unwritten code for pricing some items. (Like all video game cartridges, from 2600 to Genesis, are $3.) This is the same lady that priced an in-the-box pong-style system at $10 for me last week. I passed on that, too, and it was still there today.

Maybe I'm showing up on different days, but it seems to me they get a cashier who works for a few weeks and then disappears. (And for some reason they're all older women.) This lady has been there before. At least the previous cashier was pleasant, even if she was equally insane on pricing. The store is run by a local rescue mission, and I'm sure they'd make more money if they sold some of their items for less.

ObCVG: Picked up a NES Game Genie for $0.50 at a yard sale this weekend. Haven't tested it yet.

["ObCVG" stands for "obligatory classic video games" content. The newsgroup was supposed to be for discussing classic video games, which was not the main topic of my post. So I added a teeny bit about them to make it on topic.

I was much later told at another thrift store that some other thrifts in town priced items based on how the purchaser was dressed. I typically did my shopping on my lunch hour, so this is probably what bit me because I was wearing "business casual" dress--essentially slacks and a collared shirt. Fancy clothes for someone buying stuff at a thrift store. — 5 June 2009]