dignity, on sale now for the low, low price of $29.99

University was my thing. For some, glory came in neat annual packages entitled Freshman, Sophomore, Junior and Senior. (As in: high school. At the prestigious U of R, we simply called ourselves First Years, Second Years, Third Years, Fourth Years, and – in some prolonged cases, such as my own – Fifth Years.) For me, university was my chance to break away from the label-conscious high school era and into a time when sweats were the haute couture and nerds were integral fixtures of the social scene (finally, I had a life).

I met a far wider variety of fine folk than I’d ever encountered. Pink-haired people. Tattooed people. People with more piercings on their face than I have hair follicles on my head. Marxists-Leninists (it was the U of R, after all). Feminists. Lesbians. Lacto-ovo-vegetarians. And often, all these traits could be found in just the one person sitting beside you in Stats 151.

I also met poor people. Like C., a girl from Moose Jaw I became fast friends with in Political Science 101. Sure, I suppose there was poverty around me in my high school days (it was an inner city school, after all), but I never really paid attention to it until I met people my own age who struggled to live the life I took for granted. Unlike me, who was propagated with the wisdom of Cicero and CB Macpherson for free, C. had save and scrimp and scrape and suffer in a way that was foreign to me, in a way that I didn’t understand, still don’t, and hopefully never will.

One day we went shopping together at Value Village, the one great retail equalizer where everyone is of comparable taste and means. I loved the Village, and still do, for I have found some amazing articles of apparel there. Like the pumpkin orange, three-quarter length suede jacket I wore that day as I shopped with C., purchased at a Salvation Army in Calgary for only five bucks.

“Look here!” C. called, browsing the men’s outerwear section. “It’s a jacket just like yours!”

“It is!” my eyes lit up as I grabbed the leather from her hands, in lust immediately. Only subtle details differed: more mahogany than tenné, with thick cream accent stitching to give it an ultimate wow! factor. I coveted it, and I knew C. did to.

“I would love to get this coat,” sighed C., taking the jacket from my clutches only to resignedly put it back from where it came. “But I just don’t have the money.” And I knew she didn’t; I wouldn’t have been surprised if she couldn’t have afforded $5.99 that day, let alone $29.99, which is what the price tag read.

“Me too,” I ignorantly chimed. “I love my jacket so much; it would be so great to have two. I don’t have any money on me now either, but maybe I can see if my dad will lend me some.” And he did. And I went back that night, and got the coat. The look in her eyes that said “you bitch!” (and rightly so) didn’t even faze me.

I recall this episode now, and I wonder how I could be so nescient and neglectful. Chalk it up to being nineteen, I suppose, and a young girl who wants, wants, wants. Just like Akakiy Akakievitch, my overcoat was my undoing. It’s funny how a Value Village could be the scene of so much avarice.

In case you’re wondering, I still have the coat, and wear it every Fall. It’s perfectly suited for over a pair of blue jeans or a dress, in those October instances when I’m still clinging to summer.