1/2 off of 1/2

My mother is the queen of low price shopping. She has it down to a fine science. I'd like to say that the things she buys are "shabby chic", but the fact of the matter is its downright crap. My mother will buy truck loads of crap just because it was cheap and me, my sisters, and our children usually end up the recipients of this crap. Don't get me wrong. Freddy loves a good bargain just as much as the next person. But when the items purchased aren't useable, it ends up not being such a good bargain.

Her favorite place to shop is a place in OKC called N.B.C. Not to be confused with the television network, N.B.C. stands for Name Brand Clothing. It boasts prices at "1/2 off of 1/2". I don't understand why they don’t just say 75 % off, but that's a whole other story. All of the clothes here have some sort of defect. It can be something minor, like a pull in the fabric; it could be something a little more trouble than it's worth, like a missing zipper; it could be something major. These clothes are the clothes that have been rejected by the original stores, say Dillard's; then rejected by the dollar stores, say Ross; then rejected by Goodwill. My mother claims to have found many bargains there, but either she's kept these jewels to herself or she’s flat-out lying through her teeth.

The worst part, other than receiving crappy clothes, is that she ALWAYS leaves the tags on these clothes to show us how much she saved on us. This is both humiliating and insulting. My sisters and I have developed a secret look that we shoot each other as were opening up boxes and boxes of crap. Here are some REAL examples of things that I have received from NBC. And if you think I'm making this shit up, I've attached a photo at the very end for you to see one of my prized possessions to see if you can catch the flaw.

• One year for Christmas my oldest sister received a beautiful sweater. It had 2 two inch squares cut out of the back of the sweater where the posts from a store mannequin were inserted. My mother insisted it was still cute and perhaps Dana could wear a jacket over the sweater to cover up the holes.
• I once wanted a pair of Doc Martens and my mom found a pair at NBC for $5. The left shoe was missing the tongue.
• BOTH of my sisters have received swimming suits from my mother with snail trail.
• Despite having told my family MANY times that I am not a XXXL, I still manage to receive articles of clothing that could house a small family. I still have a package of underpants, sized 46. I'll never be able to wear them. My mother insists she thought the package said 36 (still insulting), but I'm sure the fact that they were only a quarter was the real reason she bought them.
• My youngest son just received a powder blue quilted jacket with a gorgeous belt. Clearly my mother has trouble distinguishing the fact that just because it's blue it doesn't mean it's a boys jacket. My mother has me dressing my 2 year old son as a girl, no wonder the Republicans hate me.
• For my birthday I got a food processor. It was missing the discs and cutting blades.
• A few years ago I asked for a juicer. The juicer I got had been previously used, however not cleaned. It was full of mold.
• The last gem we received was at Christmas. My mom got this outfit for Adrian. It still had the NBC tag on it. Jed and I were so confused when we got it. It looked cute. Nothing jumped out at us as being wrong with it. It wasn't until we were putting it on Adrian that we figured it out. Can you figure out why this was half of half?