the great clothes swap

名称：the great clothes swap
内容简介：
Dear Arizona,
　　I’m sick of all my clothes, and we can’t afford new stuff. Any ideas?
　 —Frustrated with Fashion in Florida

Dear Frustrated,
　　I got invited to a party, which was a great surprise—until I read the last line of the invitation, which was a not-so-great surprise.

“This looks like fun!” my mom said, reading over my shoulder.

“I don’t really want to go,” I mumbled.

“Why not?” Mom asked.

“What could be bad about this?”

“The ‘wear something decorative’ part,” I told her. “All I have is a bunch of old stuff. I don’t want to show up at that party looking the way I always look, and I know you won’t let me buy a new outfit.”

“Oh, come on, sweetie,” she said. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! You’re right about the buying part. We’re not going to run out and spend a lot of money on something new. But to miss out on all the fun because of a silly thing like clothes—well, that doesn’t sound like the Arizona I know!”

I moped around the house for a while, did a few of my 20 million chores, then snuggled up with my cozy cat, Cow. After that, I was pretty much out of ways to distract myself.

Luckily, that’s when my friend Ollie dropped by.

“Hey,” he said, tossing me his basketball, “do you want to shoot some hoops?”

We decided to play Horse, which is this game where you take turns trying to make baskets from different spots around the hoop. While we were playing, I told Ollie about my wardrobe dilemma. As soon as I’d mentioned it, I felt embarrassed. Why would he care about my trouble finding something to wear? But it turned out that he had the perfect solution!

“Remember our Sports Swap?” Ollie said. “Maybe you could do something like that, with clothes.”

The Sports Swap is an event we have with a bunch of neighbors once a year. People bring every type of sports gear imaginable: bicycles they’ve outgrown, snowboards that are the wrong size, snorkeling stuff that’s never been used. And everyone just ends up trading things. So, you go to the Sports Swap with equipment you don’t use, and you leave with all this cool new stuff—without having to spend a penny!

That night after dinner, I called Natalie. “Here’s my problem,” I told her. “I really want to come to your party, but I don’t have any cool clothes to wear.”

“Oh, that so doesn’t matter,” said Natalie. “When I put ‘wear something decorative’ on the invitation, I just meant to wear some fun little thing, like a hat, or bows on your shoes. You’re the third person who’s called acting all worried about this. But the whole point of the party is to have fun decorating the gingerbread houses!”

“Well, my friend Ollie reminded me of this Sports Swap thing my neighborhood does,” I told her. “What if the guests—whoever wants to—bring old scarves and hats and shoes and whatever they don’t use anymore, and we put them in a big ‘decorate yourself ’ pile at the party?”

“That’s such a great idea!” Natalie said. “I’m going to call everyone right now. I’ll tell them that if they have old stuff their parents will let them give away, they should bring it to the party!”

And that’s exactly what happened. We all brought old clothes, then went “shopping” in the giveaway pile. We ended up with the funniest outfits that made us crack up the whole time we were decorating our gingerbread houses. The idea worked so well that we’ve decided to have a full-on clothes trade once or twice a year.

So, dear Frustrated, instead of spending money at the mall, ask your parents if you can have a few friends over for a clothes swap of your own. You’d be surprised at what seriously good things you can end up with. Plus, it goes along with the whole reuse-recycle idea—which is good for the entire planet!