‘Oh it’s a mess!” my mum says, shaking her head. “It’s like a jumble sale.” I’m fresh from a trip to TK Maxx, and all I’m getting is negativity. A couple of days later I’m watching Educating Yorkshire when it happens again: one of the teachers tells his pupils to tidy up, lest their classroom look like one of its stores.
Quite frankly, I’m sick of the slander. Sure, I’ve been in some branches that do look like a tornado has just blown through them. But, these days, they’re few and far between. My local TK Maxx, in a nice enough London suburb, is tidy and organised – so much so that when I hid a pair of Good American jeans the other day to “have a think” and then circled back for them, they had already been moved.
As someone with hoarder genetics, I do have to be careful about stocking up on things I don’t need. It happens sometimes at TK Maxx. I went in that day for a pepper mill and emerged with the aforementioned jeans; a pack of drawing pins with smiley faces on; a heart-shaped bag charm; an iPhone charger; and a stack of plates designed to look like vintage camembert boxes for all the cheese-themed dinner parties that I’m not having. In any case, it all came to half the price of my previous pair of jeans, bought from another high street store. And at least I put down the dressing gown, slippers, tray and notebook that I wasn’t totally sold on.
At a time when everything costs more and more, its eclectic mix of end-of-the-line goods offers quality, but also a little joy. Whenever I shop there I think of the late Dawn Foster, the great housing writer and my flatmate for two years. She would often come back from its Brixton outpost laden with Mac lipsticks, Ren skincare products and brightly coloured knitwear, as well as picking up knick-knacks for me “just because”. It’s sometimes said that “little treat culture” is out of control. But when the treats are an affordable pick-me-up for generation rent and beyond, I say: let them eat 750g of pistachio cream panettone cake for £8.99.