I'm hit hard with this question not long after arriving at the Salvation Army Thrift store early on Saturday morning. I never knew there was a distinction. But I've agreed to be here because I need to complete 24 hours of community service in exchange for the dismissal of my marijuana charge, and there's nothing voluntary about that.

Are you volunteering or doing community service?

Kate needs to know. She's been coming here everyday for the past week, scrambling to get in 50 hrs required for her pre-trial intervention. She shoplifted some make-up from the Walmart. That's how she says it too, The Walmart. Kate is eighteen, and taking pharmacy tech courses at the community college. Tall, blonde, pale, and a little overweight, she is pretty enough to catch guys' attention at a nightclub, but not pretty enough for them to be nice to. Some guys anyway, not this one.

I reluctantly admit to being here on account of the marijuana possession, although I'd hoped to be mistaken for a regular do-gooder. Kate is intrigued. She wants to know if I have good pot connections, and did I bring any? She brought her bowl, and we can go smoke in her car at break. I dissapoint her with my lack of enthusiasm.

Eventually we get to work, dragging rack after rack of used clothes from the warehouse into the store. There are four or five elderly African-American women who eagerly await the arrival of each rack, tearing through the clothes before we can put them on display. Apparently they celebrate this ritual every Saturday, they've made a hobby of it. The ladies are funny, and help pass the time before lunch break. Kate finds them annoying. I think she may be a racist.

After lunch we stay in the warehouse. Delmar unpacks and sorts the clothes, Kate and I hang and rack them. Delmar is an African-American man in his 40's or 50's. A volunteer. He smiles a lot and seems friendly, although I can't understand most of the things he tells me. It blows my mind, him volunteering eight hours of manual labor every Saturday, completely hidden from view. If God is running around in human form, it's Delmar in that sweltering warehouse, not Alanis Morrisette.

Another woman, Jane, is a paid thrift store employee, seemingly in charge of evaluating the diligence of our hanging and racking. Jane is white, middle aged, and sports a homemade looking tattoo of a crucifix on her forearm. Kate hates her, and I do too. She shows up for a few minutes every hour, makes an unfunny joke, and rearranges something I've arranged. I start sweating extra each time I hear her footsteps.

The warehouse is hot, really fucking hot. Muskrat's ass in a briar patch hot. South Carolina summer hot, and dusty too. According to Kate it smells like mothballs. I don't know what mothballs smell like; she says think about how your grandparents house smells. The warehouse does not smell like a combination of Marlboro Lights and Febreeze.

Kate has me for a goody-two shoes, I think because I rebuffed her early offer to get high in the car. She is quick to inform me of all the things I won't get in trouble for doing. It's ok to take a break to smoke cigarettes; it's ok to talk on your cell phone. When I get tired of sitting  and start to work standing up, she asks if I think I'm gonna get in trouble for sitting down.

As we hang clothes, I begin to dislike her a little less and feel a little sorry for her instead. Kate reveals the pathetic details of her life with reckless abandon, and it's the only entertainment to be had. She hates her family and tiny hometown, but hasn't made very many friends in the city. All the college kids in her apartment complex are stuck-up. She met a guy last week doing community service and invited him over to smoke pot, but after they hooked up he stole her Ipod. She hates her older sister, a redneck with a baby.

Kate also sports a tattoo, a heartagram on her waist that she got in high school after admiring Bam Margera's. She shows it to me without asking. A heartagram is like a pentagram except the top two angles are curved, making a heart instead of a triangle.

About the clothes, I feel I must say something. Enough with the clothes America. We have plenty. Boxes and boxes of donated clothes arrive at the Thrift Store, and we must meet people at the loading dock and give them a receipt for donation. Dresses, blouses, t-shirts, designer jeans (Apple Bottoms!), jumpsuits, sweaters, graduation gowns, even traintracked tighty-whiteys and skimpy lingerie are donated. Most of it never even makes it into the store. The stuff that does make it in has one week to sell before it's yanked. All clothes unsold or unworthy get compacted in a baler by Delmar, tied up and sent to "the third world." 

Most of the clothes are women's. After a few hours of hanging, I feel quite grateful for not being born a woman. I wouldn't know how to dress myself! Sorting through the various straps and buckles, turning frilly things inside out and outside in, I realize that I don't know a skirt from a shirt, or a dress from a set of knee-high socks. Thank goodness for pants and polos.

With a half-hour to go before quitting time, Kate declares she won't be hanging one more motherfucking thing. I keep going, telling her time will go faster working than waiting. She remains unconvinced.