By Sarah Truckey
I’ve always been one for bargains. Half-price pints at happy hours, three-for-one canned tuna sales at Schnucks or that purple pair of Chuck Taylors I’ve wanted since I was 10 and finally found at Rag-O-Rama—I’m all for any deal I can get my hands on. I’d previously hailed all these places as meccas of discount; that is, until I took Route 3 through southern Illinois on a Sunday at dusk. As I whizzed past small houses, each with trash at the end of the driveways, ready for Monday morning’s pickup, a cluster of color caught my eye. At 65 miles per hour it was difficult to tell, but I was pretty sure I had seen the Virgin Mary and some Magi carelessly tossed in with a week’s worth of garbage. I asked myself that question all bargain shoppers ponder (“Should I stop? Is it worth it?”) and made a U-turn. Just as I’d thought, there lay the entire Nativity, complete with light bulbs and electrical cords protruding from their behinds. “Only in Illinois,” I muttered as I loaded the plastic bodies into my back seat, satisfied with my invaluable find.
