I get that thrift stores are chaotic. Sometimes that's why we love them. There's always going to be misplaced merchandise, overwhelming donations, messy displays, and tangled messes of broken hangers with no clothes on them. My hometown's Goodwill is particularly chaotic. I get that too. Sometimes it's difficult to find enough employees and volunteers to keep things orderly. Maybe especially difficult when the store's reviews are littered with anecdotes about how rude and abusive the manager is? I mean, yikes, but at least I didn't see her today. What I *did* see, however, was the single worst store layout and design I've ever attempted to navigate. The culprit:

Round clothing racks.

Oh my god. I didn't know I had such strong feelings about clothing racks but I have never hated any secondhand shopping experience more than the one I had today. In fact, I have never hated any secondhand shopping experience *until* today. I feel absolutely confident that the reason why is due to the shape of the damn clothing racks. The entire floor was nothing but circular clothing racks. It was truly awful.

The hangers get squeezed together in the middle of the rack, making them all more likely to fall off. Pushing articles aside is physically difficult because of the inner-rack crowding *and* the curve of the bar.

But the worst, most frustrating thing about the circular clothing racks was the complete lack of flow throughout the store. I actually Googled this (as maybe the Hometown Goodwill people should) because I thought "certainly this has been studied and optimized by more skilled retailers than this" and I was right. It's called "store traffic flow" or "customer flow" and Hometown Goodwill is having none of it. Whereas shopping at IKEA is akin to walking in a monk's unicursal labyrinth, Hometown Goodwill is like being lost in a cornfield. Everywhere I turn looks exactly the same as the last place I was standing. It was virtually impossible to tell if I've already been here before. Most of us are used to weaving when we thrift. We walk up one aisle and down the next, back and forth, covering as much ground as possible like we're helping a friend find their lost earring in a shag carpet. That's kind of what we're doing at a thrift store after all: looking for treasure in a sea of nonsense. But this damn polkadotted nightmare of a Goodwill had me feeling like a Plinko chip. Like I was trapped in a pinball machine. I kept looking back at the exit just to check and see where I was. Not a behavior any store wants from their shoppers.

Leaving was a relief. I went to ARC. They had rows. I've never been more grateful to see straight lines.