"You want to do something for a good cause, but you've got to watch the etiquette of the whole thing," said a shopper from Potomac who turned in several bags of Barbie dolls, board games and stuffed animals. The woman, who said her family is moving soon and doesn't have space for all the bulky items, left with a set of bright red towels and a fistful of gift certificates.
A Centreville woman donated a round Tupperware container designed to keep a single bagel fresh. The odd plastic contraption, which was given to her, she said, by her sister-in-law, came with a smaller, plastic cream cheese container that snapped on top. The woman said she would have kept the device -- except it was red.
Kent and Rene Manley look through items left by other participants in the gift swap. He ended up taking three $10 gift certificates in exchange for three books.
(Marvin Joseph -- The Washington Post)
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"I'm very fussy. It's got to be blue," she said. "My whole kitchen is blue. But she's never been to my kitchen."
The Tupperware elicited giggles from later shoppers, but as of 12:30 p.m., it had not found a new home.
Karen Chauvin of Springfield agreed to give her name if the contents of her bag of returns were not revealed. She left with a maroon ceramic baking pan shaped like a Christmas tree and a can of Harry and David chocolate-covered almonds.
If she had not brought the unwanted gifts here, Chauvin said, they probably would have gone to a flea market.
"Someone gave these to me," she said. "I didn't want them to end up on a 10-cent table somewhere."
