A Goodwill staff member walked into work only to get the fright of her life when she saw what had been donated.
Megan Seeley, 36, has worked at a Goodwill store in Campbell, California, for three years; having long been a fan of thrift shopping, she gladly jumped at the chance to work in one of their stores.
Any thrift-store perusers will tell you; you'll never know just what you might find on a given day, from designer labels at a shockingly low price, to the weird and wonderful, or items with sad backstories.
Seeley herself recently made a wild discovery that she captured on camera and shared to her TikTok account @g1zm0geek in December. She wrote: "I work at Goodwill and this is what I was greeted with this morning," adding in a caption: "The things people donate …"
Seeley told Newsweek: "For the most part, people donate everyday items but, at times, we get some of the strangest things like what you see in the video."
The clip shows the back room of the store where donations are sorted, and, at first, all appears normal—until the camera pans to what appears to be a terrifying witch, bent over and grinning at Seeley from behind a rack of clothes. Like something straight out of a horror movie, the leering figure looks ready to pounce.
"The way I came in that morning and almost jumped out of my skin; after turning on the lights and going to my work station, I just had to film and share it," Seeley said.
"At first, I was just going to share it with my partner, but she convinced me to post it on TikTok, and over 800,000 views later and counting, here we are."
In a later video update, Seeley said the terrifying figure is in fact two life-size dolls, with the grinning figure resting her head on another female statue, each dressed in jewels, gowns and hats.
Seeley added that the life-size dolls were donated by a couple, and she has since learned that the figures were created by Katherine's Collection.
The dolls even have names, Eula and Mae, and were commissioned in the early 2000s by a family who wished for the dolls to "look like family members."
Seeley's video proved massively popular, with the first racking up over 45,000 likes, as one commenter pleaded with Seeley: "Now you gotta place it in random spots to mess with other employees."
"Oh … my … Gawd … I was unprepared," another posted, as a third wrote: "I would be walking out of work to go home and change my pants."
And one former Goodwill employee shared their own story: "You never know what you'll find. My boss hated dolls. I left a Chucky sitting in her office chair one night. Almost got fired."
Seeley said she was astounded at how viral the video went, saying she is usually just a viewer on TikTok, "but I really felt the need to share how creepy this doll looked."
"It seems it wasn't just me that the doll creeped out, and some people seemed to have gotten two jump scares in that video by thinking the bundle of hangers on the box was a giant spider!"
As for anyone wanting to add two creepy dolls to their collection, Seeley said they would be listed online by Goodwill for people to bid on.
The share of the secondhand apparel market, which includes thrift stores such as Goodwill, was estimated to be around 12 percent in 2021. It is projected to continue to grow rapidly and more than double by 2027, with one-quarter of all clothes sold in 2027 projected to be secondhand.
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