just a buck.

First off, a story:
I have a friend named Laura who can be a little ditzy. She's a smart girl and she's now a college graduate, working at broadening the minds of 11-year-olds in Asheboro. But yeah, she doesn't always think before she speaks. Once she and I were in a group of friends in high school, and someone told a story about the Dollar Store. I got a devilish gleam in my eye, and I asked, "Hey, Laura, how much does stuff cost at the Dollar Store?" Laura rolled her eyes indignantly at me, as if I were the biggest idiot ever and replied haughtily, "I don't know. I've never been there."

Herein lies the genius of the Dollar Store. They rely heavily on the idea that a dollar is not a lot of money. "It's only a dollar!" they say. You go in there, and you see something that you realize you will use eventually, say shampoo. You think, hey, I've heard of that brand, and it's only a dollar. So you buy some shampoo, not realizing that the same shampoo can be bought at Wal-Mart for maybe $0.85 or even the grocery store for $0.94. The Dollar Store is sneaky like that. Most people go into a place like Wal-Mart or a grocery store with specific needs. You buy shampoo at Wal-Mart when you are out of shampoo. And at that point, you need shampoo, so you don't consult the price. But you might walk up and down the aisles of a Dollar Store because it's a small place and because everything is only a dollar. So you see the shampoo, realize the price, and start stocking up on shampoo when you can get it cheaper elsewhere. It is brilliance.

That being said, I like the Dollar Store. I don't buy my shampoo there. If you've not been in a Dollar Store recently, you might be surprised at what you can find. For instance, I've heard tell that you can buy condoms there, though I've never seen them. I assume they come in 4-packs or something. Then, after you stock up on your dollar store condoms, you can also buy pregnancy tests there.

I like the Dollar Store because it's easy math. You can have your money all ready by the time you get to the counter. One night, I was waiting in line at the Dollar Store, and a mother was waiting behind me with her daughter. The mother was trying to explain that the daughter did not have enough money to buy the chewing gum in addition to the other three items she already had, because they had only $4.25 to pay for them; North Carolina has a 7% sales tax. The daughter was arguing with her mother, saying that she would wait and ask the cashier how much money they needed before she gave up her precious Juicy Fruit. I was annoyed at the daughter for doubting her mother and annoyed at the mother for passing up this valuable opportunity to teach her daughter how to calculate sales tax. Sure enough, the total was $4.28. I had three cents, so I offered it to them. I immediately regretted doing so, and wanted to add, "Unless you were trying to teach your daughter a lesson here, in which case, I do not have three cents." By that time, the cashier herself had offered the little girl three cents, so I was taken out of the transaction as just some nice stranger lady.

All this Dollar Store talk is the result of my recent photography hobby. I've had that beautiful and expensive digital camera for months now, but I'm finally getting around to developing some pictures. So now I have about 150 pictures, and I just want to litter my apartment walls with them and let them proclaim, "Lookit! I've made ART!" The Dollar Store has lots of frames, a fair percentage of them not tacky. They have these little frames just the right size and style for my pictures and taste, and they sell them in two-packs. Or at least, they did until I went to each of the five Dollar Tree Stores in the Winston-Salem area and bought them all. I also bought some photo albums. Photo display does not have to be an expensive habit. Except now I'm running out of wall space, so I suppose I'm going to have to go and buy some more walls. Maybe I should pick up some shampoo while I'm out.