We were visiting my mother-in-law this past weekend. She lives about an hour away from us, and doesn’t like to go out too much. She wanted to go check out the dollar store near her, because it’s going out of business, and she thought there might be some good deals. Well, I’m thinking “win-win” - mother-in-law gets out of the house for a bit, and I can check for bargains.
Okay. It’s to be expected, I guess, that when a dollar store is closing, the selection might not be the greatest. And it wasn’t. For example, she wanted AA batteries, and they had AAA or C, but no AA. My mother-in-law also likes to buy a year’s worth of cards for all her kids/grandkids, etc. We did find some for the great-grandkids, but none for grandkids. And checking out the humerous ones - they all seemed to have a theme of baldness/you’re old/viagra. NOT what we thought she should be sending to the grandkids. I can just hear the phone call from my son: “Uh…do you know anything about this card Grandma sent me? Because it’s really weird and I’m not sure why she sent it.”
But I digress. Again. The point to this post - yes, folks, I’m finally getting there - is the PRICES in the dollar store. Was everything a dollar? Oh, no. Everything was $1.25. Except cards, which I understand used to be 2/$1. Those were 2/$1.50. I’ll admit it - it’s been a long time since I’ve been in a dollar store. But I had the misguided notion that dollar stores were, well, dollar stores. I remember the old skit on some comedy show, about being a price checker in a dollar store. “What’s the price on this toothpaste?” “A dollar.” ”How about this toilet paper?” “A dollar.” ”Laundry soap?” “A DOLLAR!”
Not at this place. Sign of the times, maybe. I’ve been lamenting the price increases at my local grocery stores, and at Aldi. But I thought I was safe from it at dollar stores. Now, I haven’t been to the big dollar store emporiums near my town. I will be checking them out, because now I’m really, really curious. But “Dollar-twenty-five Store” just doesn’t have the same ring to it!