Shopping

Back in the day, anytime I started to throw a big-name box store under the bus the editor for the newspaper I was writing for would get as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. In those instances, I would try to pull off a little hat trick like they did in the movie Coming to America when they would tongue in cheek compare McDonalds to McDowells. My editor who (God rest her soul) is gone now, knew much more about corporate law than I did so I couldn't have never understood her plight. In essence I had all the fun, and she did all the nail biting. But there is an old Okie saying that goes something like this: "you can't be lost if you don't care where you are." One cannot get blood out of a turnip bet hey, they can try.

In the light of full disclosure when it comes to the subject of shopping the Dollar Store might just be the ninth level of Hades. Ask yourself this question, have you ever walked into one of those places in the summertime when the air conditioning was working? Have you ever been met at the checkout counter by anyone who had all of their teeth? But the shelves are always spotless because tweakers love to clean, can I get an amen? It would also seem that the name of the store is particularly misleading as NOTHING is still a dollar. Admittedly I still do sometimes shop there for only two items, those being TP and laundry soap as they can be had there for pennies on the dollar. Just how do they pull that off? Also, we will have to hold our collective breath to see if those prices can weather the latest round of tariff expansions. Maybe the truth is the prices there aren't all that low, maybe the grocery stores just have the prices jacked up higher than a cat's back. Just keep in mind from a "BUY AMERICA" first standpoint the Dollar store is a good place to steer away from. You cannot even walk in that place without tripping over some cheesy nicknack from China. My last disclaimer about the dollar store is this, any tools purchased there will be good for only one use.

Now, allow me to backtrack for just one moment on the subject of toilet paper. Maybe someone can explain to me American logic when faced with the idea that they might be locked down until further notice the first place their minds went was to their nether region. Does this fail to compute with anyone but me? Checking on clean drinking water reserves, yes. Even possibly looking in on your Mountain Dew and beef jerky supply is a sound idea. But how we are going to wipe your butts never crossed this Okies mind. Many Americans have strange ideas about what is considered necessities and what constitutes luxuries, and it seriously affects our spending habits. During the depression my grandparents often used a Sears catalog for wiping, you just hoped you were allowed a paper page instead of a glossy one as those have little cleaning power. When times were really tough, they even had to use dried corn cobs. Ouch!! So, you see, when it comes to shopping at the dollar store, we entice them with dollar bills, and they return the favor by dazzling us with shiny sub-par products produced in communist countries and BS. That seems like a fair trade-off.

Corporations like to draw Americans into their establishments with phrases like, "Don't miss out on double coupon days, clearance racks are 75% today, for a limited time only, and void in New Jersey." The question of the day then becomes, what are they doing different in Jersey?" Sometimes they are even brave enough to offer us a knife that can cut through a tin can and then still slice tomatoes like melted butter. I am ashamed to admit that even yours truly was duped into an infomercial sales pitch once with the Ronco Rotisserie Oven. It's pretty amazing what can seem like a good idea when you are up at two in the morning with a credit card in your hand, a hundred and two temperature, and a snoot full of Nyquil. My best advice when it comes to ingesting cold medications is don't just toss that plastic measuring cup and chug it, that's ill-advised. Just remember, tragedy plus time equals comedy... allegedly.

People who ran grocery stores of the past might have been nothing more than rubes who only knew one rule, "we don't sell the chicken after it has turned green." But these days they are geniuses with lofty ideas and highbrow degrees in business administration. You can bet your left testicle that the sugar laden cereal your kids are going to beg for will be right at their height on isle two. Items like bread, milk, and eggs are put all the way to the back of the store so that you will surely be bitten by the "impulse buy" bug. They always put the overpriced items like gum, The National Inquirer, air fresheners, and candy bars close to the checkout lines. Statistics say the more times you walk buy any item the more likely you are to purchase it. This essentially means that the people who set up displays at Wal Mart no longer need degrees in business management, rather psychiatry. For some reason, even when money is known to be tight people tend to play fast and loose with their wallets in the check-out line. Why is that? Maybe it's the American way, or possibly just our American sickness.

Grocery stores feed our psyches' by playing Kenny G while we squeeze the cantaloupes and entice us with air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter. And then there is always that gal on isle twelve cooking Spam and fresh pineapple in an electric skillet. Why is it Spam always tastes better at the grocery store? A LOT better! My mother always advised me to eat before I shopped to offset overspending, but somehow that logic doesn't apply at the liquor store. Why is that?