The Dollar Store! or The Physical Embodiment of Severe Depression (958 hits)
Category: HumorRating: 0.6 on 21 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Zod (View user info) at 2007-03-18 23:29:03 EDT
So today I decided to go to the new dollar store they recently opened up in my town. By recently, I mean six or so years ago. I just never had the desire to go into a store that only sold things for a dollar and below. I couldn't understand how, economically, a place like that could even stay open. Wouldn't they have to sell like 14,000 cans of SudzCo brand fizzle beverage just to afford their rent? It just seemed infeasible.
However, I had half an hour to kill between work shifts today, so what the hell. I wondered what types of organisms would frequent a store like this. To say that I was shocked would be an understatement.
The hiss of the automatic door may as well have been a sigh, that's how fucking depressing this place was. Upon walking in, the first sight I encounter is a ravenous flock, which is the only way I can think to describe it, of elderly women. There was a surprising lack of elderly men in the store, presumably because they all died of shame long ago. These women were rummaging through a trough-sized bin of Easter paraphernalia like hungry cattle at feed time. Whoever said the elderly aren't driving the economy obviously hasn't been to a dollar store at lunch time on a Sunday. They were hoarding green stuffed bunnies, plastic eggs, and fake shredded grass in their veined knobby hands like the shit was our new currency.
Quickly turning away from the horror of old people snatching onto remnants of their long-departed childhood to stave off their crushing depression, I headed towards the "candy" isle. The word "candy" is in caps because I'm not quite sure anything in this isle WAS candy. Of course, there was the obvious plethora of marshmallow treats shaped like bunnies, eggs, chicks, and Jesus's scattered about. But upon closer inspection, it appeared that God had gotten reckless in his creations. I actually saw a lollipop that was made entirely out of a sort of gummy puck on a stick, which was then coated in a think layer of marshmallow and then coated again with white chocolate. Just imagining what that must taste like made me gag my breakfast back into my mouth for a brief hello, how do you do. After squeezing and poking said lollipop for a few minutes just to make sure I wasn't imagining it, I moved on.
I quickly took note of the primarily elderly shoppers in the store with carts filled to the brim with dollar store goodies (read: crap). When it occurred to me that these people were shopping here because they could only afford food and drink items that were less than a dollar, I was pretty depressed. Surely, I thought, the toy department would cheer my up! There's nothing like a plastic ak-47 that shoots spurts of water to make me forget the troubles of the world!
Turns out, the toy department was the equivalent of the store's asshole. If I was plastic, and I had been used to create some of these mutant forms of child entertainment, I would kill myself. There were "action figures" that looked like they were made out of grade-z plastic and balsa wood, with the limbs connected to the torso with rubber bands. Were they building these toys in the past and then shipping them here to us in the future? Or do we still have companies out there that are so outdated they think rubber bands are suitable for action figures? If I was a kid and I got a toy like that from my grandma, I would use the bands to shoot her cataract-laced eyes out. Get me some G.I. Joe, bitch.
Suppressing a scream, I turned and left the dollar store to never, ever return. At least until Halloween, since they sell a 1200 pack of Smickers Bricks and Recees Peanut Marmalade Orbs for 49 cents. You can't beat a deal like that.
User Reviews
Submitted by BadASCII (user info) at 2007-03-20 22:27:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by DesolateMisanthrope (user info) at 2007-03-20 18:12:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by supadupapupa (user info) at 2007-03-20 03:25:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by sicosemen (user info) at 2007-03-19 10:33:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
I probably would have enjoyed this story if I could have gotten past the first word. Don't start your sentences with "So...." It makes you sound like you are so 14 years old.
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This was mildly entertaining! I hardly think a single grammatical error warrants a -1... Seems like somebody needs a HUG!
so, anyway, nice post!
Submitted by Wildman (user info) at 2007-03-20 03:24:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Your interest in only the candy and toy section told me all I needed to know about you.
Submitted by Zod (user info) at 2007-03-20 01:32:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Shh....i was waiting for someone to remember that. Shut the hell up!!
Submitted by kuroneko_sama (user info) at 2007-03-20 00:29:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
gi joes were held together with rubber bands.....
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2007-03-19 18:46:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I like the food section of the dollar store - where else can you find Saudi Arabian breakfast cereal, Cambodian beer, and Lithuanian potato chips?
Submitted by St_Jimmy (user info) at 2007-03-19 16:11:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Not a bad post, but it made me think about Zod shopping at a dollar store.
"I walk into many stores and they laugh at me and my dollar. They laugh at Zod! How dare they! But behold, I enter the dollar store and my dollar is power. I may have anything in the entire store! Kneel dollar store! Kneel before Zod and his dollar!"
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-03-19 15:36:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by sideshow (user info) at 2007-03-19 13:54:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
So funny....I was laughing my ass off at your description of the dollar store...
Submitted by DirtyHarry (user info) at 2007-03-19 10:46:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Every dollar store I have been in has horrible lighting.
Submitted by sicosemen (user info) at 2007-03-19 10:33:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
I probably would have enjoyed this story if I could have gotten past the first word. Don't start your sentences with "So...." It makes you sound like you are so 14 years old.
Submitted by zxcvvcxz (user info) at 2007-03-19 10:16:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Dollar stores are bad, but come to an amusement park in Central Pennsylvania if you ever want to truly question whether humanity is nearing the end of its fragile reign upon this planet.
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2007-03-19 09:47:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by mikethescottish (user info) at 2007-03-19 06:42:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
OMG POOR PPL LOLZ
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2007-03-19 08:32:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
At my college, there was a dollar store right before the entrance to the on campus housing. There was always a few dozen elderly people shuffling around in front of the place. The Grim Reaper took a part time job there as a cashier, just to make life easier for himself.
Submitted by mikethescottish (user info) at 2007-03-19 06:42:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
OMG POOR PPL LOLZ
Submitted by GnarlsBarkley (user info) at 2007-03-19 01:01:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Cause I read some of your other work, and I like it.
Submitted by Realpolitik (user info) at 2007-03-19 00:51:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I had to go in there once, I have wondered ever since how they can afford to pay their employees.
Submitted by hot_pocket (user info) at 2007-03-19 00:34:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
It says it's for dogs, but she can't read.
-- Homer Simpson
Simpson's Roasting on an Open Fire
Submitted by Benny (user info) at 2007-03-18 23:38:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Do they even sell GI Joes anymore?
In England they have the Pound shop where everything costs a pound. You can actually get ripped off that way since many items are cheaper in a regular shop.
Submitted by ampersand (user info) at 2007-03-18 23:37:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
shut the fuck up