If there are 1000 Awesome Things in this world, then there are at least 10,000 Not-So-Awesome Things. Near the top of that list are dollar stores.
This summer, when my dad slipped each of my children a Toonie (for you non-Canadian folk, that’s a $2 coin), I decided to take them to the dollar store.
It was after that visit that I swore I’d never set foot in another one again.
Upon entering the dollar store, I was blinded by the glare reflecting off mountains of plastic crap. I have so much of that primary colour stuff in my own living room that one more item may cause the neighbours to send in the Bisphenol-A police.
Once I put my sunglasses back on and turned down aisle one, I smelled potpourri and candles. Didn’t scented objects go out with the 90s? By aisle two, I could hear kids screaming. It didn’t matter that half of them were mine; it was the perfect soundtrack to go with stress.
For me, the primary cause of that stress is too much stuff. It’s bad enough that if I go to IKEA, I have to buy 200 tealights and if I go to Costco I have to buy enough mustard to stock my own hot dog stand. But at the dollar store, the sheer cheapness encourages mindless consumption. I already consume without thinking when I eat salt and vinegar chips; must I do it when I shop?
To put it melodramatically (cue The Young and the Restless theme song), dollar stores represent much of what’s wrong with the world. Well, at least what’s wrong with my world.
So for now, I no longer enter dollar stores. This boycott will likely last the length of a Canadian summer…or until my dad forks over more Toonies or I need another cheap birthday card for a 6-year-old.
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How about you: love ‘em or hate ‘em?
What shopping experiences make you want to stick your head in a blender?
Tell your cheap Dad to slip them a ten each so you can go to a real store!
Not a bad idea. Maybe my mom can match it (we could have a bidding war!)
I agree – I hate The Dollar Store also! Nothing in the store is worth $1 – Such a waste of $$$. Its always filled w/senior citizens buying toilet paper and canned meat, they usually have oldies rock piped in (BeachBoys), and the clerks wear large plastic earrings & bright red lipstick which they obvisouly purchased for $1.
Cheap lipstick…say no more!
I used to love dollar stores… back when plastic crap was all I could afford. Now I savour quality, not quantity. And, of course, the job which allows me the luxury to choose 😉
Quality rules. (Note to self: clean out closet)
Yeah, dollar stores suck!
Amen!
Yeah – not a fan. (They’re good for birthday candles, craft paper, hair thingys for my daughter… and that’s about it.) I go in one about once every year. That’s enough.
Once a year. Like the dentist.
The dollar store is filled with those 10,000 not-so-awesome things.
My mother in law used to take the kids there as a “treat” I had to put a stop to it. Way too much plastic crap came back to MY house!
And then it breaks….
I actually look forward to the day when I can throw a whole Loonie or Toonie at LGO and tell him to ‘buy himself something’. I love the dollar store for all the reasons you hate it. Walmart, too. There should be an anon group! My personal hell is the grocery store, because I struggle to get through a single aisle without my kiddo wanting to eat everything in sight! He’s a toddler anomaly that way…
You have a kid who wants to eat everything in sight? Even in the vegetable aisles? Now that is a tale worth telling. Thanks for giving airplay to the other side!
Dollar Stores, much like Wal-mart suck my will to live. But as a grade one teacher they are a necessary evil for dry-erase markers and post-its. -sigh-
Your first sentence says it all…
Dollar stores suck. They leak of chemicals—and lead. Don’t let your kiddies put anything in their mouth!