Dollar Shop Crap

You can tell heaps about a country's culture by the crap they sell in their Dollar Shops.

Now, I wouldn't say I'm 'well travelled' or anything, but I've got a few passport stamps here and there (albeit not lined up neatly on the pages... what's with that haphazard attitude towards stamping one's passport?). And I, Blossy Bogan, love dollar shop crap.

In Japan you can practically set up your house on stuff from the '100 Yen store'. There's amazingly cute and useless shit all stacked in little rows. Got a great chopstick lunch box set. And the stuff actually IS a hundred Yen. At the register they just count your items and multiply it by 100. It was great practise for my limited Japanese language skills (ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku... ummm......) Fantastic for getting a cheap lunch too. You can buy a bottle of cold catnip cordial and a bag of seaweed sheets for 200 Yen. Bargain.

In Canada the dollar stores were stuffed with maple leaves. Red and white Canadian flag land. Great for tourists:
"Hey babe, whatcha reckon we get the oldies next door some maple leaf lollipops, notepads and a flag to thank them for feeding the cat?"
"Ohhhhhh, they'd love that. And one of those Winter Olympics pins. Noice..."

But ahhhhh, the excitement of hitting Dollar Tree in California when the 4th of July stock was in! Oh. My. Those massive barrels of Cheesy Poofs are worth the Qantas airfare alone. Let alone all the Obama-rama merchandise. I mean, doesn't everyone want a picture of the U.S. President on their socks? There's lots of food at Dollar Tree. I ended up with... well... it's a little embarrassing... TEN bags of Tootsie Rolls to take back to Australia. THEY WERE A DOLLAR! (plus tax, so technically about $1.11 or something, U.S. of course, so probably about $1.30 AUD at the time... but totally worth it...) And a U.S. flag to hang in my office at work. Yeah, it did seem like a good idea at the time. I was feeling quite patriotic with all those stars and stripes around me. And Bananarama was playing over the loudspeaker. Enough said.

Then there's the Aussie dollar shops. A Bogan bastion. Filled to the brim with shit that doesn't work. The funny thing about them is that nothing's really a dollar. So the word 'dollar' is gradually disappearing from store names in favour of such enticing words as 'reject' and 'hot'. Not that we Bogans actually think that you could get a pair of thongs for a dollar anymore. I mean, I'd expect to pay at least two or three.

A good Valley Bogan trawls the dollar shops at least each month, more often towards Christmas. I reckon Santa might've have had a say in setting these kind of shops up. There's the Chrissy stockings in a variety of colours and designs (and when did they get so damned HUGE!??!) and then you grab a basket (or trolley... yes, really) and get heaps of crap to stuff into the stocking. Poor BHG (Better Homes & Gardens Girl) just about dies of excitement every Christmas morning when she tips the stocking shit out onto the rumpus room floor:
"OH MY GOD! How awesomeness! Glittery lipbalm! Oh WOW! 150 gel pens in a Hannah Montana packet! Bath foam! Undies with lovehearts! A bubble blower!"
What did Santa used to bring kids before dollar shop crap?

My VGF (Very Good Friend) Organica and I often trawl the dollar shops. We have a 'lah-tay' first to catch up on biz of course. Organica is quite talented. She makes stuff. And dollar shops have GREAT packages. Boxes. Bags. Bottles. Containers. Baskets. Packs of twenty miniature Asian food boxes that are just perfect for putting soaps into as gifts. Those little cellophane and organza bags that kids give me stuffed with nasty candy canes and compound chocolate at the end of each school year (don't worry, I don't eat that stuff. I wrap it up and put it under the K-Mart Wishing Tree.)

She takes a list sometimes. On our treks, Organica looks in nooks and crannies and gets the NESA (Non-English Speaking Assistant) to take down those stacks of a squillion boxes all shoved into each other that are on the top shelf. Going dollar shopping with Organica is kind of like I imagine one of those posh 'walk through a Vietnamese food market' Asian tours would be. You know, the type of trip where only those in the know can find the good shit and everyone else goes home with sloppy noodles and sweaty pants. My favourite thing at the dollar shop is the cheap hair conditioner. I gravitate there sneakily, whilst Organica is busily annoying the NESA. I love only paying two dollars for a tub of hair treatment that costs ten bucks at Woolies. Needless to say, Organica catches me swooning over the Pantene, rolls her eyes and lectures me about parabens, sulfates and Thai slave labour. So I put it back and promise to be good (...and go back later and stock up... I mean, REALLY. It's TWO BUCKS a tub!)

Sometimes I wonder if our Bogan consumerist generation will be remembered in history for our love of dollar shop crap. Whether time capsules will be opened in hundred of years time to find fluffy bed socks, pocket sized address books, plastic slinkies and a solar powered calculator. I hope someone remembers to chuck in the rubber thongs with the Aussie flag on them. Otherwise it'd be a real waste, don't cha reckon?