Monday, August 30, 2010

thwarted. twice.

so today . . . i've decided that maybe some things were just not meant to be.

all summer i have watched as an out-of-business restaurant underwent a transformation. it was a restaurant i had never eaten at--which is probably why it went out of business--but i drove past it every time i went to subway. and about a month ago i noticed the sign...the sign that said "coming soon! 99 cent store!" (have you noticed computers don't have the cent sign anymore? i find that odd.) i was so excited! i loooove the 99 cent store, but the nearest one is about 3 miles away, so i don't go there very often. it is just too far off my beaten path. (yes, i am spoiled. i live in the perfect place. i can walk to the post office, the mall, my school, a park, burlington coat factory, chuck e. cheese, my bank, and jack-in-the-box. not that i do, but if there is another gasoline crisis, i am golden!!) every time i go there, i come out with lots and lots of stuff, and i think to myself, "why don't i go there more often?"

and now i can.

now i can, because this new 99 cent store just opened up down the street from me. i watched the remodeling. i counted the days until the grand opening. i missed the grand opening.

and then last week, i needed emergency dog leashes. i didn't want to spend a lot, because i just knew the good leashes would eventually turn up (which they did,) but i needed some for the weekend. so where to go? the 99 cent store of course. diandra went with me, and while i was discovering that they didn't have any dog leashes, she was stocking up on picture frames. so i left empty-handed, and diandra had a bag full of stuff (this keeps happening to us!!) but it was ok. we were in a hurry, and so i didn't really have time to look around. i am sure it is going to be a gold mine of stuff for school. and if i need some household thing, it is just down the street...

tonight as rollie and i were on our way to subway, we approached the new store. i said, "i need a dish drainer. can we stop for just a minute at the 99 cent store?"

i need a dish drainer, because i am going back to washing our dishes by hand. there is some sort of dishwasher demon in our house. we even got a new dishwasher, but the dishes still come out unclean. i am sure it would help if i would wash them before putting them in, but really what is the point of using a dishwasher if you have to wash the dishes first?!?!?! i just refuse to do it. if i am going to have to wash them, i am just going to do it, let them dry, and then put them away. although, now that i am writing this, i am thinking maybe i could go ahead and wash the dishes and then let them dry in the dishwasher. it would be like a giant dish drainer...

...except i can't do that right now, because my ineffective dishwasher is full of my crystal and china--in case of earthquake...

anyway, we went in to the 99 cent store, and i headed for the kitchen plastics. a quick look told me that they didn't carry dish drainers, but i couldn't believe it, so i looked again. and again.

albert einstein is calling me crazy...

i finally acknowledged that the 99 cent store did not carry dish drainers. i was going to have to go to target or walmart, (because i hadn't had the brilliant "use the dishwasher as a dish drainer" idea yet,) and was ready to continue on to subway.

but first i had to retrieve rollie. i thought he would probably be pacing by the front door, waiting for me to be done. but he wasn't by the door. thankfully he is usually the tallest person in a crowd, and thankfully the shelves are short at the 99 cent store. so all i had to do was look around for his head and then move in that direction. i found him by the tools. "here," he said, "you need one of these." i looked to see what he had, and saw a rubber mallet. really. a rubber mallet. i could not possibly imagine any reason why i would need a rubber mallet--not even for 99 cents. "no, i am pretty sure i don't need a rubber mallet," i said. i was ready to go to subway. i was getting hungrier by the second. and i know it was my idea to stop at the 99 cent store, but i was done now--it was time to go!

but we didn't go. he moved slowly on to the car stuff. "oh, look at this!" he said. i looked. now he had some sort of car detailing spray. i looked at the spray. i looked at him. he looked happy! all i could think was, "yes, you are happy now, because that spray is only 99 cents! but if you spray that stuff on your car--the one you clean every day when you put it in the garage--and it makes the paint dull or cloudy, you are going to be one very unhappy guy..."

"maybe you should try that in an inconspicuous place on my car first. my car already has a dent in it..." i graciously (and a bit impatiently) offered.

i don't think he heard me. he continued looking at the car stuff. i wandered off, hoping i wouldn't faint from hunger before he got done shopping. pretty soon he came to see what i was looking at. i was looking at cheap drinking glasses--because you can never have too many glasses. he looked at me like, "we already have glasses. why are you looking at those?" we wandered around for a little while longer, until we realized that i was waiting for him to be done and he was waiting for me to be done, when actually we had both already been done for several minutes!

and that is how i found myself once again leaving the 99 cent store empty handed, while the person who was with me left with treasure...

rollie's joy was short-lived however. his total had come to $1.10. "are we paying 11% sales tax now?!?!?!" he asked. "no," i said, "it is just 10%..." (yes, go ahead and gasp! but then remember that the sun always shines here. and we have disneyland!) "but my total was $1.10--that would be 11 cents sales tax." i did the math and then said, "well, that would be true if your car detailing spray had only cost 99 cents. but clearly you weren't listening to the propaganda they were playing over their speaker system. apparently everything in the 99 cent store actually costs 99.99 cents." "but that's a dollar," he said. "i thought this was the 99 cent store."

well, i can see why he thought that. that is what the sign on the store said. that is what all the signs in the store said. but apparently it is not. apparently it is the 99.99 cent store.

which only matters if you can find something to buy...

2 comments:

Carroll said...

That was hilarious! I can see it all now. Each of you tryng to accomodate the other. What fun and memory making material!!
Love you!

Al said...

it wasn't a restaurant. it was ETHAN ALLEN's