My Dollar Tree Shopping Spree Bonanza!

Featuring bizarre Chinese toys, books from five years ago that nobody read, several food items being sold past their expiration dates and totally out-of-place commentary on the exploitation of impoverished consumers!

I have what you could consider a  “love/hate” relationship with the Dollar Tree. On the positive side of things, there are the occasional moments where I need AAA batteries and a pouch of grape Big League Chew at  8 P.M., and being able to purchase said items with only a handful of dimes and quarters is unquestionably a pretty great feeling. Now, as far as the things I don’t like about the store: everything else.

The neighborhood Dollar Tree is far and away the most depressing locale in any town in America. In fact, just having one seems to create this seismic effect where everything within a 200 foot radius of the building is a cone of human misery. No joke; in college, whenever I was feeling unmotivated, I would just stroll down the aisles of the nearest Dollar Tree - after seeing the 20 year olds with EBT cards, the cashiers with blackened eyes and at least two or three homeless individuals just hanging out in the parking lot, I guarantee you my ass got all sorts of motivated come homework time.

The Dollar Tree has become something of a cultural whipping boy, that go-to-insta-joke whenever someone wants to mock the poor and the disadvantaged. In the process, that means people tend to overlook the fact that the Dollar Tree is a multi-billion dollar a year, Fortune 500 company listed on the NASDAQ 100, with a 2009 net income that’s staggeringly fatter than those fostered by more “reputable” companies, including Sears and Whole Foods Market.

Lead-soaked, shoddily made Chinese toys + impoverished U.S. consumers = CAPITALISM CLEARLY WORKING.

If you’re wondering whether or not there’s a non-ironic/non-Schadenfreude reason to ever walk into one of these stores, there really isn’t. Yeah, you can laugh at the hastily whipped up book section, or the toy section littered with dozens upon dozens of lead-infused, knock-off action figures from China, but the palpable gloom and despair emanating from every human being within a good block of the business is just too much for anybody that isn’t an out and out nihilist. All in all, you’re likelier to walk out of a Pol Pot exhibit with a smile on your face than you are a Dollar Tree anywhere in the continental U.S.

The only (and I do mean ONLY) major positive I can think about visiting a Dollar Tree is that it sort of makes you feel like a higher evolutionary being whenever you get the hell out of there. Even in today’s downcast economy, you can waltz into a DT with a $20 bill and amble out with a good week’s worth of produce (and for me, produce means $16 worth of frozen cheese sticks and a composition book or two). Hell, you can even create a virtual smorgasbord of foodstuffs for about a fraction of the cost of eating something that was, you know, good. The rationalization process, I imagine, is that people that go into a Dollar Tree do so with this inflated sense of self-superiority - as in, “I don’t REALLY have to buy my stuff here, but I’m going to, just for the LULZ.”

Which, ironically, is exactly what you will do if you ever go into one of these stores...

I guess you’re wondering why I would even bother doing a blog post about something so utterly irrelevant. Well, that short answer is that there’s a pizza place with a rare Sega “Airline Pilots” cabinet in it, but since there was a 300 pound man with Down Syndrome and a family of five playing DDR (no, seriously), I couldn’t wedge myself through the human fiesta and get around to recording it. And since there’s a Dollar Tree right next door…well, I might as well take pictures of SOMETHING, right?

Every Dollar Tree in America is different, but at the same time, they’re all pretty much the same. The actual in-store products may vary, but on the whole, you’re getting the exact same kind of stuff no matter which store you walk into. I’ve never visited a Dollar Tree in Spokane, Washington, but I’m pretty sure, they too, have a dizzying array of turkey basters and travel sized deodorant on display. I guess the biggest variable is that some stores feature frozen goods, and some have expanded grocery sections. For a while, there was one in town that advertised “bread”…as in, with the full quotation marks and everything. I guess now is a good time to remind you that when you eat Dollar Tree produce, you pretty much are taking your life into your own hands.

Just look at all of that VALUE! And by "value," I really mean "crap I don't need."

Since I really, really needed change for a ten, I decided to take a walk around the local Dollar Tree, and pick up as much useless crap as necessary to ensure that I got at least four singles in the aftermath. In a store consisting of nothing but absolutely superfluous overstock, what did I burn an exact $5.27 on that evening? Well, since you asked, here’s what I picked up on my impromptu visit to the “Tree of Woe…”

A Book Written By That Guy That Started RegretTheError.Com!

The book section at Dollar Tree is always a total crap shoot; most of the time, the aisle is littered with stuff nobody in their right minds would ever want to read, but every now and then, you get lucky, and find yourself that book O.J. Simpson wrote about killing his wife, or one of the myriad discounted Ron Paul manifestos, or if fortune is really smiling upon you, perhaps even a book written by John Walsh, who looks really, really vengeful and constipated on the front cover. That said, nine times out of ten, you’ll probably find a grand total of nothing worth a damn on your visit - but since you’re only spending a measly one dollar, American, on something that was originally hawked at about 25 bucks, who cares if you end up taking home a brick in literary form?

On my trip, “Regret the Error: How Media Mistakes Pollute the Press and Imperil Free Speech,” was far and away the most interesting sounding title I uncovered. Actually, it was the ONLY interesting sounding title I uncovered, and since I direly need something to read after I finish “The Hobbit,” I figured what the heck - I once spent $50 plus tax to play “Brute Force,” so throwing down a one dollar bill for a five year old book is relatively sane behavior in comparison.

The author of the book is a fellow named Craig Silverman, who founded the website RegertTheError.Com. Admittedly, I’ve never heard of the site before, but then again, I didn’t find out that the guy that played the principal in “Ferris Bueller” was a registered sex offender until a half hour ago, so consider me WELL out of the loop when it comes to contemporary culture.

By and large, Silverman’s book isn’t my typical reading fare, but I have this thing where I can’t go to sleep unless I read something of considerable substance and weight. And since the thing is about 350 plus pages, it’s most definitely of both considerable substance AND weight. And if it proves an entertaining read, I’ll get back to you on its contents…probably.

Extreme Fighting Action Figures from China!

By now, we all know that I am a huge mixed martial arts enthusiast. By now, you should also realize that I have a fondness for both low culture, consumer-grade crap and finding any reason at all to discredit the Chinese as an economic superpower, so consider this “Extreme Fighting” play set to constitute an early Christmas gift for me.

I really don’t know where to begin here. First off, it seems to me that the Chinese notion of “cage fighting” is culled entirely from “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,” with the “adversaries” decked out in war paint and safety goggles. The figures themselves are lawsuit bait, with the guy in the glasses looking a LOT like former WCW grappler “Buff Bagwell,” while the other toy is, essentially, an African-American version of Kratos from the “God of War” games.

Apparently, the "Vale Tudo" days were a whole lot more hardcore then we imagined them...

There were actually quite a few variations of this set on sale, including one that featured a dude in a lucha-libre mask packaged with a more Caucasian-looking Kratos and a piece of guardrail. Obviously, this set became an absolute must-buy for me, since it features the most bizarre MMA-accessories in history. Granted, the early days of the UFC were pretty brutal, but I don’t seem to recall Tank Abbott ever breaking out a baseball with spikes in it, or Keith Hackney finishing off a foe with a goddamn chainsaw. Then again, I haven’t seen EVERY PRIDE FC show, so who knows? Maybe there’s a rare Frye/Takayama bout out there with the two pummeling each other with power tools or something.

Aim Toothpaste!

Because I have teeth, and periodically, I like to clean them. Umm…yeah, I guess there’s not too much to add to that, I suppose.

A Four Pack of Freedent Spearmint Chewing Gum!

Once again, not really an exciting product, and a purchase made more out of basic utility than guffaws, but I still got a laugh out of the fine print that PROMISES that the gum won’t stick to “most dentures.” Also, I noted that the expiration date on the package was about two weeks ago, so…uh-oh. 

A Bottle of Brisk Raspberry Tea (That Was Really, Really Warm!) 

You know, I don’t normally drink giant-assed bottles of tea, but then again, it’s not normally 117 freaking degrees in Atlanta, either.

I guess the peculiar thing is that the staffers at the DT didn’t feel the need to refrigerate the bottles…so these things were jutting out of the middle of the aisle, while some nice sunshine radiation heated the beverages to the point where the things were basically Pasteurized. Needless to say, my first swig of this stuff wasn’t a pleasant one…a notion that I will blame partially on the drink’s inherent warmness, and the other half because the beverage was CLEARLY past its expiration date.

...and what's the worst that can come out of beef stored at inadequate temperatures?

So, what did I ultimately learn on my recent expedition to the Dollar Tree? Well, absolutely nothing, outside of the fact that the place sucks, is an unfathomably depressing environment, and a great place to purchase products that are not only out of date, but possibly filled with volatile chemicals that could cause your children to explode.

Some people say that stores like the Dollar Tree are a boon to the economically disadvantaged, providing them with cheap products that they, otherwise, couldn’t afford. I tend to think it’s the opposite case, with a bunch of corporate masterminds taking advantage of the downtrodden and selling them damaged, shady and in some instances, life-threatening goods at a monumental profit…

…but, since they DO have pretty good deals on batteries and bubble gum sometimes, I guess I can overlook the whole “exploiting/kinda’ poisoning the poor” thing. Hell, eight AA’s for a dollar is worth an incinerated crib or two, I imagine…

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A Rant Against The Radical Health Food Agenda

Is the "Health-Conscious" Movement An Infringement Of Our Civil Liberties? 

Meet the end of Democracy. 

 

One of the movements that has really irritated me over the last decade or so has been this supposed “organic food revolution.” The whole-food, health-conscious mentality has been battered into our skulls for so long now that I feel like I’m committing a felony every time I eat a handful of non-vegan, non-hydrogenated potato chips. And you know what? I’m sick of having these leafy-green, health-obsessed food fascists tell me what I can do with my body.

For me, the final straw came a couple of weeks back, when I tried to locate a vending machine at school so I could procure my normal breakfast of two brown sugar and cinnamon toaster pastries and a stick of wintergreen chewing gum. Much to my horror, however, the vending machine that has practically kept me upright over the last few years had been replaced by a new, high-tech vending machine that only offers “healthy alternatives” to snacking.

As an upwardly mobile young person, I just do not have the time to sit down and eat three meals in one day. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have the time to ingest two normal sized meals if I tried. Thus, to obtain the precious 2,000 daily calories I need for mere continuation, I have to seize as much caloric content as I can at whichever junctures such opportunities present themselves.

These “health-conscious” vending machines present two gargantuan problems for on-the-go types like me. For starters, a lot of these supposedly health-savvy foodstuffs just don’t have the caloric firepower I need to get through a day of even moderate activity. Despite all of the demonizing starches, sugars and fats have gone through since the 1970s, the simple, suspiciously understated reality is that we need things like oils and salt to simply exist as human beings. Because there are so many bipedal walruses running around campus, I suppose the administration had no option but to opt for such machines, but to the detriment of guys like me. Since all of these “cane sodas” and “organic, non-greasy” potato chips have fewer calories than the comestibles I’m used to putting down, that means to procure the same amount of energy I once did, I would have to purchase twice (and sometimes, three times) as much food as I used to. 

Pictured: National Socialism in action.

And this provides a natural segue into why I think natural foods are the biggest sham this side of Milli Vanila’s vocals. Not only are these foods of lesser caloric content, they are also of far higher monetary cost. The most expensive item in the old vending machines was about a dollar, and the costliest item in these “health-conscious” machines are about three times as much. Also note that the most inexpensive item in the “health-conscious” vending machine is just a few cents shy of being the same price as the most expensive item in the old, supposedly “junk-filled” vending machines. Now, I know I am being really kooky here, but do you think that maybe, just maybe, the push for all of these health-savvy foods isn’t to make us healthier, but to get us to spend more money on lesser amounts of the same kind of food we’ve been eating for years?

Yeah, I know. . .that’s the talk of madmen, I suppose. The question we arrive to now is whether or not all of that “healthy” vending produce is really any healthier for you than the mass-marketed junk food we were eating a couple of months back. And after doing some expert analysis, it turns out there really isn’t much of a difference to be found between “organic foods” and the processed goop we’ve been chowing down on forthe totality of our lives.

So at the end of the day, not only are those “all natural” fruit cups nowhere near as affordable and filling as those spongy chocolate snack cakes you used to enjoy, those stupid “health-conscious” foods may have even more sugars and starches in them than the factory-made goo you can scoop up at the Family Dollar for about one fourth of the price. 

 In the negative-utopia future, THIS is the extent of what   "Freedom of Choice  " entails.

I understand why the Michelle Obamas of this world are so adamantly opposed to the fast food-high caloric content Complex, but doesn’t the right to free expression also entail the right to consumption, too? To me, the vendetta against vending machine produce and junk food is eerily similar to the war waged against obscenity in print and electronic media - according to some experts that may or may not really be experts on anything, certain products MUST be verboten because they threaten the general welfare of the public. The same way all of those guacamole-heads up on Capitol Hill wanted violent video games “banned” back in the early 90s, we’re seeing a gaggle of special-interest folks serve up the exact same song and dance about what we’re eating. Since some people have the “apparent” physical inability to stop cramming Oreos down their throat holes, these lobbyists want to make it so that nobody can have access to trans-fats, or foodstuffs soaked in delicious, delicious hydrogenated oils. This “whole-food” nonsense is really an imposition on the rights of every freedom-loving person in the United States: just because other people are fat means that you can’t have certain, chemical-laden foods either.

Imagine, if you will, that exact argument, only involving a more polemic matter like abortion, or gun-control, or the right to healthcare access. There would be discourse out the yin-yang in this country, but when our rights to dine are under assault, nobody raises a whisper.

I reckon I know a violation of my civil liberties when I see them, and this push towards all-healthy food is a clear-cut example of our freedoms being imperiled by radicals, fundamentalists and out-right yahoos.

When it comes to junk food, colas and other forms of high calorie foods, I reckon I’m going to stay adamantly pro-choice, no matter how controversial the stance. After all, it is my body, and my right as a citizen, isn’t it? 

 

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