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.
A Loonie ($1) and a Toonie ($2)
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.
*
How about you: love ‘em or hate ‘em?
What shopping experiences make you want to stick your head in a blender?
Leanne Shirtliffe is the mother of seven-year-old twins, Thing 1 and Thing 2. She lived in Asia for eight years, which turned out to be a build-your-own-family adventure. Leanne writes for Nickelodeon and pens a humour column for The Calgary Herald. She is represented by Jill Marr of the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency in California. 
