As I waited for my dinner party to arrive I noticed a store next to the restaurant.

It was then that I realized…

“Theoretically, if I were to buy a thousand items there I’d save a hundred bucks on a thousand slightly inferior items you’d typically find at the 99.”

Okay, not just slightly but plainly inferior items. But still, I’d be saving a hundred smackers!

How could I lose with economics like that?

I strode in, ready to go on a spree like that scene in Wall Street where Charlie Sheen goes nuts decorating his new apartment – minus the crimped blonde Daryl Hannah in my life.

Anyway, when you shop here just remember what the guy at the dog-pound says -
“Charm goes a long way.”

Here are a few standouts:

I couldn’t figure out who these plastic witch/Frankenstein heads reminded me of.
The bag only said HALLOWEEN. To the Taiwanese, the definition of Halloween probably covers a wide spectrum of CREEPY; werewolves, zombies, Ted Nugent...

I wracked my brain – Ray Bradbury or Robert Ginty are the only suspects I could think of. I doubt Ginty cares anymore…

 
Why can’t you Mexican wrestle with your victims before you hack ‘em to death?
 

This one reminded me of a joke:

A teacher was giving a lesson on the circulation of the blood. So he says, "Now, students, if I stood on my head the blood, as you know, would run into it, and I should turn red in the face."

"Yes, sir," the boys said.

"Then why is it that while I am standing upright in the ordinary position the blood doesn't run into my feet?"

 
“Because your feet ain’t empty!” Wah-wah!

 I suspect that all the people who posed for 98 cent store package photos must be related.

Either that or someone dug up some old Macaulay Culkin stock photo work. What the heck is he staring at? A plate of muffins, or Kit Culkin holding his leather belt?

I blame “Sophy” for society’s ills.

 

 
All-in-one and only 98 cents, G!

The 98 Hall of Fame: Goofy, Sitting Bull, Marilyn, Nelly, someone’s abandoned Valentine's chocolates basket and a surly baby enclosed in plastic wrap.
 

‘cause you won’t be able to take yo’ eyes off it!

 
Sadly, I did not save 100 bucks at the 98 cent store. I ended up leaving a huff!

Why?

 
Well, remember that scene at the end of Planet of the Apes – the original, are you kidding me? – where Chuck Heston rides down the beach only to find something that would have explained EVERYTHING to him if only he’d seen it sooner?
My ruined statue of liberty awaited me at the end of aisle two:

 “MOST”

copyright,  © 2009 Paul Silva