Oh the things you find at Dollar Alley …

So there I was, stocking some paper towels, when an emboldened CAUTION caught my eye. I proceeded to read it (as all wise dollar store cashiers do), and was quite surprised by what I found. Here is what it said:

        CAUTION: Paper products can burn if improperly used in microwave ovens. In 
        case of fire, turn microwave oven off and leave door closed. Always follow the guidelines 
        and precautions in your microwave oven owner’s manual.

Random Saying of the Day
    Do you have anything like powder here that you spread on the ground to make it smell nicer?

We sell many picture frames and picture holders at Dollar Alley, including a red hat photo holder. Ironically, it is typed on the box: Photo Not Included.

A Jordan Story
  Once again, there were skateboarders causing mass chaos outside on the sidewalk: disrupting customers, stopping traffic, and risking their lives. [Not that all skateboarders are bad - some of them just need to learn respect.] Well, Jordan decided to do something about it. Taking a fly swatter in hand, he went outside and talked to the skateboarders while waving the fly swatter. Wham!! With a flick of his wrist, the skateboarders disappeared. The End.
[Disclaimer: Story may be slightly fiction-ized.]

A Kayla Story
 We happen to sell Julie feminine products at the store. Ironically, a woman with the same name came into the store and saw them. She showed them to Kayla, explaining how these items bore her name, except they had spelled it wrong (from which she proceeded to say how she spelled hers).
 The sad part of the story is, Kim and I have both had this happen in the past. Is it the same person? Or three different people? Or rather three different personalities???

There is something I have had my eye on for a long time at Dollar Alley. It’s called Sparkling Color Dough – basically, a knock-off of Play Doh. On Friday, Jordan bought some for a project. I was ecstatic!! He let me open it and touch it (as that was all I really wanted to do). After much thought and pondering, I have determined that Sparkling Color Dough is better than Play Doh!
   – It feels much better. Instead of an almost greasy feeling, it is like you’re playing with cookie dough (only without the chocolate chips and random chunks).
   – It smells better. Once again, artificial loses. Play Doh always smells, well, like Play Doh. In fact, certain colors have certain smells associated with it because of the certain ingredients used. However, Sparkling Color Dough has a natural smell; it smells like dough, of course.
    – And of course, there’s less artificial coloring!!
    – Bonus: There is a strange bear/bunny mascot. (It’s somewhat of a mixture of the two.)

The Why Factor

As a Dollar Alley employee, I get a lot of why’s: why is this only in blue, why is this polka dot, why do the toys have Chinese on them, why can’t I find a penny, and many more. However, now is the time for me to answer some questions of life that demand an answer.

Why Does Paper Beat Rock, in Rock-Paper-Scissors?
   I have often heard the argument that it is dumb that paper beats rock, because it simply covers rock, and does not destroy it as scissors does to paper, and rock does to scissors. However, I am here to tell you that paper is powerful enough to destroy rock – and morph it into something else. Let me explain.
     There I was, on a Thursday night, changing up the other half of the medicine aisle for Christmas. I had made sure to add bows, tissue paper, and tape. And then I decided to add some name tags. It was going well. We had two different kinds of nametags: a pack of 60 very decorative ones, and a pack of 143: made of three single sheets. I started stocking these 143 packs on a hook, and it was going excellent – at the rate I was going, I was hoping to put all of them out within 15 minutes.
       I had four packs left, and as I went to hang them up, the unexpected happened. I reached for the hook, and suddenly the packs were flying down toward me as fast as they could. Piling on top of me, the shelf, and the floor, the gift tag sheets attacked anything around. You should’ve seen the hook. Instead of a normal horizontal hook, the hook was bent downward at a 75 degree angle. Yes, you read that right. Paper bends metal.
        To finish this story off, I spent another 15 minutes rearranging the gift tags so they didn’t attack random customers. So yes, paper beats rock.

Why Fantastic is Fantastic
         Have you ever heard of Fantastic? The cleaning agent? Well, I’ve always doubted the name – after all fantastic is pretty incredible. (and of course, by that I mean the actual meaning of the words, not just the regular usage teenagers seem to find today) So Friday night, I put Fantastic to the test.
         Last year, I thought of this great idea about counting down the days til Christmas and putting it where customers can see it. “47 days til Christmas” is a sign that really spurs people to get their Christmas shopping done. (And I know it works – it makes me shop earlier.) So, this year, Kim made sure to pull out the memo board for me to start the countdown. It was excellent – I grabbed the calendar, counted backwards til I got to the correct date of the day, then grabbed the blue marker and wrote the correct number on the board. It looked great.
           The next day I came in, and noticed that the number hadn’t changed. It had appeared to be a busy day, so I took it upon myself to change the number. Kim and Dave had just left and Kayla was helping out a customer, so I grabbed a tissue to erase the number 9 – except there was one problem. The 9 didn’t erase. A bit concerned, I began trying to erase anything, anything at all. That was when Kayla and I discovered that the permanent markers and the dry erase markers look very, very similar.
            So I put Fantastic to the test, and sure enough, all the permanent marker came off the dry erase board. It was quite fantastic (literal and non-literal meaning) that it did that; although I believe it was more fantastic (literal meaning) that I would write on a dry erase board with permanent marker.

Why Don’t You Put Some Strange Customer Lines on Here
         Alright, alright, here you go.
         “Do the strings come with the balloons?”
         “Will three go well with each? Ok, good, then I want three of each color I just picked out.”
         *on the phone* “Ok, Love, Faith, and Diva can say their presentations first … oh they’ll be fine.”
          “We’re going over to Food Lion after this (aka Giant).”
         “Hello, ladies. Well, young ladies. I need some balloons. Um those four look good, and I want a dozen more. Yeah, uh, just do whatever you think.” (this comes quite often)
           “Here’s some two-dollar bills; for some reason I got 20 of them in change. The pizza guy thought it was funny too.”

Why Murphy Is Reincarnated
         I don’t believe in reincarnation, but I do believe in dramatic change. The truth of the matter is, the regsiter in Murphy’s old place is beginning to show Murphy-isms. Random beeping when you’re simply standing there with the drawer open, not ringing up the thing you could’ve swore you just rang up. And from what I’ve heard, he eats money too. I don’t know, Dave: I think you better watch out.

Dollar Store Friends

So I came in Saturday afternoon for my few hours of work, and was thus invited to wash the windows – the outside windows. And while this might sound strange in November, it was actually a pretty nice day outside, with the sun shining, a warm 72 degrees, no clouds in sight. Between getting rained on by my boss (who kept demanding I work faster and more quickly), and having almost everyone who owned a store on the Palomino strip (and a few random customers) ask if I would come down and do their windows, it was pretty crazy, but it looked very nice when it was done.

Of course, what would a Saturday be without balloon orders? We were running around getting those done, when Kim accidentally called Jordon ‘Gordon’. The name stuck. We even told his parents (who have apparently been calling him the wrong name for months), who joined us in calling him Gordon.

So yes. I went in the back to tear down boxes and slightly organize the Halloween boxes. Sure enough, our dumpster was full (although according to Dave, all I need to do was jump on it). So I decided to walk down to the community dumpster – which was also quite full, but not as full as our dumpster. I am almost done with all the boxes, when this Chinese guy approaches me and asks, “How much?” I realize he’s asking for the box, so I give it to him. After some broken conversation, I found that he worked at the Chinese place and he was moving. All I had to do was leave the boxes outside the back door, and let him know they were there, and that would be great. So, I did. Yet again, another random friend added to the random work friends.