[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: A Wizarding 99cent /s/u/p/e/r/store? Help!

[Jen Faulkner]

On Sun, 10 Jun 2001, Rita Winston wrote:

> > Not so much a superstore (and we do have that sort of thing here),
> > but, in London, we have a lot of small shops that sell "Everything
> > under a pound" or "Everything for 50p".     They stock the sort of
> > thing I imagine Wal-mart might stock: a mixture of tea-towels, huge
> > packs of plastic pegs, hideous china ornaments, cheap nail polish,
> 
> Here those are called 99cent stores. People who shop in them aren't
> ashamed to be seen there, being proud either of their frugality or
> their funkiness. 

Oh indeed, though 'round here they're called 'dollar stores', usually,
and they are quite the height (or depths) of funkiness.  There's a
certain note of pride in saying that you bought something there.  
F'rinstance, for the Classics department at Rutgers, we had occassion
twice a year to hold picnics, and what's a picnic without games and
prizes, right?  So off to the dollar store we'd go, and the dep't now
has a great collection of toys, such as a plastic bow and arrow set, a
'discus' (a yellow frisbee with a lovely pic of Hercules and Xena we
glued in the middle)...  and the great prizes we had! -- plastic ponies
(for the winners of 'pin the tail on the October horse'), little vases
(vaguely Greek looking)...  I think we'd spend about an hour in there
every time we would go, just looking at stuff.  And yes, we would tell
anyone who would listen about where they came from. :)

*grins* Some of my kitchen utensils and such even come from the dollar
store (I got several very nice OXO Good Grips things), and, oh, sets of
window clings (important for dorm decorating), and so on.  The one thing
I refuse to buy at a dollar store is food; I did know people in college
who would, and that's just, well, icky.

It's got the mystique of great bargain hunting...  Target (though not
K-Mart, or Wal-Mart, or any of the others) has that sense of funkiness
too.  

--jen :)

"Will you be the one I've wanted, will you read my mind?
Will you ask me where I hurt, and heal me with your eyes?"
			--melissa ferrick

jen's fics: http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~jfaulkne/
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