Good morning, friends. I came here today to talk to you about a serious matter that affects each and every one of us.

Unfortunately, I took a little break first to make a quick trip to the Dollar Store while mulling it over. Three hours and nine plastic bags later, I’m back at home, completely out of money and if I had a swell idea for a newspaper column, I must have left it in the aisle where you can buy two cans of either Vienna sausage or potted meat. I’m not really clear on what the hell potted meat is, but for a buck? I’m buying it.

The point is, I forgot my original idea, so forget it. I’m going to write about the Dollar Store. And the first rule of the Dollar Store is that the real ones charge one single U.S. dollar for everything on their shelves. If you wander in there someday and see a 30-foot sailboat sitting among the knock-off lighters and cheap spectacles, brother, that sweet boat is yours for one stinking bone. It’s practically a law!

Now, we all know fraudulent establishments are passing themselves off as dollar stores when, in fact, several items upon their shelves are being sold for $3, $5, even $10. These are not dollar stores. These are criminal outfits no better than big-city pickpockets, when you get right down to it.

I think we all have had the sad experience of walking into such a store, spotting a fine T-shirt or Nerf football and believing we can have it for one measly dollar. Does anything compare to the heartbreak of discovering that a coveted Nerf football is actually priced much higher than originally believed? OK, maybe going bald or watching your beloved dog run in front of a train compares, but still, it’s high on the list.

Henceforth, we shall not talk about those cruel faux dollar stores at all. They are dead to us. We spit upon them. Let’s all take a few seconds to spit together in a show of solidarity.

Good. Now wipe off your chin.

But back to the real dollar stores, those places you go to “just pick up one simple item” and then get out. I have news for you, chump. Every single person you see inside a dollar store, including the sweaty woman pushing three carts heaped high with $1 loot, went into the store for “just one item.”

For me, it’s usually either a gift bag or a couple bottles of LA Totally Awesome All-Purpose Cleaner, which I use to scrub my motorcycle and, occasionally, my feet. As I’m walking into the store, my thoughts are perfectly clear. I only need to get those specific items. Get in, get out, get on with your life.

Then I’m inside the store, feeling that powerfully strange sensation that is equal parts shame and utter glee. Before I’ve taken a full three steps, I’ve spotted at least half a dozen items that I didn’t need six seconds ago, but which I BADLY need now. A coffee mug the size of a burial urn? For a buck? Are you kidding me?

A taco stand that holds, not four tacos or six, but eight tacos? For a buck? Are you kidding me?

A three-pack of tube socks? The kind that go all the way up to your knees and which have red, white and blue stripes just like you used to wear in junior high gym class? For a buck?

OMG! The Dollar Store now has a practical joke section, with fake dog poop and hand buzzers and all that good stuff. Are you telling me I can spread disgust and delight for a single dollar crumpled up in the very bottom of my pocket? OMG, OMG, OMG!

The next time you’re in the Dollar Store (don’t you need a taco stand?) take a look at where they keep the bottles of LA’s Totally Awesome All-Purpose Cleaner. That’s right, it’s in the very back of the store, which means to get to them, I have to walk past an estimated one trillion items, each of which can be had for — say it with me — one measly buck!

These items seem to speak to me as I pass. Come on, friend. You need me. You’ve always needed me and look here. I only cost a dollar!

One time, an item actually did speak to me — it was a candle in the shape of a clown face — but that turned out to be a medication issue. I’m all better now.

Most of us know that some of the things you buy at the Dollar Store are going to disintegrate inside of a week, which is why you never EVER buy Dollar Store underwear. Likewise, you don’t want to go up against a grizzly bear with the survival knife you bought for a dollar, although spraying the bear in the eyes with LA’s Totally Awesome All-Purpose Cleaner might get you through.

But the potted meat? The almost-Dorito-like tortilla chips? Those plastic things that cover your leftovers with shower-cap elastic technology? Those things will make you feel like a rich man even though you spent only a few hundred pennies for all of it.

And the friendships you make inside the Dollar Store, those will last a lifetime. It typically goes like this.

“Gosh. I only came in here for one item.”

“Ha ha! Me, too. And now I have a full shopping cart!”

“Ha ha! Do you want to get a motel room?”

And with that romantic scene out of the way, I’m off for a hearty dinner of potted meat.

Whatever THAT is.

Mark LaFlamme is a Sun Journal staff writer. Dollar Store bargain-hunters (potted meat, yum!) can email him at mlaflamme@sunjournal.com.

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