A Dollar's Worth of Laughs

It is now a proven fact for me: if you want to laugh, just go to the Dollar Store. A few months ago I had a pretty crazy experience in one such store, and each time I go I seem to see, hear, or experience something new. And it's always good for a laugh.

This afternoon I took the kids on an errand to -- yes -- the Dollar Store. My main goal was to purchase hangers with clips on them, but since they only had regular (and therefore useless to me) hangers, I moved on to another aisle to pick up soap, candy corn (come on, it's October) and snack bags. When I was in the check-out aisle, an old-ish woman walked up behind me to get the attention of the check-out girl. She held up a particular item and said rather loudly:

"How much is this?"

I couldn't help myself -- really, I couldn't. I burst out laughing. Not only has practically everyone on the planet who owns a TV seen that commercial of the bored dollar store employee, repeatedly answering the same question of cost: "A DOLLAR." Here I was, on the afternoon of a not-so-very-good day, suffering from a horrible migraine-esque headache, dealing with an outrageously cranky son who's on the mend, and the two kids together who just refuse to get along (thereby adding to my headache), discovering there's some bizarre orange-powdery fungus covering our entire lawn (so the kids must stay indoors all day -- thereby adding to my headache) ... I never knew how much I needed that trap to the dollar store.

The check-out girl was very gracious and calmly answered the clueless woman: "A dollar." Then she looked at me and smiled, quietly laughing. I'm sure that wasn't the first time that's happened to her. I couldn't stop laughing.

I can't wait to go back.