Brought to you by Reena’s Xploration Challenge #294

• The dividing line
• Threshold
• Twilight Zone

As many of you know I work in a Dollar Store. Well, actually that isn’t quite right anymore since our base price is now $1.25. This brings me to the first Stupid Question of the day. When is the Dollar Tree going to change its name to the Dollar And A Quarter Tree? Well, I don’t know I answer. You still spend dollars here right? I call this question the dividing line because I can still get people to wrap their heads around the concept that inflation doesn’t equate to changing a thirty-year-old name of a business, afterall it would take so many lawyers and dollars to change all of the ownership papers, stock documents not to mention we might never get paid again.

Now this next question has met my threshold for the stupidity question of the day. When are they going to change the name of the store to More Than A Dollar Tree? It is at this point that I smile with gritted teeth and as nicely as I can explain the same concept as above and then deal with the indignant response that the name of the company is promoting false advertising. I then smile, hand them their change, and wish them a good day.

But, then sure as it’s almost closing I arrive at the Twilight Zone. In walks, a guy who is about 75 and he starts complaining about the fact that you can’t get anything for a dollar anymore. Now, this gentleman shops at my store every night between 8:30 and closing and he goes through the same routine. One item totaling 1.33 because of the tax, wants his receipt, no bag and he rings the bell on the counter announcing he can’t just spend a dollar anymore.

All of a sudden, you got it, the music starts…

At this point, I asked him when he ever spend just a dollar at the Dollar Tree. He says before they raised the price. I look him square in the eye and tell him he never just spent a dollar since there has been a tax on that dollar for 30 years! At that, he looks at me as if I just solved the mystery of the universe.

In the meantime, every other person in the store is in hysterical laughter. One woman has tears streaming down her face. My fellow employees are hiding in the back because they are not sure if this is the day I will finally lose it screaming wildly as I walk out the door.

Yup, I work in the Twilight Zone.