Franzonomics

I like to go to dollar stores every now and then just to check out what's in there. I don't like the thought of dropping 11 dollars on olive oil when there could be a Dollar Tree somewhere distributing the same bottle, and I grossly overpay just because I didn't know or didn't remember. I like to know what's what. So a periodic revisit is the only way I can stay on top of the value of the American dollar. It's kind of like how my basis of U.S. capital knowledge relies so heavily on how frequently my friends and I quiz each other about them. Which usually relies solely on how frequently we take long hikes with nothing to talk about. Which is why hikers always win final Jeopardy. Always. And why I can never remember the capital of North Dakota in February.

So yesterday I'm taking inventory at Dollar Tree: great kitchen supplies, sub-par wrapping paper, mystery paper-grab bags that still call to me like the sirens of Titan, etc., and I don't see anything I need more than I want to wait in a line with no conveyor belt, so I leave and go to a real store.

At the real store, I fall right into the dollar-goggle trap and can't shed the idea that everything for sale is a dollar. Product quality goes up; price mentality remains at Washington. Wait a second. The only thing that saved me from buying everything in sight was being so stoked to have solved the economic crisis in a mere Monday evening. I checked my Supermarket Sweep mentality and came up with this equation: more dollar-store exposure = more real-store purchases = better economy. Dollar stores on every street corner! I call it the Dollar Tree stimulus package. I'm working on the name.