I almost went ghetto in the ghetto store

Funny thing happened to me last Friday night-

I stopped into Dollar Tree to pickup a few things. There's actually some stuff there that makes it worth going in; like cheap paper plates, cups and the really cute headband I got.

Anyway, they had a few large signs on their windows that said "Christmas 50% off". I doubted they would have anything left, but decided to look. Over against a wall on the bottom shelf were some pre-decorated gift boxes, packaged in red cardboard displays. At 50 cents each I figured "why not?" and picked three up. I chose a red, green and gold.

With all my items in hand I went to the cashier. She rang the boxes up last and I noticed that they rang up at regular price. I asked "Isn't the Christmas stuff half off?" She was very polite and called for the manager. The manager said "Oh, those aren't Christmas. We sell those year round. All the Christmas stuff is gone."

For proof that clearly she was wrong, I present a photo of one of the boxes:

That's right, this shiny red box with a green glitter lid is NOT for Christmas. This is in fact a color scheme that people choose for their gift concealment all year long. Yeah, right.

I was quite bewildered at her statement. But I said "Well then I don't want them then. Because those are clearly Christmas boxes." Then the manager told the cashier that since she would have to void more than 2 items she would have to re-ring the entire transaction. As I noticed a long line of people behind me giving angry stares of impatience (especially the man right behind me with only one item) and since as usual only one register was open even though there were 2 other employees in the store, I told her to just void two of them then and I would take one at regular price in order not to hold up the line. So now I'm the owner of the shiny all-season gift box above.

I still snicker a little thinking about it. I was self-controlled enough not to say "If there's no Christmas items left than maybe you need to take your sign down." Or "Are you blind?" And nice enough not to make them re-do the whole transaction. And nice enough not to question why when I buy 10 of the same item they can't just scan one and enter a quantity of 10 rather than scanning each one.

So next time you see a shiny red box with a green glitter lid- I want you to think "This would make a great container for my Mother's Day gift." :)