For the Love of the Stockings

I should have gone with the cheap, ugly Christmas stockings the first time. But after visiting 4 area Target stores searching unsuccessfully for the perfect family set of red velour, monogrammed, tassled stockings, I find myself back at the same dollar store in the hood where the whole fiasco began..holding the same 4 cheap, ugly stockings I debated over for an hour last week.

I should have known from last week's experience at that very same dollar store that perhaps I shouldn't go back. But the stockings were calling me. As irony would have it, the same gentleman who, just last week, educated me on the benefits of Durham County's mandated drug rehabilitation program, was there, once again, to greet me. Fortunately, he remembered me, or more specifically, my son, with a, "Hey, dey go dat cute lil baby again. How you doin' cute lil baby?" Clearly, the Dollar General on Miami Blvd. is a great place to meet folks and make friends!!

I should have gone straight for the stockings and made my way quickly out of Dodge, but nooooo. The dollar store gets new stock every Tuesday, so quite obviously I had to make my rounds to see what was fresh and exciting. At every turn, there was our local Tyrone Biggums, popping out from behind the large yellow M&M display or peeking at us from behind the tinsel adorned column next to the stack of filthy shopping baskets. Perhaps he thought he was playing peek-a-boo with the baby, still too innocent to know that the white on his lips did not come from a love of powdered donuts.

I try not to seem irritated, because a Brooklyn rearing taught me to be nicest to the most unsavory people...it minimizes the possibility of being stabbed, shot, mauled or maimed. Tyrone wasn't dangerous, I don't think, and now that I am home safely, it's kind of amusing, I suppose.

I don't think I'll stop going to the dollar store in the hood. It really is the best dollar store around town and so it's well worth the risk. I just know that the next time I go, I'll keep my eyes open, leave my children at home, and wear my bulletproof vest.

Oh...and...you'll be delighted AND relieved to know...I decorated the ugly $1 stockings with some $3 initial pins from Target, and voila...same effect as the $13 stockings from Target...and at a $40 savings!! I love a bargain...see...definitely worth a trip to the hood dollar store!