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Snickers Peanut Butter Eggs!
LET’S cut to the chase here, folks! It’s late! Neither of us has time for any dilly-dallying today!
Snickers Peanut Butter Eggs are what’s bueno at the 99¢ Only Store this week!
Yes, they’re Easter-themed, but you don’t have to be a good, God-fearing Christian like me to enjoy a Snickers Peanut Butter egg. The delight your tastebuds will experience is purely non-non-secular, so even if your unfortunate choice of religion has doomed you to an eternity of damnation in the fiery pits of hell, you can enjoy a Snickers Peanut Butter Egg now, here on earth. In fact, you’d probably better enjoy them now – that chocolate doesn’t do to well in environments over about 82 degrees.
Like the rest of my, what?, six regulars, you come to this website for the nudity. You’ve waited long enough. Here you go:
Oh my God, it looks good enough to eat – which is just what I did: I ate it right up! Just as quick as you please!
Our panel nominated Snickers Peanut Butter Egg as this week’s What’s Bueno At The 99¢ Only Store item based on two specific, whaddayacall, criteriums:
1.) Taste: They taste really good!
2.) Price: The 99¢ Only Store is selling them for three for 99¢! You can’t beat that price, I guarantee it! Those crooks at Walgreens, for instance, demand an astronomical 59¢ for just one of these! And my attorney would like me to note, by the way, that Walgreens does not employ crooks! Good people there at Walgreens!Anyway, if you really want to make an impression on a loved one, or a loved blogger (hint hint!), pass on the jelly beans, forget those disgusting Peeps – just fill up an Easter basket with thirty of these babies!
You can’t go wrong and you’re out less than lousy ten bucks because, to reiterate, Snickers Peanut Butter Eggs are flying out the door at the 99¢ Only Store for three for 99¢!
And that’s the before-Easter price!
So can you imagine what they’ll be letting these things go for once Easter is over?!
Oh, you bet I’ll be camping out in front of the store Sunday night to be first in line Monday morning and scoop up all the leftovers at post-Easter further ridiculously discounted prices!
I just hope that unlike that famous mishap with Jesus’ tomb, the Snickers Peanut Butter Eggs boxes are not empty.
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Easter Grass at Goodwill: Buy. Or Buy Not. There Is No Save.
AS YOU KNOW, the Easter Jedi will soon be here, and good little boys and girls their Easter baskets give them he will, mm!
But you already blew $10 at Target for the sacrilegious and ridiculous – or as I say, sacridiculous – plush Yoda basket; you’re going to want to save some money on the grass to put inside it! But where to go? Sure, you can continue with the theme and get swamp grass for free on Dagobah but who wants to drive that far?
Solution: Goodwill! Or as Yoda would say, Willgood! Mm!
Why, here’s a bag of Easter grass that I found at my local Goodwill thrift store and it’s just what you’ve been looking for! And you know you’re saving money buying it at Goodwill! Right? …Right?!
::cough cough:: Um…close-up please.
Holy Christ! And I do mean that, here, in an Easter-themed blog entry more than ever! A buck ninety-nine?! For a dingy old bag of Easter grass that someone donated?!
Look, I hate having to be the one who points this stuff out. It pains me, really. You know me, I love Goodwill. So it just kills me to have to point this stuff out.
Anyway! The other close-up now, Professor, if you would:
Hoo boy. As you can plainly see, this Easter grass originally retailed for 33¢. Thirty-three cents. But Goodwill, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to charge us SIX TIMES that amount. Hell, for that price, you better be able to smoke it.
By the way, my attorney cautions me to remind you to please not smoke plastic Easter grass.
However, the good thing about the particular Goodwill where I found this is that it just happens to be directly next door to one of my other favorite retailers – yes! – the 99¢ Only Store.
Just hop your way down the seasonal aisle and what do you find?
Friend, I suggest you buy your Easter grass here.
But don’t feel bad that Goodwill isn’t getting your business on this one! Because right now, at the beginning of April, they’re your one-stop shop for everything you need for that other upcoming Christian holiday!
Only 266 days shopping days left, folks!
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What’s Bueno? Honey Maid Low Fat Cinnamon Grahams!
SAY! I wandered into the ol’ 99¢ Only Store the other day and guess what I ran into! Guess!
No! Wrong!
I ran into a great big display, an endcap, to use retail parlance, of Nabisco Honey Maid Grahams! Banged my ankle up pretty bad, too! I plan on suing the store! What are they doing putting an enormous endcap where I’m liable to run into it?! No, I’m joking. I’ll find something else to sue them about.
Anyway, back to the grahams! You’re already pooh-poohing these things because they’re low fat.
Yes, they’re “low fat,” but let’s face it, Tubby, you could stand to lose a few! And here I elbow you good-naturedly in the gut!
First of all, your regular Honey Maid cinnamon grahams aren’t exactly oozing with fat to begin with! 5% is all! The low-fat ones? 3%! Christ, why even bother, right? But with so little fat (and no saturated fat in these babies!) Honey Maid Low Fat Cinnamon Grahams are a food you can feel good about eating! Or, if you’re Alicia Silverstone, a food you can feel good about chewing, and your baby can feel good about eating!
Regardless, these are the good type of graham crackers! With the cinnamon and the sugar besprinkled atop each one, giving it a good, textured tooth as we say in the graham cracker game! Oh, don’t worry, pal – these aren’t those grahamscaped, metrosnackual, smooth-topped graham crackers! These are your hardy 45-grit graham crackers! (The lower the number, the coarser the grit! But you’d know that if you hadn’t cut class so much in eighth grade when budget cuts forced Central Junior High to combine Woodshop and Home Ec!)
What’s even more amazing than the fact that you get 14.4 ounces of these things for a buck is that these Nabisco Honey Maid Low Fat Cinnamon Grahams are not only
but, in a rare instance of reaching across the aisle, of putting aside their differences for the greater good, they’re also
And with all the hostility among the major players in today’s dollar store landscape, you’ll agree this is a breath of fresh air. (Or, if you’re Alicia Silverstone’s child, a mouthful of chewed-up graham cracker paste.)
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Peanuts! I Don’t Remember Eating Peanuts!
AS REGULAR READERS OF THIS BLOG KNOW, I went to the 99¢ Only Store today.
And while there, something struck me, and not some obnoxious and pushy ethnic woman with her cart into my ankle – despite the fact that I was in that one on Ventura in Woodland Hills. Mm-hm. Yeah, I don’t need to say any more, do I? You know exactly what I’m talking about. ::cough cough…Slovaks…cough cough::
No, what struck me was this:
Well, that’s not to say a box of these struck me, thrown from some unseen hand, as though that particular 99¢ Only Store is infested with poltergeists. That’s not what I’m saying at all.
But that would be kind of neat if that were the case. It might keep some of those afore-hinted-at ladies in line, if you know what I mean, and by Godfrey, I think you do. Those people are probably very superstitious. I’m sure they’ve got some quaint name that covers all unexplained phenomena. It’s likely, in their typically backwards fashion, they ascribe everything they can’t explain to some sort of mischievous witch or imp or something. From their rich ethnic folklore. Probably.
Above: Oh-oh, vooden spoon gone missink? Probably ol’ Spovienka Bosorka usink eet for to feeds her skriatoks.
No, friend, what hit me was the thought that here, today, in 2012, we have a non-peanut food labeled “PEANUTS” in a very much post-Peanuts comic strip era.
At what point does this get confusing to consumers? If it hasn’t already…?
The box reads “PEANUTS” in big capital letters (in that same hideous typeface they’ve used for the Sunday strip since 1987) and below that, it reads “FRUIT FLAVORED SNACKS.”
“Peanut fruit-flavored snacks? Snacks flavored like fruit but are made from peanuts? What the hell?!”
You know that there are people today who are thinking this, because let’s face it, for about the last twenty years, Schulz’s characters haven’t exactly been in the public eye as they’d once been – like they were when you and me, pal, when we were growing up.
Sure, comics pages carry “Classic Peanuts” now. (A move you’ll recall I predicted even before Schulz passed away; that is, you’d recall that if I’d had a blog then. Because I knew they were going to do that.) But younger generations don’t know these characters as “Peanuts.” If they have any frame of reference for these characters at all, they know the dog from the Met-Life commercials and, if they live in Southern California, from Knott’s Berry Farm.
So perhaps they do know Snoopy. Maybe they recognize Charlie Brown by name. Possibly – possibly! – they could pick Lucy out of a lineup. But I bet most people under the age of twenty-five don’t know these characters – Snoopy, Woodstock, Chuck, Linus, Lucy, Schroeder, Peppermint Patty, Marcie, Frieda, (non-Peppermint) Patty, Violet, (non-Fred Berry) Rerun, Shermy, ’5,’ Franklin, “Shut Up and Leave Me Alone” guy, Spike, Miss Othmar, Roy, Joe Schlabotnik, Miss Helen Sweetstory, Archie, Veronica, Jughead, Ida Know, Mr. Wilson, and all the rest – as “Peanuts.”
Schulz reportedly loathed the name “Peanuts” that the syndicate titled his strip. He’d hate it even more now, brother, knowing that its use is further devaluing his once vast licensing empire. So labeling a food product like this as “Peanuts Fruit Snacks” (and not something obvious, like, gee, I dunno, “Snoopy Fruit Snacks”) is confusing and makes less and less sense as the property becomes decreasingly relevant.
Unless these were boxes of peanuts. But they’re not, folks. They’re not.
So who can really blame the ghost of ol’ Sparky for angrily tossing boxes of fruit snacks at the horrid peasant women who shop there? I for one applaud him, and who knows, I might even try to nail one of those hags myself with a box next time I’m at the store.
I think we can all safely presume that as each box hits its mark and bounces off, said target will look surprised, arms back, elbows up, tongue sticking out, and above her head will be a squiggly line with a star at one end of it.
And briefly materializing in the ether, a single onomatopoetic sound effect.
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What’s Bueno At The 99¢ Only Store: Toshica’s Finest Jumbo Braid!
I DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU, but in this economy, I just can’t pay crazy salon prices for my synthetic jumbo braids anymore.
That’s why I was thrilled when at the 99¢ Only store the other day, I happened upon these:
Now, I know what you’re saying. “Ted,” you’re saying, “I ain’t buying no dollar store ba-raid! No sir! Mmn-mn!”
Look, I felt the same way – at first.
But what if these braids were sixty inches long and not “puffed up” to give the appearance of more braid to the package? What if they were soft, silky and shiny? What would you say then?
Still not convinced? Well, then what would you say if I told you you’re getting 22% more braid – for free? Oh, sure, you’re paying for 2-1/4 ounces of 100% Super Synthetic jumbo braid, but for you, today, you’re getting 2-3/4 ounces of 100% Super Synthetic jumbo braid.
You’d call me a filthy liar – and brother, I wouldn’t blame you. So that’s why I made sure to get photographic proof:
So, yes, friends, the choice is clear!
Toshica’s Finest jumbo braids are…
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Thank God For Focus Groups! Part II!
Otherwise, Sunflower Farms might have gone with an unappetizing name for their pasteurized process.
“Their pasteurized process what?” you ask demandingly.
That’s it. Their pasteurized process. They probably can’t legally call this stuff “cheese.”
Speaking of cheese-like substances, I had jack chunks once.
But a penicillin shot at the free clinic took care of that.
Well, there go another eight people who’ll never visit this site again.
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No Wonder This Stuff Ended Up At The 99¢ Only Store!
OH, big surprise this stuff bombed. Big surprise! I mean, there’s nothing new here! Jell-O’s always made color-changing instant pudding.
Of course, in the past, you had to digest it first.
Though I suppose the change in hue is more evident with some varieties than others.
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What’s Bueno At The 99¢ Only Store: Old El Paso Tortilla Stuffers!
HERE’S a little something you’d turn your nose up in the regular grocery store – and by Godfrey, you’d be right to do so:
But for some reason, when these things show up at the 99¢ Only Store, brother, you and I, we can’t get enough of ’em!
And here’s why: They’re 99¢! Only!
You know what these things go for in a real grocery story? Well, I’ll tell you– No, no, wait! I’ll do better – I’ll show you:
Holy crap! Two for six dollars, and that’s on sale! What kind of idiot pays $3 a piece for these? I guess the kind of idiot who’s slightly smarter than some moron who pays full price for them when they’re not on sale!
No, you and I, pal, we’d never pay that price for these things; why, we don’t even know what the hell they are. But suddenly, for 99¢ (only), they’ve piqued our interest.
So I bought one, and Christ almighty, these Old El Paso Tortilla Stuffers Meal Starters, why, they’re not bad! To paraphrase a wise man, I don’t know why they call this stuff a “meal starter.” It does just fine by itself.
I mean, it includes meat – says so right on the package. Hell, they’ve even underlined it, they’re so confident of its meat content. And easy…? Brother, you know it. Simply squeeze the packet to break up any lumps like you’re massaging the blood clots out of your thigh after a nine-hour flight, tear open a corner, stand it up in the ol’ microwave, set it on high for sixty seconds and a minute later, why, mister, you’ve got yourself a meal!
I guess technically, you could actually put this delicious concoction in a tortilla as the package directs you to, but if you’re like me, you don’t play by the rules. You like to experiment, and I don’t mean the way you did with your dorm roommate the year you went to Reed before dropping out. No, I mean you like to develop your own recipes, which is exactly what I did here.
I started with a bed of Granny Goose tortilla chips (99¢ Only Store!), then emptied the contents of the Tortilla Stuffers packet on top and distributed it evenly, as though I was spreading cow manure on the front lawn. To this I added a liberal dousing of 99¢ Only-store purchased Louisiana Gem Jalapeno Pepper Sauce. (Not a typo! There’s no tilde over the ’n’ on the bottle – oh, I sent them an email.) And then on top of this I added some jalapeño slices – also from the good folks at Old El Paso and bought in jar form at, yes!, the 99¢ Only store.
The result? Nachos Del Parsnips™. A delight for the taste buds.
Also available at the 99¢ Only Store and also an official Ted Parsnips What’s Bueno At The 99¢ Only Store selection, Old El Paso Tortilla Stuffers Garlic Chili Chicken variety.
You can make Nachos Del Parsnips with the chicken version too, only with this stuff, you’ll want to spread it over the chips like you’re spreading chicken manure over your garden, rather than cow manure over your lawn.
Oh, I’m sorry, have I offended your tender sensibilities? Have I ruined Old El Paso Tortilla Stuffers for you permanently with my colorful turns of phrase?
Good. More for me.
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Delightfully Anachronistic Package Design: Sesame Crunch!
AS YOU KNOW, there’s something about anachronistic package design that sets my heart racing.
It’s the idea that here is a product, usually food and often (but not always) sold at the 99¢ Only Store, that seems to be saying proudly, “I had my last packaging update prior to the Carter administration (or maybe much earlier) – and you’ve found me. So treasure me, do, because for all either of us know, right now, at this very moment, the manufacturers who made me could be contemplating updating my package so I look ’contemporary’ (whatever that means!) as though somehow my current typeface and color scheme and design hasn’t served me well for forty, forty-five years. But for now, friend, you’ve found me, and I’m all yours.”
…That’s what America means to me.
–Oh, no, wait. That’s what the product, whatever it happens to be that week, seems to be saying to me.
Anyway, here’s this week’s product with delightfully anachronistic package design:
Why, it’s Sesame Crunch!
And despite its name, and despite that it hails from New York City, no, it is not affiliated with the Children’s Television Workshop. (Don’t feel bad – I thought so, too!)
What’s even cooler than their gloriously early 70s brown and orange color scheme, their little beturbaned mascot (surely soon be a victim of idiotic political correctness at the hands of the evil, anti-American, terrorist-funding organization CAIR – the Committee for Advertising Icon Repeal) or those big, groovy letters spelling out “Sesame,” is the fact that I’ve finally found someone who has a website less interesting than mine! And yet they probably get more hits than I do.
I’m kidding; I’m kidding. It’s the best website in the whole wide world.
Oh, as to the product itself? You’re not going to find a more delicious sesame seed candy bar out there anywhere, I don’t care how hard you look – I guarantee it!
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What’s Bueno at the 99¢ Only Store: Shasta Diet Grapefruit Soda!
LIKE YOU I’m a big fan of Fresca. Have been since I was a little boy, sure.
Here’s some Fresca Fun Facts you might not know:
• According to Wikipedia, “according to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, Fresca was the favorite drink of President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had a button installed on the desk on his Oval Office desk which would summon his military aide to bring the drink.”
• It used to irritate Ladybird Johnson to no end when Lyndon would toss his empty Fresca cans out the window of the presidential motorcade especially because she was knocking herself out doing that whole “Beautify America” campaign.
…Actually, I made up that second Fresca Fun Fact, because as it turns out – and I had no way of knowing this when I started this blog post – I could only come up with one real Fresca Fun Fact.
Anyway, I was very happy a few years ago when they brought back Fresca – even more so than when I found out they brought back Steak-Umms.
Technically, neither product ever went away, I just didn’t see them for years. But for our purposes here, let’s just say they brought back Fresca. (I think they’ve always made Boo Berry cereal, too, but did anyone actually see it in a store from about 1978 to maybe 1997? No. I rest my case.)
So recently I started re-drinking Fresca, and it brought me back to my boyhood years, when I used to drink the stuff, oh my, by the canful and then throw my empties out the back window of the family station wagon as we’d head down the Interstate on family vacations.
“Give Ladybird something to do,” I used to laugh to myself, imagining our First Lady at the side of the highway wielding a stick with a nail at the end of it, spearing cans and putting them in a burlap sack slung over her shoulder like someone sentenced to 120 hours of community service, all of this despite the fact that I was probably born after Johnson had left office, I think. (How the hell would I know – who do I look like, Doris Kearns Goodwin?)
Okay, at this point, I don’t know where I was going with any of—
Oh!
So Fresca’s good, sure, but I’m telling you, this stuff…?
Diet Shasta Grapefruit…? It’s like ten times better!
I like Fresca, sure, but it’s a little too goddamn sweet. The weird thing about Fresca is that it’s a “diet” soda, but it doesn’t make a point of telling you that on the front of the can. I guess you’re just supposed to know.
Shasta, however, makes regular grapefruit soda and diet grapefruit soda, and this diet stuff, I’m telling you, it kicks Fresca’s ass. And I don’t mention this lightly: I’m a big fan of Fresca – you know this!
Oh! I’ve come up with another Fresca Fun Fact:
• The only place I’ve ever seen Fresca on tap is at California Chicken Café in Woodland Hills. Every time I’m there, I get it, because how often do you see Fresca on tap, right?
Anyway, they sell this Shasta crap at the 99¢ Only store, so I guess that makes this this week’s What’s Bueno at the 99¢ Only Store? entry. You should pick up a four-pack! (It’s the 99¢ Only Store. They sell them in four-packs. For 79¢. Don’t try to make sense of it – it’s the 99¢ Only Store, for God’s sake.)
Tell ’em Ladybird sent you! Or Lyndon; I guess that would make slightly more sense.
No! Wait, wait, wait! Tell ’em Doris Kearns Goodwin sent you! That’ll liven things up!
Ted Parsnips
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