¡¿What’s Bueno?! – Halloween 2014 Edition!

COVERING Halloween goodies from the 99¢ Only Store has become as much an October tradition here at the Parsnips household as sitting in the bushes on Halloween night itself with the  porch lights off; and whether I’m at the dollar store focusing my camera or in the privet aiming my garden hose, someone’s bound to call me a creep and notify the police. I don’t quite know where I was going with that, so let’s just get started!

Haunted House Napkins!
I like ’em. Neat vintage looking artwork, but since it’s intentional, they’re barred from the next installment of “Delightfully Anachronistic Package Design,” which, yes, horror of horrors, will eventually rear its head again. And a pack of 20 is just 99¢ only. Even if you’re not having a party, you’ll want them around for handing out your delicious homemade, unwrapped treats to little ghosts & goblins which parents will immediately throw out.

Incidentally, as you’ll see, that stylized haunted house napkin design is also the logo for all of the Halloween stuff at 99¢ Only this season.

Skull Napkins!
They’ve also got these Día de los Whosis skull napkins that are pretty snazzy, or, as they say in the particular culture that celebrates that cheap Halloween knockoff holiday (I believe it’s the Norwegians), “muy snazzio.” 

By the way, you’ll find a number of items in the 99¢ Only Store’s Halloween aisle which are not 99¢ only; instead ranging in price from $1.29 to $2.99. However, I refuse to recognize 99¢ Only store items above their trademark 99¢ only price point regardless of how bueno they seem to be. So you’re on your own for any of that; rest assured, everything denoted as bueno here is 99¢ only.

Cat Glasses!
Here’s some fun eyewear that challenges hipster girls to discard their retro 60s-or-earlier cat glasses for actual cat glasses; i.e., glasses made from real cats, or, if not that, made from plastic in China. (But it’s China, so there’s a good chance maybe at some point a stray cat fell into the vat of molten plastic in which case I’m vindicated for at least part of the previous sentence.) And just what happens when a hipster girl tosses aside her old cat glasses and puts on these new cat glasses? I believe she immediately incinerates in an intense and fiery flash of blinding white-hot irony.

Eh…is there a new word for “hipster”…? I feel like an old man here, all, what?, six of you quietly mocking me for using “hipster” like it was 2006 or something. But let’s face it, those cat glasses-wearing types still exist, so unless you have a better name for them and their bearded male counterparts, we’ll stick with “hipsters.” But we’ll try not to use it so much, hmm?

Brooms!
Though they consist of a plastic “wooden stick” and a bunch of plastic “straw” which is attached by a “cable tie” (also, yes, made of plastic!), I have to say, they look pretty good. They resemble a real witch’s broom, albeit a short one. (Still, they’re almost a full yard long!) And that tree branch handle is gnarled and crooked – a nice touch. Pretty good deal for a buck, if you ask me. And most importantly, such an accessory encourages and reinforces traditional Halloween costumes, which is something this country has, sadly, strayed away from in recent years, thank you liberal media!

Spider Webs!
These came in a one-web-per bag regular size and a multiple web-per-bag mini-size (seen above). Anyone who’s been to Casa Parsnips knows such decor would be wasted here – you wouldn’t be able to see ’em for all the real cobwebs covering every corner and the arachnids that are constantly climbing walls and/or dropping down from above. Still, these phony ones seem pretty neat. Looking at them up close (i.e., in person, not in the photo), one could see that these webs are actually machine-knit or weaved – that is, it’s not just wads of diaphanous cottony floss you just tear into thin wisps and string anywhere – presumably these things can be stretched out and give the appearance of actual spider webs. Presumably.

Gross Candy!
Well, these certainly aren’t my idea of What’s Bueno at the 99¢ Only Store, but I bet stupid kids just love ’em. Unfortunately, it’s also proof that year after year, the relentless zombie pop culture apocalypse continues to shuffle and shamble and literally drag on, with no end in sight. The 4.25 ounce brain candy is particularly disgusting, and looks potentially messy as well. Not shown: Candy blood bag, with sugary red corn syrup standing in for blood – that you just suck out of a tube. Look, ordinarily, I’m a big supporter of corn syrup – but as a nourishing ingredient in other fine foods – never on its own! You might as well be doing shots of pancake syrup like I do at IHOP with their deliciously artificially butter pecan flavor. Perhaps the lesson here is not to judge.

Spider Web Felt Doily!
As with last year’s spider web bowls, these otherwise great items would have been much better had they been manufactured in white. Of course, even if they were white, I’d probably complain that “Oh, sure, the web is white, but so are the spiders! Are we to believe these are, what, some sort of albino cave spiders? Bah!” Though in that case, I’d advise you to take a great big Marks-A-Lot pen and just enblacken the spiders yourself. However, it’s a moot point because these felt webs are available only in orange, black and green. They’re still arguably bueno because they’re just the special decorative touch to put under your plastic skull pitcher. Speaking of which…!

Plastic Skull Pitcher!
Available in clear and in smoke. Looks like it holds about two quarts. You can’t go wrong for 99¢ Only! Fill it with margaritas and drink until you no longer care that the decorative felt web it’s sitting on would look better in white. With black spiders.

Skull Shot Glasses!
The photo’s from last year, but they still have ’em. I even bought a set, because – four skull shotglasses for 99¢ only – I’d’ve been a fool not to pick these up. They’re plastic, yes, with a frosted sheen to them, and like the pitchers, come in clear-ish and smoke-ish.

Solar-Powered Haunted House!
These little sun-powered toys are all the rage at the dollar stores these days – the most ubiquitous ones are (non-Halloween) flowers, but I’ve also seen really cool (non-Halloween) sharks (below).

Each of these moving toys has a little solar panel that makes some element of the figure rock back and forth. Whoopee. In the case of the little (4″ tall) haunted house, the two pie-eyed Pac-Man-ghost-like spectres pop up and down and the attic shakes.

Like you, I am charmed by the lopsided, angular, asymmetrical cartoony look of the house. And so I bought one. All of these little solar-powered dealies come with a two-sided adhesive disk so you could mount them to, say, the dashboard of your car, but as that particular area of the Parsnipsmobile is covered in bean-and-cheese-encrusted Del Taco wrappers, Mexican head-shaking dogs and Virgin Mary statues (all ironic, except for the Del Taco garbage), there’s no room. I’m afraid the Haunted House stays here at home. And speaking of irony – isn’t it ironic that the only way to get this dark and dreary haunted house to work is through the power of a sunny day? Don’tcha think?

Color-Changing Skull!
Believe it or not, that’s the same skull photographed three times due to an elaborate multiple exposure process achieved by me standing really still with the camera over an interminable 40 seconds or so while the skull cycled through a rainbow of colors, and then there was the whole Photoshopping-them-together process, and by Photoshopping, I mean, of course free online photo editor-ing. According to its label, this 3-1/4″ tall plastic skull is technically called COLOR CHANGING LED LIGHT, and it’s pretty neat, although I wish I had gotten a shot where it’s glowing green as well. 99¢ only and the batteries are already included? You’d have to have a thick skull not to buy one of these!

Mask!
Regulars visitors to this blog (ha!) will remember that I prophetically announced two years ago that these pull-over nylon masks would be the Halloween staple of the future! …Annnd it turns out I was wrong. They’d pretty much disappeared after 2012. But I did find one lone leftover Unlicensed Frankenstein(‘s Monster) Mask in a Simi Valley 99¢ Only store a few weeks ago, and just as you would have done, I quickly snatched it up. (Unlike you, I actually paid for it, though).

No, these great masks, which I still think are awesome, sadly never took off. Instead, they’ve got these knit, pull-over ski mask-type things this year:

…which I would really like to say are bueno, but at $1.49 each, they’re over 99¢ only, so I cannot legally or morally or ethically recommend them. However, I must say I am looking forward to the first news story I see where some criminal robs a bank wearing one of these since they’re pretty much tailor-made for such an activity.

…And my attorney tells me I am not suggesting in any way, shape or form you should do anything illegal, whether wearing one of these or not. He goes on to say that I look forward to this winter when extreme and law-abiding young people will be wearing them snowboarding or whatever it is law-abiding and extreme young people do in the snow these days, and he’s right, I do look forward to that. And he further doubts an actual professional tailor had anything to do with manufacturing these.

Speaking of hoods…

Ninja Hoods
These are great. There are other ninja items, too for 99¢ Only, but these hoods are particularly cool. I mean, a ninja hood for just 99¢ only – even I’m on board and ninjas are not on my list of pre-approved traditional scary Halloween costumes – witch, ghost, vampire, Frankenstein(‘s Monster), hobo. (Yes, hobos can be scary – just ask late 19th century teenage runaway Jimmy ‘Pretty Punk’ Burrows, author of the disturbing 1893 narrative, “Long Winter In The Chicago Rail-Yard Hobo Jungle or: Anything To Keep Warm!”)

Hats!
While we’re on the subject of headware, check out this fine selection of molded hats, all for just 99¢ a piece!

And here’s a surprise: No Heisenberg porkpie hat knockoff. True, 2013 would have been the year to have unlicensed “Breaking Bad” costume elements, but one expects the dollar store to be about a year behind the times; and such a hat would still have been a big seller this year, labeled “Cancer-Ridden Drug Kingpin Hat” or “Say My Name Hat” or “I Am The One Who Knocks (For Candy) Hat.”

The other hats are mostly unapproved (by me), unscary, non-traditional costume hats, except for the colorful cowboy hats, which look like they might be worn by strippers. And if you don’t think strippers can be scary, ho ho, brother, you ain’t been to that gentlemen’s club up on Canoga Avenue on a non-holiday weekday morning when they’ve got their C-team working the pole!

Comically Long Mustache
Every Halloween aisle needs to have at least one item to get oversensitive folks’ panties in a knot. I’d like to think that for the 99¢ Only store, it could be this comically long mustache  – or as I like to call it, this “comically wrong” mustache. (And if you see me in person, ask me to pronounce that for you, to get the full effect.) Yes, yes, I know: “oversensitive” nothing – some people just have an allergic reaction to synthetic hair, that’s all. Actually, to be fair, it wouldn’t be the actual mustache that would probably set off the Easily Offended, it’s the card it’s packaged on. Of course, I think it’s a riot, so please don’t ask me to sign your internet petition.

I saved my favorite What’s Bueno item for last.  It’s these…

Small Glass Skull Bottles
Just under 4″ tall, these bottles are available in clear and black. I avoid any glass items that are painted – the color eventually chips off – so I recommend you go with the clear, as I did, and then fill with a dark liquid. If we could go back in time some eighty-five or ninety years, or so, I’d introduce you to young Master “Teddy” Parsnips, little lonesome nerdling who spent much of his free time in the woods surrounding his fabulous New England estate, Wintersnips, digging up discarded bottles from 19th century garbage dumps. (True, mostly!) Anyway, I, uh–  …that is, he would tell you he especially enjoyed finding old ink wells and poison bottles, both of which he noticed were particularly decorative.

It’s with that nostalgic thought in mind that I bought a quantity of India ink from the blogging supply store, filled up the little skull container with same and actually composed this entire post by hand, as our forebloggers did centuries ago. I’ll probably have a devil of a time getting all the words off the screen once I publish this, and AppleCare tells me I’m not covered for indelible ink and palladium silver pen nib scratches, but I think you’ll agree it was worth it.

So there you have it – my picks for What’s Bueno at the 99¢ Only Store for this Halloween season. Your local 99¢ Only store has tons more Halloween items – some bueno, some not, some goofy and fun, and some scary.

…But, while we’re at it, speaking of ‘scary’…?

Halloween Fright Tape
Other variations include “Infection Zone,” “Do Not Enter!” [with biohazard symbol] and  “Danger!” [with skull & crossbones]. Given recent news stories of alarming emergency room “missteps” in Dallas, nurses nationwide saying they’re underprepared, and the CDC’s recent stellar track record, let’s hope these things remain mere Halloween novelties in the weeks ahead.

Parsnips, you say, How dare you instigate fear-mongering, encourage unrest, suggest panic in the streets!

No!

If I wanted paranoia, chaos, panicked masses (if all, what?, six of you readers constitute a mass), if I wanted to monger me up some good old-fashioned monger-flavored fear, I’d have made a much bigger deal about the 99¢ Only store unleashing this on an unwitting public!

Now is the time to start panicking, folks!

Oh, and, yes, of course I bought some! Just call me Patient Zero in the coming Canned Chicken Bologna Plague. Either that or I’ve discovered some sort of marvelous cure-all – a mechanically-separated chicken elixir of life! – which is frankly what I suspect.  Do try it fried!

Posted by Ted on October 6, 2014, 5:39 PM.

To Ted It May Concern! September 10 Edition!

SHEESH, it’s been ages since I did one of those Ted’s Mailbag dealies, isn’t it?

Or posted anything, really, of substance up here other than screen-grabs from whatever I’m currently watching on Netflix, which – with the closed captioning on and still images taken out of context – are a quick way to instant hilarity, or at least reasonably quick content. What’s more I didn’t even have to bother coming up with the idea myself, instead saving even more time by stealing the concept from the blog of a pal.

[My blogging mentor, or blogntor, Sylvia Haynes-Darden, in her Learning Barn continuing education class, “What’s This New Thing Called Blogging I Keep Hearing About?,” and also her other class, “Convincing Learning Barn to Continue Including Severely Outdated Courses In Their Catalog That After 15 Years You Can Teach In Your Sleep” (I had a two-for-one Groupon that was going to expire; why not take both?) says the first rule of blogging is “Make friends with other bloggers and then ruthlessly mine their blogs for premises you can adapt for whatever the hell it is you write about, but tell them it’s an homage so they don’t get pissed.”]

My my my, we do go off on tangents, don’t we? Anyway, back to today’s post, Letters From Pals or whatever we’re calling it.  So here comes the mailman now – oh, pardon me – gender-neutral man – and it looks like…yes! It looks like he’s got a letter for me!

Dear Ted,

What the hell’s going on with the 99¢ Only store? I used to be able count on their refrigerated section being chock full of frozen waffles and frozen pretzels – and now the freezer section is all but bare! How the hell am I supposed to stick to the Frozen Pretzel & Waffle Diet Plan that’s sweeping social media with neither of the staples at hand? Look, if anyone has the interest or huge swaths of free time to look into this, it’s you. Find me an answer and this half-finished coarse pretzel salt packet and near-empty bottle of cheap Pampa “maple-flavored” corn syrup from Argentina is yours!

Signed,

A Pal in Hollywood

P.S. What do you think about the boxes of Goldfish macaroni and cheese they’ve been selling? My God, man, I can’t get enough of ‘em! Manna from heaven by way of Pepperidge Farm if you ask me! Yum!

You know, the good thing about having, what?, six readers is that you can drop all kinds of inside jokes into your posts and at least 16.66666 percent of your audience will appreciate ‘em.

I admit I hadn’t heard about this depleted frozen food inventory dilemma, so I headed over to 99¢ Only, Reseda Division, and by Godfrey, the man’s right!

While the freezer section wasn’t completely empty, it was missing a number of items said pal mentioned, namely frozen pretzels & frozen waffles.

I was determined to get to the bottom of this and if this meant asking the checker about it as I was paying for my groceries – and in doing so, interacting with another human being – well, so be it. Except I forgot about it by the time I was up at the registers, fixated as I was on a rare candy aisle find – a Reese’s Big Cup 2-pack that I wanted to get out to the car and cram down my gullet before it melted all over the faux naugahyde interior – so we’ll never know.

However, I will say this: Both the waffles and pretzels were not likely closeout items, so they’ll probably be back. How’s that for a definitive answer? Now I believe you owe me some syrup & salt…?

*  *  *  *  *

Oh yes – as to the Goldfish Macaroni & Cheese, which the art department will please illustrate below with some sort of photograph so we’re all on the same page here…?

There we are! Sank-you!

As to the Goldfish Mac & Cheese, as I was saying, I’m cautiously labeling this one

due to sheer, overwhelming value. You’ll understand in a moment, gang. (Provided you read this idiocy to the end.)

As you can see above, a few months ago, Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Mac & Cheese was available at the 99¢ Only store for the low, low price of 3 boxes for 99¢ only. Not a great deal for mac & cheese, but not bad, either.

I tried some – “some” being equivalent to six or eight boxes over a two-week period. (I really wanted to get a taste for the stuff before committing my thoughts to the [web]page, you understand – I owe it to the good folks at the 99¢ Only store, you, my loyal, what, six, readers, the wholesalers I buy my commas from, and most of all, to the memory of Pepperidge Farm spokesyokel Parker Fennelly.)

Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Mac & Cheese wasn’t bad…but, well, let’s say that the Kraft people shouldn’t be losing any sleep over this. The “mac” or macaroni pasta is flat, dense and goldfish-shaped giving it a particularly al lewis, or “to the tooth,” texture. What I’m saying was it was exceedingly doughy for macaroni – hell, they could have more accurately named the product Goldfish Dumplings & Cheese. But – again – three for a buck so, eh, why not?

Then a few weeks later the 99¢ Only store upped the ante: You give them 99¢ only, they’ll give you four boxes. And then a week later it was up to five boxes for a buck! Clearly they were telling us, an eager mac & cheese buying public, “Look, friends, this stuff’s good – damned good! – and we want you to know it!”

Good lord, what other possible reason could they have for continuing to lower the price?!

Now, according to the Pepperidge Farm website, Goldfish Mac & Cheese is available in four flavors. Unfortunately, 99¢ Only had but two: Cheesy Pizza and Nacho Cheese. Your more traditional “Cheddar” variety was nowhere to be found. Neither was the “Butter Parmesan” flavor which, if you’re like me, and of course you are, you know sounds a lot better than reconstituted cheese powder could possibly ever hope to be, but you are nevertheless intrigued and, given the chance, would have gambled twenty bucks on a hundred boxes just in case.

Despite the nacho cheese variety tasting, in the words of a pal, “atrocious,” and the cheesy pizza, “like vomit,” (or maybe I’ve got them backwards, but you get the idea), I didn’t think they were that terrible. Oh, sure, the cheese sauce was a little thin (A trick I came up with to counteract that, which I didn’t steal from another fellow blogger: eschew the milk altogether and just dump in more dollar store margarine, or as he calls it, “butter.” Ha! I stole the trick from him all right, but the guy doesn’t hardly blog anymore, so it doesn’t count), but once you dump a can of tuna in there and a handful of jalapeño slices (or maybe I’ve got them backwards – a can of jalapeño slices, a handful of tuna, who knows, but you get the idea), you can hardly tell.

Besides, it’s hard to complain when you go back to the 99¢ Only store a few days later and you see this:

This is getting serious. Six boxes of mac & cheese for a buck! Another pal – oh, I’ve got plenty of ’em – (and this one a real killjoy) – pointed out that for less than a dollar you could buy a pound of dry macaroni and make a decent homemade mac & cheese instead of buying this stuff 5.5 ounces at a time and then hoping for some sort of miracle when you combine it with its accompanying envelope of dehydrated whey, xanthan gum and maltodextrin, and a few handfuls of dollar store margarine.

To that I say, “Feh!,” because, sure, you’ve got your macaroni, but where’s the cheese, man? Where’s the cheese? If you think you’re going to get a decent macaroni-&-cheese cheese for anything close to a buck, well, brother, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Or if it’s not a bridge you’re looking for, I’ve got a few dozen boxes of recently expired fish-shaped macaroni & cheese. It’s not bad, but it’s an acquired taste.

Step right up! One crisp dollar bill will get you not one but two boxes – because if you think I’m taking a loss on this crap, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

*  *  *  *  *

Update! While the 99¢ Only locations I go to have finally depleted their expiring inventory – or possibly buried them in a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico – a pal tells me that the 99¢ Only store near him was recently offering an unprecedented TEN boxes for a dollar which amount to – pardon while I get out my calculator – which amounts to approximately one shiny Roosevelt dime per box (if my figures are correct).

Of course I called him a filthy liar, but as he’s also the same pal who sent in the original letter whose unbelievable tale of disappearing waffles and pretzels turned out to be largely accurate, we’ll take him at his word. So head to the 99¢ Only store in Hollywood, pull nine boxes off the shelf, bring them to the counter, hand the checker a dollar and tell her to put them in one of those 10¢ paper bags they’re making us pay for in LA now; and once home, dump everything in a boiling cauldron – bag, boxes, receipt – the whole schmear, and for the outlaying of exactly one lousy buck, you’ve got dinner and everything you need for a night of papier-mâché arts & crafts with the kids.

Posted by Ted on September 10, 2014, 5:26 PM.

¿What’s Bueno But Ultimately Worthless? ¡1984 Olympic Bus Tokens!

Now here’s something you don’t see every day.

Recently, over at the extremely dog-friendly Woodland Hills 99¢ Only store, I happened upon a magnificent and unusual example of What’s Bueno At The 99¢ Only Store – an item which is sort of a throwback, in a couple of ways, to the 99¢ Only Store’s glory days – when it was much less of a discount food store and much more of a closeout store; and where heaven only knows what sort of bizarre treasures you’d find!

There – for 99¢ Only – you can purchase a set of not one, not two, but twenty-four transit fare tokens “created for the Southern California Rapid Transit District in cooperation with the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, for use during the 1984 Olympic Year.”

Again, you’re not getting just one of these coins, but a complete set of 24, still sealed after thirty years, and presented in a handsome navy blue padded case, each token mounted in its own receptacle on a flocked velvet board inside.

There was a stack of a few dozen of these boxes, all similarly sealed, at the store, half-hidden towards the back of a bottom shelf. I’m not greedy (nor stupid, as you’ll see, but you should already know that): I bought just one. And frankly, I bought it solely for the purpose of the blog.

It was only later when I thought of a pal who, bless her heart, must rely on public transportation, and wondered if perhaps these tokens were still good. After all, tokens don’t expire, do they?  Sure they were “created…for use during…1984,” but that wouldn’t preclude them from being legal bus and subway fare tender today, would they? They’re like the coinal equivalent of the US Postal Service’s Forever Stamps, right?

Turns out I’m wrong. The Southern California Rapid Transit District, or “RTD” as it had been known, hasn’t existed since 1993. Thankfully, it’s been a while since I’ve had to take a filthy LA bus, though for the last 21 years, I’d still been considering LA’s bus service “the RTD” (when I’d considered it at all). And brother, the only time we car owners even think of LA bus service is when one of those enormous land-barges is in front of you on the road and you can’t get around it. Anyway, turns out LA’s bus service has been “Metro” or “LA Metro” for two decades, and while I guess that sounds familiar, I haven’t been thinking much about it.  You know, being a car owner and all.

My point is, either as bus fare or as collectibles (and hopeful eBay sellers are being disappointed as we speak), these tokens aren’t worth the bronze they’re minted on.

But what’s really fascinating, at least from the perspective of a fellow writing a blog with an unnatural and/or uninteresting focus on a Southern California dollar store chain, is that when I searched online for these things, the only result – from whatever very specific parameters I used – was a posting on a Google-archived Usenet “misc.transport.urban-transit” group, where the author mentioned having found these for sale at the 99¢ Only store as well. But the post was quite a bit older than this one: It was written in 1994!

According to the twenty-year old post, back then, 99¢ Only was cracking open the sets, dumping the individual tokens in boxes, and selling them two for 99¢ Only – as “slammers.” Like for use with pogs. You remember pogs, don’t you?

The original poster, him- or herself a fan of the 99¢ Only store as I am, wondered the same thing two decades ago – if they were still good for use as bus fare. (And even back then: No.)

How crazy is that: Two internet posts about the same ultimately good-for-nothing 99¢ Only offering, two decades apart!

And if you enjoyed this, and you did, imagine how fascinating it will be to read about the next person to be struck by the Curse of the Worthless Olympic Coins scheduled presumably for 2034 when 99¢ Only will be selling an entire case of sets for a buck. Mark your calendars!

Posted by Ted on August 4, 2014, 3:31 PM.

The 99¢ Only Store Is Dead! Long Live The 99¢ Only Store!

Question: When is the 99¢ Only store not the 99¢ Only store?

Answer: When it sells things for prices other than 99¢ only.

Ah, the 99¢ Only store! Regular readers of this blog – all, what?, six of you, know I love it. But I’ve become a little concerned at some changes I’ve been noticing there lately…

A little history:

Founded in 1982 by savvy businessman Dave Gold, the 99¢ Only chain held the line at exactly 99¢ for twenty-five long years when in 2007, a slightly more flexible pricing structure was introduced allowing the store to sell items at prices lower than 99 cents (39¢, 49¢, 59¢ – you get the idea).

And of course prior to that, you could (and can) buy multiples of an item for 99¢. (Old-timers such as myself remember a time not too, too long ago, when full-size candy bars were 4 for 99¢ only.)

2008 rolled around and things changed significantly, if you can call a penny ‘significant’: In September of that year, they added 99/100th of a cent to their signature price, so countless thousands of shelf tags that read 99¢ Only were pulled and replaced with new ones printed 99.99¢ Only (with the last two digits a bit smaller). 

Rounding that hundredth up, shoppers began paying $1 for each item, and the chain, through a niggling technicality, managed to keep their name (mostly) honestly. 

The 1¢ increase even made the news around Southern California – not bad publicity for the discount chain who was then able to explain that they’d kept everything under a buck for more than a quarter century and this teeny-tiny increase would allow them to continue to offer great deals. One measly penny on every item purchased would add up sufficiently to cover increasing costs. Perhaps someone at 99¢ Only headquarters had just watched “Superman III.”

Up to this point, in-store pre-recorded announcements usually ended with a sunny voice reminding us that we were shopping at a place where there was “Nothing over 99¢. Ever.”  Unsurprisingly, new messages omitted the sign-off.

Many locations had that same slogan painted along the wall above a top shelf in their famous purple, blue and green color scheme. One might assume Corporate sent a memo to store managers advising them to get a can of white paint and a brush to get rid of the evidence, because this disappeared at this time, too.

But if you look carefully in some stores you can still figure out where it was…

Over the last few years, more and more items started hitting the stores that were more than 99¢ only.

The first item I noticed was a great big bottle of wine for $4.99 in their Burbank outlet over two years ago. 

Other items soon followed in all the stores.

Initially, the signs on these items had an almost apologetic explanation below the more than 99¢ only price, as though it was an exasperated response to the umpteenth literal-minded customer challenging them with a whining “But your name is 99¢ Only!”

(Incidentally, that “one exception” for the eggs was the same “one exception” they made for milk, toilet paper and wine.)

Then as they introduced more and more more-than-99¢ Only items to their shelves, they stopped bothering to justify it at all. 

Though in one case, they even tried to make us forget about their store name by distracting us with an enthusiastically positive spin on the more-than-a-buck price:

And that brings us up to this week, when I saw this at the front of their Canoga Park location (as well as on big decals on their doors):

Ooh, that can’t be good.

While prices higher than 99¢ are nothing new throughout the chain, that they’re calling attention to it is in itself noteworthy. I see it as a harbinger of higher prices: I bet we shoppers will very likely soon be seeing more and more items over the store’s celebrated 99.99¢ price point.

Over the last few months, every store I’ve gone to has changed their shelving, too. All the locations used to have shelves that were about five feet tall. Those have been pulled out and replaced with much taller units – the kind you see in most supermarkets – that can accommodate that much more merchandise.

Which makes sense when I remember a conversation I had back in December with an employee at this newly-opened location – the largest 99¢ Only store I’d ever been in – on La Tijera in Westchester:

She told me that they took over the space where a grocery store had gone out of business, and that all future 99¢ Only stores would open in similarly-sized venues.  If that’s the case, it seems to me that 99¢ Only is making the slow transition from discount store to supermarket.

I remain wary but for now anyway, none of this changes my affection for the 99¢ Only store. It’s discount chains like this that have forced some manufacturers to keep their products under a buck, at least at the dollar store. (Though now even that seems in jeopardy.)

Like you, I exist on the Helper family of products, and by Godfrey, I haven’t been willing to pay more than a dollar for them since 99¢ Only has started carrying them.

I’m not the only one who feels this way – and not just about the Tetrazzini Tuna Helper, either, but about a lot of their merchandise: Friends who used to make fun of me for shopping at 99¢ Only have finally seen the light and now tell me about the great deals they themselves find there! (They’ve since found other things to make fun of me for.) 

The 99¢ Only store has had some amazing bargains over the years and hopefully will continue to do so, so that this blog can continue to celebrate “What’s Bueno at the 99¢ Only Store.”

Store employees will continue to ask me not to take pictures in their stores. 

I’ll continue to (surreptitiously) defy them.

And while it’s not quite the same, consider this: When I was growing up, there was an F. W. Woolworth’s in my hometown. Even into the 80s when it closed, everyone I knew referred to it as “The Five & Ten,” despite the fact that there was not – nor had ever been during my lifetime – any merchandise available at the cost of a nickel or a dime. 

So it certainly makes this shopper think: How soon until we’re shopping at a 99¢ Only store where the only item labeled as such is the charmingly nostalgic and out-of-date sign out front?

Posted by Ted on June 19, 2014, 4:09 AM.

¿What’s Bueno? Egg Pillows!

$9.14 for a set of four on Amazon, but one for 99¢ only at the 99¢ Only store!

And why buy more than you need?

Sleep tight, little ovum.

Posted by Ted on April 26, 2014, 2:23 AM.

What’s Penguin For “Mom! I’m Home! Can I Have Something To Eat?”

The 99¢ Only store has the after-school snacks kids love!

Great for dolphins, too!

Posted by Ted on April 21, 2014, 2:57 PM.

What’s Bueno at the 99¢ Only Store: Cereal Edition!

LAST WEEK, I finally got around to reviewing the holiday schedule the Ted Parsnips Web Design Team had submitted for 2014 – that is, the days they wanted off.

Well, of course, I went through the list with my red pen and crossed off everything but Christmas, and only because we’ve established that none of you, what?, six regulars visit on that day, so I’m safe.

Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, Fourth of July – these I recognized. I mean, these I was familiar with. I don’t recognize them as holidays that these bums get the day off. (This is what you can get away with when you keep those goddamn greedy unions out of your organization.)

But one date on the list had me puzzled. March 7?  What holiday could that possibly be?

“National Cereal Day,” came the answer from the department (fat)head. Well, once I had determined that Obama hadn’t bypassed the Constiwhosis again and signed it into law as some sort of mandated federal holiday (You never know with him! Just ask my Dad!), I laughed the guy right out of my office. Right out of my office!

But it made me think: With the dearth of updates to the few cereal websites that still exist today, someone’s got to pick up the slack, and so with that in mind, I give you What’s Bueno at the 99¢ Only Store: Cereal Edition!

And I’m doing it now in case everyone calls in sick on March 7 and the site goes down.

Post Honey Bunches of Oats: Greek Honey Crunch
Status: Long gone. I really need to write these within a few months of seeing the product in the store.

Looks like Post really made too much of this new addition to their Honey Whosis of Oats line featuring (once-)trendy Greek yogurt, because these were all over the 99¢ Only stores a few months ago as they neared the end of their “Best By” date. I gambled a buck and bought a box. They weren’t bad, though the amorphous yogurt lumps ranged from manageable pebble-size to enormous, disconcerting jawbreakers. And those bigger ones…? I always felt like I was going to be biting into a mummifed mouse or something. Update: My attorney would like me to remind all of you that I never actually did, and such a suggestion is absolutely absurd.

Enjoy Life Crunchy Flax Cereal
Status: Available

Knowing where I stand on gluten-free nonsense, you won’t be surprised to hear that I stayed away from these, brother, despite the fact that they appear to be ooh-la-la, high-end, Santa-Monica-(North-of-Wilshire) cereals. These, too, feature trendy ingredients: In this case, flax – used to make bed linens, and chia – used to grow hair on ceramic animals. The manufacturer “Enjoy Life” apparently went through a package redesign at some point, so while three boxes are shown, there’s but two varieties of this cereal you can eat with a fork (if their logo is any indication). Actually, “the cereal you can eat with a fork” might have been a good slogan for the previous cereal – makes it easier to break up any potential yogurt-entombed mice. I’m kiddin’!

Update: My attorney has alerted me that while flax fibers make those sheets you haven’t changed in months, it’s flaxseed what’s good for you to eat, chia seeds are similarly a good source of fiber and omega-3 fats, and “for Christ sake, knock it off with the mouse jokes.”

Post Marshmallow Pebbles
Status: History. I snapped this picture in October.

Like yours, “The Flintstones” was part of my childhood. But I try to put myself in the mind of a typical idiot child of today (your child or children, of course, excluded) and I wonder whether or not the Flintstones and the Rubbles mean anything to them at all. Do they have any frame of reference for this character on the box without ever having seen an episode of the show? Or is it just a bizarre humanoid who apparently shoots marshmallows from his hands? Who knows?

Regardless whether kids today are sufficiently versed in the entire Bedrock mythos and despite this cereal lacking delicious, nourishing, life-giving gluten, I personally found it to be Yabba-Dabba-Delicious!™

These Barney Pebbles didn’t last long at 99¢ Only – I attribute that to the “Limited Edition” banner near the top of the box. Smart shoppers with an eye toward the future would have wisely bought this by the case, carefully opened the individual cartons, tossed out the cereal within, delicately collapsed the boxes and stored them in acid-free bags in a light-free, temperature- and humidity-controlled environment so that twenty years from now, they can be among the hundreds of other eBay sellers listing common cereal boxes no one will be buying.

Post Sesame Street C is For Cereal
Status: A few boxes still around

Years ago, Children’s Television Workshop famously refused to emblazon food products with the Sesame Street characters, instead relying on the income provided by books, records, Knickerbocker dolls, and their take from Mr. Hooper’s bookmaking operation. (Legend has it, to place a bet, you’d go in and order a “birdseed milkshake.”) Well, times have changed – Hooper’s dead, Knickerbocker was sold off, and worst of all, PBS seriously underestimated your ability to heartlessly ignore those pledge drives, no matter how many coffee mugs, tote bags and Ralph Story DVDs they offer to throw in. Out of sheer financial necessity (Bob doesn’t sing “The People In Your Neighborhood” for free, you know!), they relented and now cookies, juice boxes, soup, canned pasta and, yes, cereal are among the items you’ll find the Sesame Street Muppets hawking these days.

Mostly fine products, those, probably, but Sesame Street took a misstep with this “C is for Cereal,” it seems, and no wonder: it’s banana-flavored. As everyone knows – aside from banana bread and, I guess, bananas – banana-flavored anything is terrible. Which may or may not be the case with this cereal, because as my attorney cautions me to note, I didn’t actually try this product. Hell, I suppose it could be delicious and perhaps its appearance at 99¢ Only is merely due to product overrun from Post.

The cereal is in the shape of Xs & Os, and I can only imagine those two letters paid an enormous sum to be featured exclusively – and so must have taken a huge hit. My prediction? We won’t see X and O sponsoring specific episodes of the show for a while.

Whether you or your toddler for some reason likes or, more likely, vehemently detests the taste of banana-flavored oat and corn cereal, you’ll admit that 99¢ only for a box of this stuff is a steal.

But wait!

Head on over to Big Lots and you can pick up not one, not two…

..but TWENTY boxes of this stuff for the same amount you’re paying at 99¢ Only for a single package! No kiddin’!

It used to be rare indeed to find really good deals at Big Lots including stuff near, at, or past its expiration date. But I’ll be the first to admit that at least at the location near me, they’ve recently changed their tune regarding expiring food  – they reduce it to practically nothing right at the end of its “Best By” date – and you know it’s still fine.

I’d like to think maybe I had a little something to do with this new policy. But as I’m not yet legally barred from entering their stores, I think it’s a safe bet that they have no idea I exist.

Our last two entries in What’s Bueno: Cereal Edition are more cereal-themed than pure, unadulterated cereal.  Think that’s going to stop me? No sir!

Cap’n Crunch Chocolatey Peanut Butter Snack Mix
Status: Plenty available

Quite a step up from Quaker’s embarrassing attempt to get us to pay $3 for 2.4 ounces of dry cereal, here’s a Cap’n Crunch LSP (“loose snack piece” – industry term) product that’s not bad at all.  Inside each bag, you’ll find chocolate covered pretzels, generic Reese’s-type pieces, Cap’n Crunch Peanut Butter Crunch orbs and Cap’n Crunch Chocolatey Crunch pillows. Like you, I like finding deals at the 99¢ Only store, and 99¢ only is about what I’d be willing to pay for this in a regular store. Still, it was good. There’s a “Sweet & Salty Caramel” version, too, but this one’s better.

Cap’n Crunch Peanut Butter Treats
Status: Going fast!
I’ve saved the best for last, folks. What Quaker’s done, see, is they’ve crammed Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch as well as your standard Default Cap’n Crunch pieces together into bar form, then they give it some sort of chocolate undercoating, and then bedrizzle the whole schmear with more of that chocolate stuff. The result? A delight for the senses (specifically taste), and at only 110 calories a bar, you can go ahead and feel good about eating a whole box of ’em (just eight) in one sitting. They also make a Crunch Berry variety, but who the hell wants Crunch Berries when you’ve got peanut butter, right?

And here’s a bit of disturbing trivia for you: Despite Cap’n Crunch being a huge brand for Quaker Oats, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a SINGLE reference to him on their main website – not one of his epicurean delights are listed on Quaker’s product page.

It’s like he doesn’t even exist!

Nope – instead, Horatio Magellan Crunch has a separate(-but-equal) website. I’m sure Quaker Oats would probably insist that he’s so popular he warrants his own presence on the web but it’s obvious he’s an embarrassment to the company and has been pushed away like a (white-haired) red-headed stepcap’n to distance his delicious, roof-of-your-mouth-slicing, sweet, sweet cereal from Quaker’s so-called healthier breakfast and snack alternatives.

Shame on you, Quaker!  Shame! Cap’n Crunch practically built the sturdy vessel that is Quaker Oats! Or, to make an even more apt analogy, it’s like Cap’n Crunch is Jesus and the entire Quaker Oats organization is Simon Peter – denying him.  And no, I don’t think I’m overstating this.

What’s most ironic is that I really wanted to end on a positive note here, especially since these Cap’n Crunch Peanut Butter Treats are about the most delicious thing I’ve ever had in my life, and well, all that unpleasantness at the end there has left a bad taste in my mouth.

So I think I’ll have another five or six bars. That oughta do the trick!

Posted by Ted on February 15, 2014, 12:02 AM.

Apparently They’ve Solved That Pesky Helium Shortage!

And – good news! – just in time for Valentine’s Day!

Yet these shots don’t come close to doing justice to the breathtaking sight of this school of hundreds and hundreds of majestic heart-shaped mylar balloons floating up at the ceiling of the local Dollar Tree, with their deadly ribbon tentacles trailing below.

Deadly, I guess, if you got one wrapped around your neck and then the balloon gets tangled in a ceiling fan or  sucked into the engine of a low-flying plane or something.

So let’s be careful out there today, huh?

Posted by Ted on February 14, 2014, 2:29 AM.

What’s Bueno: Non-Fig Newtons!

AS YOU, what?, six regular readers know, one of the most popular features of this blog is “What’s Bueno At The 99¢ Only Store!”

Oh, it’s not particularly popular with you, but it’s fairly popular with me, which is why it pops up so often, and also why I have, what?, six regulars.

But having said that, I haven’t actually done one of them in months and that’s not just because I was in one particular location and was told I may not snap photos in the store.

I’m sure it was all just a misunderstanding, since as you can attest, this blog is very pro-99¢ Only. The manager – who very politely told me to stop snapping pictures – probably mistook me for that handsome devil behind that trouble-making blog, “Dogs Where There Shouldn’t Be Dogs” – I’ve been told we look vaguely alike and that guy’s snapped a few photos of people with their pets inside 99¢ Only stores. (Imagine!)

Anyway, before we’re both permanently barred from all 99¢ Only stores everywhere, I figured I’d better start giving you a daily (and with me, folks, “daily” usually ends up being once every eight or nine days, if we’re lucky) rundown of what is and what was bueno at the 99¢ Only store!

Newtons fruit THINS

Status: Currently available!

These may not look like much, but let me tell you, I’m glad I picked up a package – though I’m more upset I didn’t pick up a bunch more.

Like you, I am delighted that the package doesn’t describe them just as “cookies,” but rather “crispy cookies.” And, brother, they are. They are!

Oh, sure – you’re seeing “Newtons” so you’re thinking “figs.” Well, Nabisco doesn’t give a fig what you think, because you’ll find nary a fig in these babies. No, the only thing here is a crisp cookie biscuit with toasted coconut baked right in – and then they’ve gone and bedrizzled it with dark fudge. I speak for all of us when I say we didn’t see that coming!

My favorite part of Newtons fruit THINS (and I respect these cookies so much I use their silly uppercase and lowercase formating affectations) – aside from the cookies themselves, of course – is this on the package:

“NATURAL FLAVOR WITH OTHER NATURAL FLAVOR.”

Now, I’m no package design professional, but seems to me that they could have saved their printer a whole bunch of typesetting [industry term] if they just used the latest advance in package copy, the letter S. “Natural Flavors,” plural. Boom – you’re done. ‘Course if it wasn’t for this obvious copywriting screw-up, they probably wouldn’t have ended up at 99¢ Only, so I won’t complain too loudly (though I do feel bad for whoever lost their job over this one).

Tomorrow*: Another item that is bueno!

*Probably in eight or nine days.

Posted by Ted on January 18, 2014, 4:08 AM.

Time Travel Is Possible! And It’s – yes! – 99¢ Only!

WALK into your local 99¢ Only store and be propelled headlong four months into the future!

Today, January 5, hapless non-99¢ Only shoppers are still stuck in the last of the twelve days of Christmas. For them, Easter is a grueling, never-ending 105 days away! That’s almost a third of a year! Oh my God, will it ever get here?!

But for us, the 99¢ Only faithful, we can bypass all that torturous waiting and just bunny-hop down the aisle in our Easter Sunday finest, thanks to the good folks at 99¢ Only who have managed to break the laws of physics and gotten us into the middle of April merely by entering the store.

My, my – how time does fly! It seems like only yesterday when we were finishing up the last few candies from our heart-shaped boxes of chocolates and taking down all our Valentine’s Day decorations!

Posted by Ted on January 5, 2014, 5:19 PM.