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What’s Bueno At The 99¢ Only Store: Vintage Toys Slide Whistle!
TODAY we’ve got a special Christmas edition of What’s Bueno At The 99¢ Only Store: Christmas Edition!
It’s special because it’s a Christmas edition of my popular blog feature…and also because I didn’t buy this at the 99¢ Only Store but rather at Dollar Tree, but c’mon, they’re both dollar stores. The only difference, really, is Dollar Trees are carpeted so that absorbs some of the noise from the ill-behaved children you’ll find in both chains, running around unsupervised, screaming, knocking things over and throwing things while their unfit parents are nowhere in sight.
Well, that and Dollar Tree had this thing and the 99¢ Only store didn’t. And this thing is…
…this thing!
Look, it’s a slide whistle! I’ve photographed it on the Parsnips Family Christmas tree because what a fun and wonderful gift the gift of a slide whistle would be as a gift for that someone special! Who wouldn’t enjoy finding this under the tree, or in their stocking? That’s right, no one!
It’s smartly packaged with “vintage”-looking typeface and card design, and even the name of the toy line, “Vintage Toys,” somehow evokes the feel of vintage toys.
You’d probably pay $9.95, like an idiot, for this thing from Archie McPhee, and God knows we all love Archie McPhee, sure, but at Dollar Tree you can score one of these for just a buck. Better still if there’s just one left in the toy section and one of those aforementioned obnoxious brats is reaching for it and you grab it just before him – or better yet, pull it out of his grubby little hand. Hell, give the little bastard a smack with the blister-card – teach him some goddamn manners! His neglectful parents are too busy way over in Aisle 5 choosing which ungodly scent of Ensueño fabric softener will stink up that week’s laundry to do anything about it anyway.
By the way, my attorney would like to mention that you probably shouldn’t smack a stranger’s child, especially given the profusion of security cameras in stores patronized by poor people. Still, it’s fun to imagine!
Vintage Toys Slide Whistle made the cut as this week’s What’s Bueno at the 99¢ Only Store: Christmas at Dollar Tree Edition Item of the Week item really for the impact it would make as a gift, not so much, sadly, as a slide whistle for your own sliding-whistle, or slide-whistling, needs.
Much like your genitals in a pair of girl-jeans, the package looks impressive but once you take it out, everyone at the office Christmas party is going to be disappointed. I’ll end that analogy now before noting that the only way to get this thing to really work is to blow it hard. Unlike your traditional slide whistles, this one features a little bird that vibrates up and down and in doing so adds a trilling, though not necessarily thrilling effect to the sound. (I’ve found it sounds more like a traditional slide whistle if you turn it upside down so the bird baffle doesn’t impede the flow of air.)
Still, it’s kind of fun as a gift, especially if you have any friends with a young, hyper child: You’ll be ahead of the game, too, because next November you’ll get an email from them saying, “Hey, let’s just do Christmas cards this year.”
Saving you, the reader, money: That’s exactly why Vintage Toys Slide Whistle is this week’s What’s Bueno At The 99¢ Only Store: A Very Dollar Tree Christmas Edition item.
I think we’re done here.
Ted Parsnips
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