I am a fan of cheap, knock-off brand snacks from the Dollar Store.The Dollar Store food aisle exists separately from the rest of reality. Everything is something slightly different, like distorted, discounted images in a mirror-world; Funyons are "Onion Salty O's!," Teddy Grahams are "Funny Bear Crackers," Oreos are "Choco-Delicious Cookie Sandwiches." If you've ever been to Japan, the English they use on public advertisements tend to be slightly off, slightly askew. It may not necessarily be blatantly incorrect, but even the most novice of print editors will immediately realize that they're not dealing with fluent English-speakers here. The problem is word arrangement; subordinate clauses don't have independent clauses, syntax is backwards, nouns and pronouns and adjectives and verbs are forced to fit together uncomfortably, like pesky jigsaw puzzle pieces that don't interlock. Yeah, it's kind of like Japan.
The brand names don't have the prestige of a Keebler or a Nabisco, don't roll off the tongue as gracefully or melodically. Instead, they bear names that are short-sighted and poorly-worded, like Fungoid Farms or Faggo Brand Soda. I assume these particular brand names were chosen to be deliberately funny, or simply because they didn't expect the company to last very long.
Characters adorning the outer packaging would look ridiculously out of place on the pristine shelves of any national mega-chain supermarket, but look remarkably organic and natural on the dilapidated shelves of the Dollar Store. There's a flamingo wearing a cowboy hat and a hula skirt; a rhinoceros on a skateboard with a "Cowabunga!" word bubble; a pink-and-purple polka-dotted Gorilla giving us the thumbs up. Something so absurd wouldn't fly anywhere else; yet at the Dollar Store, it somehow makes perfect sense. Anything other than this would seem unreasonable.
Two of my favorite Dollar Store snacks are their versions of "Doritos" and the "Nilla Wafers:"The phony Nacho Cheese Tortilla Chips are almost nearly the genuine article. If you poured it into a bowl and destroyed the evidence of the bag, you probably wouldn't give them a second thought. They look like Doritos. But they don't taste like Doritos, not exactly. They taste a little...odd; but definitely NOT bad. In fact, sometimes I even prefer them to the real thing. There's something distinctly peculiar about their flavor, something that's neither delicious nor nauseating, but more along the lines of intriguing. I imagine it's the way normal Doritos would taste if they had almost every single ingredient (the vegetable oil, ground up corn meal, salt, nacho cheese powder, etc.) but unexpectedly ran out of the super-secret ingredient, the x-factor that only the heirs of the Frito-Lays fortune is privy to. That's how these taste, like reject chips, like almost-Doritos. And yet, I can't stress this enough: I do like eating them. It's like eating an exotic new brand of chips that were brought home from a Third World vacation.
Now, the interesting thing about the bootleg vanilla wafers is that I actually consider them better than the famous name-brand 'Nilla Wafers. Sure, the latter has the instantly-recognizable bright yellow box, a beacon of reassurance that this is safe to eat and there are no spider eggs hidden inside. But aside from that, I've always thought they were overrated. I guess they're alright if you mix them in with banana pudding, but they too dry and gritty. That's my biggest problem with them, they might as well be made of sand. By comparison, the Dollar Store brand -- I usually have a box of them lying around the house, but I'm fresh out. I know that they come in a red, white, & blue box, and the brand logo is a picture of a wheat stalk. I always get them from the Dollar Tree -- don't have that sandy consistency. They're firmer when you bite into them, sturdier. They always taste stale, as if you forgot to Chip-Clip them and left them sitting overnight. But it's absolutely a pleasing kind of stale, if there is such a thing. It's preferable. And their better at soaking up milk when you dunk them. I don't know, it's hard to describe (and even harder to imagine, I'm sure) if you haven't tried them, but they really are just better. It's like some weird inverse effect, the reason why I like them is a direct result of it being of lower quality.
Of course, Dollar Stores also have name-brand food. The best value is their candy aisle; you can get legit candy -- Snickers, Kit-Kats, Nerds, Reese's peanut butter cups, all of that -- for dirt cheap. But there's something less fun about that. You'll eagerly buy it and eat it. It'll taste just as good, if not infinitely better, than anything else you could get there. But it's less exciting, less thrilling somehow. There's no kitsch value to it. That 3 Musketeers bar just doesn't feel special because you know there are a thousand more where that came from. It's no different than going clothes-shopping at a Thrift Store -- the Lacoste polo might be a steal, but the Little League baseball jersey is a deal. There's nothing wrong with buying real food from the Dollar Store, it's just kind of missing the point.There's a certain sense of irony that comes with visiting a Dollar Store. The same kind of shallow, self-aware irony that comes with wearing a t-shirt from a high school you didn't attend, and in a year you didn't graduate (Go Vikings! Class of '94!). Shopping regularly at the Dollar Store is like an inside joke with yourself, it's funny because you don't have to be there, and even funnier because you know you have the means and the resources to stop by Whole Foods immediately after. I like to pretend that I'm a poor person, that my Burger King paycheck is all used up, my Food Stamps are all gone, and now I have to feed my eight kids and my baby momma for the next two weeks on nothing more than $7.00. It's a fun game in a perverse, mean-spirited sort of way. For the single mother that has to feed her children on imitation Cheez-its, there are feelings of shame and embarrassment. But for me, just some guy looking for something to snack on, there are feelings of profound wonder and curiosity.
Ultimately, the beauty of the Dollar Store is that things are different, but definitely not too different. It's all still vaguely familiar. It's different enough to pique your interest, but not enough to scare you away. Everything is just slightly off center, making you realize you've stepped into a strange and wonderful place.
And all of this is for only $1.00. I would gladly pay $2.00.
