I’ve been in the mood for a spot of spring cleaning lately. And before you point out the obvious, “But it’s AUTUMN!” well yes, you would be correct, but it’s more the principle I’m going for not the season.
Not that I have a lot of stuff to organize – I have mercifully few things but somehow I still need to get them encased in their own private accommodations with miscellaneous containers and things. I’m obsessed with containers. They’re like a sweet drug I can’t turn my back on. You can keep your hash cakes and your Ecstasy – just point me in the direction of somewhere with a fine array of containers and I’ll be high as a kite all day.
Well maybe save me ONE cake. For old time’s sake.
I can find a use for any container. So long as it’s functional and relatively cute. Cute is necessary. You don’t want an ugly container cluttering up your apartment do you? That is counter productive to any organizing Mecca.
I’m not above making my own containers either. Coffee tins are particularly good for painting up all fancy and keeping stuff in. It’s recycling! So long as you don’t mind your stuff smelling like coffee, you’re golden.
So anyway, I take a little trip to the dollar store. I know I mention the dollar store all the time and you all think I probably live in the goddamn dollar store but I don’t. I just go there for a) striped socks in offensive colours, b) cheap paint of undetermined origin and c) containers – all things you hate paying real money for. They have all sorts of containers that make me drool on myself because I lose control of all bodily functions when my eyes glimpse all that shiny, multi-coloured plastic everywhere in all shapes and sizes. I start to twitch and mutter and I realize how those five, lucky golden-ticket winners in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” must’ve felt upon entering Willy Wonka’s candy factory. Just like when I was sixteen and I’d practically pass out with ecstasy at lines and lines of vinyl records lined up in my local record store.
Now I’m getting the vapours from containers. This is a sad development. Yet oddly pleasing.
Detouring back to the Dollar Store for a moment here though. The Dollar Store has a food section and I find this slightly alarming. Really, who buys food from the Dollar Store? There has to be a reason it’s a dollar, surely and that reason can seldom be for good. If there’s a steak in the Dollar Store fridge, it’s probably never been destined for the menu at any classy restaurant. It probably has the cooties and came from a rat or something. I don’t know and truthfully, I don’t want to dwell on it too much. Don’t get me wrong though, I’ll let myself buy a big bar of chocolate or something for a dollar. I mean how bad can that be? A giant Milky Way for a buck? Sign me up.
But back to the containers. I have them all commissioned instantly. “You would be great for my paints, you would be good for pens, you would fit my measly make up supplies and you would hold my laundry!” I am triumphant in my delegations. I am all delighted with myself. More than usual even.
Even though, outrageously, I feel I should point out that some of those items were two dollars. Which makes me think they should change the name of the store from “The Dollar Store” to “The Dollar Store – Sometimes” or “The Dollar Store After Inflation”.
Don’t even get me started on the Container Store…
41 comments:
I too was and still am a bit hooked on containers. Esp smallish anskits.
xx
Weird...I sort of share your container obsession although probably to a lesser caliber. I tend to keep boxes that things such as jewelry and perfume come in if they're cute even if I don't have a use for them right away. Believe me, I'll find a use. Just give me time. Yeah, neurotic much?
Haha, mmm, the sweet smell of containers.
I think the cheap paints of unknown origin contain the best most toxic materials, thus, they are the most beautiful hues and value. ps - what does this word on my cheap paint mean, 'litefast'?
Someday, someone will offer you a cake in a cute container. I hope your head doesn't explode with delight.
Vodka: What is an "anskit"? It sounds eskimoish. Now I have to go look it up! :)
Harna: Oh I know! When something comes in a nice box or other wrapping I have a hard time just discarding it. I bought some perfume in Minneapolis in the summer and it's still in the box. It was just so...pristine and regal looking. I need help.
Eric: Yes, the sweet smell of plastic toxins. YUM! As for "litefast" I don't know but it does suggest longevity and toxicity and I like that. The Dollar Store actually has a great acrylic paint section. Great for black and white and green. And a few colours that I'm sure are not found in nature.
Hunter: I actually had a very similar conversation yesterday. I said "I have a fetish for containers I think!" He said, "That AND midget strippers?" I said "Imagine someone presented me with a midget stripper in a container? I'd explode!" But a cake would be just as good. Better really because I really DO have a cake fetish.
i love the container store! i only let myself go there once in a while, when i've been a really good girl.
and i agree with you about the dollar store food, but someone recently told me that the dollar store pregnancy tests are legit, surprisingly.
Lana: WHOA! You can buy PREGNANCY TESTS at the Dollar Store????? Holy crap. They must be near the use by date or something because don't those cost a fortune normally?
Man, the Container Store is like nirvana. I'm sure I walk in the door and the Hallelujah Chorus starts up.
I'm obsessed with those plastic containers with drawers. You can stack them and stack them and they are so cute. I mostly use them for my makeup...all 24 of them. Yes, I have enough makeup to keep a commune full of drag queens beautified for a year. I MIGHT have one drawer full of secret things, but then again...I might not.
The dollar store is the best place to get cheap cleaning supplies. Because honestly, who really wants to pay $8 for shower spray? Not me. Food...yeah, I don't think so.
I just like walking around the Dollar Store, grabbing random shit, walking up to an employee and in a fake accent yell:
"HOW MUCH THIS?!"
You can usually find my wife at LEAST 3 aisles away from me.
Miss OWO: I don't have nearly ENOUGH make up so you know, any excess, send it here immediately. Yes, Dollar Store cleaning things would be ok. I mean bleach is bleach really whether it's a buck or three bucks. I bought some Jergens tanning moisturizing stuff there for a buck. It smelled like dead people. Maybe it always does or maybe that was just its dollar smell?
Moooooog: I wonder how many eye rolls Dollar Store employees do a day from that question? My store has stuff at $1.25 and $2 as well though. Tricksters. I used to work in a store years ago where we had a closing down sale. We had these banners printed for the windows, the size of a bus that said "CLOSING: EVERYTHING HALF PRICE!" and people would still come up seriously and ask "So...is THIS half price?" I used to say, "No. Everything in the store is half price except that." Idiots.
My Mom gave me a whole pile of old cigar boxes that the store was throwing away. They are really cool containers.
Peachy: I love old cigar boxes! They are so decorative. I actually read an article recently about various ingenious uses people had for old cigar boxes. Things like making key cabinets from them. Really cool.
I was half asleep when I typed that. I meant baskets.... lol.
Vodka: HA HA HA HA HA! I am laughing my ass off. I had no idea. I thought there's some cute little nik nak of a container out there I've never heard of and I'm going to find it. :)
The dollar store is AMAZING for containers! I've been known to get carried away myself.
Don't forget the dollar Christmas paper and tape this time of year. A total steal.
Haha, my dollar store has crappy paper. I got some last year. I kept putting my damn finger through it! But it was pretty. :)
Over here we've got the POUND STORE!!! Eat your heart out!! Packs of 12 batteries £1, nicorette chewing gum £1, cute cute felt xmas trees, £1.
You can go MAD, and it still only costs a fiver!
Oh you tease! Do they still have Poundstretcher too? I used to go to Poundstretcher sometimes full of hope for some little cheap gem of a thing and find only a bunch of twatty, nasty, cheap rubbish, which really is all you should expect for a pound. Still, your place sounds much better. I bet those batteries last for WEEKS. :) Or minutes.
My wife loves the dollar store.
I love my wife.
A + B is not equal to C.
I love containers too, although I run into the problem of where to put the containers containing the stuff that I didn't know where to put thus putting it in a container. Whew.
Also, you may find this post helpful the next time you go to the dollar store: http://wordsxthree.blogspot.com/2008/08/ill-buy-that-for-dollar.html
If I believed in heaven it would be filled with containers and mysterious dollar store kitchen utensils. And Bowls. Tons of bowls in bright colours.
Sigh.
ps- Your dollar store has a fridge? WTF?
Mmmm, I heart containers. They make me feel all organized & shit, when really the more boxes I have the more useless shite I keep.
Also, midget strippers? *shudder* I had to do an ad promoting one once (I believe it was Little Tina), I was like "This is not why I went to design college for four years."
Oh lawdy I heart you. So many things...okay, first of all, containers rule me too. I like using ball jars (hehe, I typed ball) and Altoid tins. And I'm obsessed/horrified with the Sometimes A Dollar Store too. I'm a crack addict in there, and then I leave and feel oh so dirty.
Ed: Noted. Yet it has some alluring qualities that reel me in. Sure I'm almost always disappointed apart from its container section but still. Possibilities!
Kim: Sigh. Bowls in bright colours. Yes please!
Soda: That's generally what mine do. Keep the crap off the table. If it's organized crap it's ok.
Words: Hahaha, I want a three dollar date kit! :) I have to admit I have bought those dollar garish Jesus pillar candles. They're kitschy so it's ok. You can only light them till they're half way down then you quit. But they're good and cheesy. Good for power outages and drunken moments.
Buffy: They just have that thing. That "there might be something fabulous in here" thing. And then, well you have to look at everything just in case. Then there really isn't. Except occasionally. Then you get nicely smug.
I just bought two christmas ornament containers today. It's almost as good as a cake rush :)
Two dollars is an insult. Didn't Eli Wallach called someone's mother a two-dollar whore?
You are right! It's just satisfying somehow. I see a similar trip in my near future. Actually now I think about it, cake rush maybe trumps it just a TOUCH...
GB: Haha! Sounds like something he'd say in the Good the Bad & The Ugly to me.
must.stay.away.from.container.store.
You say "dollar store" but I'm assuming what you really mean is "DOLLARAMA"..am I right? In fact, I'm hoping so because you live in Canada, like me, which means you're likely OBSESSED with Dollarama, like all Canadians, even though they raised their effing prices to like, 2 bucks for some things, which is a total rip-off, but I don't care, because it's Dollarama and it rules.
Anyway.
Totally digging your blog.
-sandyb
Ohh, I forgot about Lore S.'s web rant about Dollar store items.
If you haven't, check out BookOfRatings.com.
Not to be a dweeb or anything but, it's Spring over here. Maybe you're secretly hankering to become a Southern Hemisphere girl? And Lady Hem loves boxes. Wooden boxes. Any size, any colours. We have more wooden boxes floating around the house than we have to put stuff in them. And in Leytonstone, they have a store called 'Everything One Pound', with a big sign on the door, 'not everything one pound.' Never failed to make me laugh.
This post is basically about tupperware, right!? hahaha!
CDP: Yes, it won't help your wallet any.
Sandy: Actually in general I'm talking about a sort of mixture of The Dollar Store in the US AND Dollarama in Canada - Dollarama is the one with the two dollar stuff that confuses people. But it also has the best containers. :) And stuff in general. It's where I stock up on a lot of my paints. Good old Dollarama!
Eric: I will do that. I'm sure Dollar Stores get five stars. NOT.
Tennyson: Maybe I am. Who knows? I like boxes of all materials. Wooden, metal, plastic... I like wooden treasure chests too. And old suitcases. And boxes of all descriptions. It's sad really.
Otin: Haha, I like those too but oddly enough those are more every day necessity than fascinating. And just as (un)interesting to talk about. :)
i do so love the containers. mmmm, containy. the only thing is i get all caught up in containing things and then it doesn't fit and i get all dismayed and i have to shove the rest of it somewhere.
point? containers are crafty bastards. with their sweet, sweet promises.
Beckster: I know exactly of which you speak. I always get 3/4 of my foodstuff in a cute jar and then go "oh. There's a quarter left." and then I'm confused. All day.
OMG the container store!? could LIVE there!! (after i won the lotto of course)
And I just want to ask you one thing. Will you marry me?
Seriously. I never knew another person with a container fetish existed. We must get married and have little container loving babies.
My house is FILLED to the brim with containers of all sorts. Wicker, Plastic, all shapes and sizes and anywhere I can stick em. But I buy buy buy and hope that I can find a place to stick them. And then I have a secret stash hidden away.
Seriously... I even have a container that holds all my *ahem* toys and its gets better... I have a container IN my container that holds all our umm *ahem* lotions. THAT is how container addicted I am!!
I love you.
Marry me.
PS... I always do spring cleaning in the fall... who wants to clean when it starts to get warm and the flowers start to come out? Not me!
Haha, Cass. You know what would be good? If you needed a container to keep all your containers in. Where would it end? It would be like a Russian Doll situation. :) I'm happy your "toys" are taken care of though. Hopefully that one is childproof, ha!!!
The three words "Dollar store food" should never be uttered together. Like "Rosie O'Donnell naked" or "Kentucky hot brown" (which really is the name of a sandwich, but sounds a lot more like a fecal foreplay entry on Urban Dictionary.) I do not approve.
I concur with all of those. Kentucky Hot Brown made me lose my appetite for precisely the reason you mentioned. What the hell IS on a KHB and do I want to know?
I don't live in the Dollar Store...but I do live next to one. I don't want to know what a KHB is.
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