The 99¢ STORE was like the light at the end of the tunnel; a magnetic, burning, fluorescent dream. Brighter than the Luxor’s searchlight relative to its surroundings, a rectangle of white against the black of the tough end of the Miracle Mile. It’s an oasis, I thought to myself, conjuring up images of both water in a wind-swept desert and the gas station north of the Grapevine on I-5 late at night. In the windows, rows and columns of stuff. Any stuff you want, but in the windows only easily stackable, brightly colored stuff. 99 cent stuff. Repeated and gridded, slightly faded from the sun, like the inside of Warhol’s head manifested.

And when entering the store, my head swam with the endless possibilities: a 9V battery two pack, or a tube of Crest? A bottle of soy sauce or a pair of sunglasses? How much does the can of olives cost? 99 cents. Which makes deliberation over price obsolete. The more brain work they take out of shopping, the more likely you are to shop. There are lots of choices and they are grouped and stacked, en masse, for display. How can you not want to buy dog food when there are a hundred paper terriers staring at you with those puppy dog eyes? I don’t even have a dog.

To be honest, this wasn’t shopping nirvana. I mean, the Crest was Cavity Protection Crest, as no-frills as Crest can get. What happened to Multi-Care Cool Mint Crest? And the tube was smaller than I’m used to.

How much was that toothpaste again? I picture a single solitary dollar bill for each item I pick up. I’m sure the strategy in the naming of the store is to conjure instead images of loose change. Ninety-nine pennies perhaps? Perhaps not, that is a lot of pennies. But I discover I am wrong at the cash register, my purchase of a box of 50 plain white envelopes and a roll of premium Christmas wrapping paper costs $2.15. What folly to imagine the only change they would ever need to make was a penny for each item sold. What I thought was an elegant system, foiled by California sales tax.

Still I couldn’t help but take solace in the fact that at least in this world, everything is equal.