Today, I accompanied my wife to the 98 Cents Store. You'd probably expect most items in the store to be 98 cents, but no. The store carried a variety items ranging from bunk beds to shower curtains to area rugs to floor mats for your car to wonderful weaves.
Let me be up front about this, I've been to a few weave shops with my wife before, but it's a relatively rare experience for me. As a child growing up, I never went to the weave shop with my mom because she doesn't wear weave, so each trip is truly a learning experience. The 98 Cent Store was sensory overload... thanks to the unique mix of merchandise, the employees, and the shoppers.
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| Wife surveys the selection at the 98 Cent Store |
I'm really not sure where to start.
The mission of our trip was to find a wonderful weave. I prefer my wife's natural hair, but beyond that I'm learning that it's best for me to not say any more. Clearly, the mission was flawed from my perspective the moment we embarked on our quest. Still, an adventure was in the midst!
I love a good sale, so the immediate realization that nearly nothing there was marked for sale at 98¢ was a major let down. How can they even call their store that? I might file a complaint with the FTC.
Though our mission was to search for a wonderful weave, I wanted to look around to see what was actually 98¢ if anything, which took us on a trek throughout the store.
The merchandise selection
Immediately upon entering the store, shoppers will immediately be drawn to the half-dozen half mannequins modeling a skanky line (not swanky as spell check suggest) of leggings, ranging from neon colors to faux denim. For men, you'll find Dickey style pants to pair with fashionable jailhouse striped polo styled shirts also in a variety of neon colors. For children, they've got conservative school uniforms. Someone loves the kids! In the front corner, you'll find flat brimmed baseball caps in several colors with no logos or designs. The low, low price of $2.98 nearly got me to buy one, but the brim just didn't seem like it would ever bend. In one of the back corners, huge area rugs for the low, low price of $149, and right next to those were car floor mats, including the purple leopard print line for $14.98! Of note, the only items we found that were 98¢ were small votive candles. Shoplifting must also be a problem when it comes to bandannas, which were 99¢, because they were tagged with anti-theft devices.
The employees
The men were from Palestine or at least sympathizers of their political movement. I know this because there were two cars outside the store (parked in handicapped parking spaces) with Free Palestine car tag frames. I'm accepting this as a reasonable conclusion, not a certainty. There was also a woman, who helped other women with weave; I'll come back to her. First, the man at the register. As we approached the cash register, he was clearly daydreaming or at least deep in thought as he listened to Islamic prayers. He seemed somewhat bothered that we were ready to check out. That was strange. Even stranger though was that the woman selling weave had locks. O_o There was also a guy who helped at the weave counter, but he didn't know as much, didn't speak clear English, and by the time we got to the register, he was sweeping the parking lot. All in all, they were a strange bunch, but they didn't follow us around the store which was appreciated.
The shoppers
The clientele of the 98 Cent Store made the parking lot of the store appeared to be match how I envision a corner store on Crenshaw in Compton, California. By that I mean, several cars on over-sized rims with loud colors, i.e. money green. Inside, most of the women (not my wife) had so little hair that their weave would have to be glued or clipped in, not sewn. This was somewhat disturbing.
THE WEAVES
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| Weaves not making eye contact. |
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| Weaves not looking at the customer |
My favorite part of our amazing search for the wonderful weave
involved the placement of the weave heads on that lined the shelved.
They were all either facing the wall or the sky, but didn't make eye
contact. Something about that made me feel unwanted and dirty. It was
clear that I didn't fit in at the weave shop, but it was quite an
adventure. Sort of.
Oh, and yes... my wife did leave with a weave, but
it was certainly NOT 98¢.
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