How Long Can the Dollar Store Last?

Besides looking much like a chili pepper/boiled lobster at the moment, the beach was awesome and we had a great leadership planning retreat time. I think the best parts were:
Wearing Christian's bright pink hat
When Drew finally realized my name was "Calyn" and not "Allen".
Drinking, like, five diet vanilla cokes in one day. (Or Diet Coke Vanilla. Whatever the heck they changed the name to. Gosh, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.)
Watching Fox News...just kidding. Wanted to see if Todd caught that one.
Eating cookies for breakfast because no one was there to give us disapproving looks.
Talking to Mrs. Rachel on the phone.
Being Jenshka's roomie. :0) I love Jenna.
Playing "Nerts" and almost winning. (I never win card games. I never even come close, so that was exciting even though I didn't win. )
Finding awesome conch shells with James.
Watching Todd fall off the skateboard after standing on it for 2 hours straight. (Since it was 3:45 a.m., that made it even funnier.)
And the very best thing:
Not being in the water when Christian and Brandon came to tell me they saw a five-foot shark. Because with my luck I would have gotten eaten and become some statistic. And then Lori would have had to come home from Ukraine to come to my funeral and that would have been sad because I want her to get to stay in Ukraine. At least Oleg Jr. would have had a nice eulogy written for my name-tag, so that wouldn't be so hard to adapt. (By the way, did you know that more people die from donkeys than sharks? I suppose if I was eaten by a shark that statistic wouldn't offer much condolence to my family, but, hey.)
Okay, that's getting a little morbid. Let's change subjects.
While we were in Panama City, we went to this Dollar Store, mostly because Christian and Brandon are big fans of Dollar stores and the things in those stores are generally in their price range. They got a bunch of really cool stuff like hot pink hats and hot pink sunglasses and cool pooka shell necklaces. All for a dollar. It got me thinking. Panama City's "Everything's a Dollar" store has been around for quite some time, and there's been a lot of inflation going on since it opened. I mean, 10 years ago, $1 was worth a lot more than it is today. So, how the heck do they stay in business? I decided to do some research. Of course, any research that I do can be found on google.com, so it didn't take too much effort. I found out that
$1.21 in the year 2003 had the same "purchase power" as $1 in the year 1995.
$1.41 in the year 2003 had the same "purchase power" as $1 in the year 1990.
$2.23 in the year 2003 had the same "purchase power" as $1.00 in the year 1980.
This means that when Panama City's "Everything's a dollar" store opened in 1980, your dollar was worth a whole lot more. So, had you hopped in your Delorean in 1980 and brought a dollar with you, that dollar would only be worth about 0.45 cents right now. How sad is that? But on the other hand, you could come to the year 2003 and get a job at McDonald's and take your minimum wage back with you to 1983 and be a pretty well-off individual. I knew my Dad shoulda bought that Delorean.
All this to say I have no idea how $1 stores stay in business. No other store has kept the same price. McDonalds no longer has their 39-cent hamburgers and gas certainly isn't 89-cents a gallon anymore. Maybe the Dollar Store's stuff is just junkier now-a-days. Although, I find that hard to believe. How much junkier can you get than broken Christmas snowglobes that say "Welcome to the Sunshine State" and have Santa on a speed boat being pulled by dolphins that kinda resemble small grey cucumbers? I think my favorite are the ugly Florida magnets. They're already ugly enough with the fluorescent pink flamingos, but no Florida Dollar Store magnet is complete without your name written on it in big, black, block letters. Because "Kimberly" can only remember her name if it's stuck on her refrigerator. And her keychain. And her shotglass. And her bookmark. I think Kimberly might have bigger problems to deal with if that's the case. Maybe I'm just jealous because my name's never been on a magnet...Or those license plates that you can buy at Walmart that go on the back of your bicycle... Even though all my friends them... Oh well. I can take pride in the fact that, somewhere out there, there's a Japanese rock singer with my name. I don't even know how that works, though, because they definitely don't have the same alphabet. But she definitely spells it C-a-l-y-n, because her website is www.calyn.com. Except, it's under construction right now, so nothing happens when you go to it. It still counts, though.
Well, I'm gonna go try to do something productive. I get to sleep in tomorrow, which is very awesome. This is my exciting life for you all. The Dollar Store and sleeping in. Meanwhile, Lori is off learning Russian, going to Christian rock concerts and getting to meet Delirious?.
But, she didn't get to watch Todd fall off the skateboard, now did she? Arrivederci!