Cowansville's Dollarama

Dollarama - Cowansville's Holt&Renfrew

By M. H. Starhemberg
Wednesday afternoon with nothing to do: no way to clean the yard yet, it's too early to take the plastic off the porch windows and we do not watch TV in the afternoon. Solution - a quick shopping trip to our favourite Dollarama in the Cowansville shopping mall, the local ersatz Holt&Renfrew.
We have done this so many times, and every time we are just going to  "get some of the cheap batteries and maybe a note pad and a couple of 100W light bulbs. This has never worked and wisely, we both grab a basket at the entrance and go a'foraging independently. In the past we would say "each of us gets to spend $ 10.-". This has never worked, so, tacitly it does not get mentioned any more. There is just so much stuff one just has to have...


I remember that I recently chipped a heavy duty drinking glass I liked and had a set of 6 of, well, now I have a set of eight. On my desk at home are two empty ring binders which needed plastic inserts to file "stuff" in and the ceramic frog that sings after I put two button batteries in, was just too cute to pass up. Nancy meanwhile found candles. I agree, one can never have enough of those. And a new shower curtain ($ 2.- complete with rings), because the cats have torn a hole in the old one. Then there were the great long baskets for the barbecue to hold the kebabs in so that no pieces fall on the grill. I scored the last 7 all aluminum outdoor solar light sticks. Three large cans of wet cat food for a buck are nothing to pass up on and it is also good to have an extra six packages of Knorr sauce mix.

It is imperative to pick up a few small toys for our friends kids and it occured to me that a picture hanging set ($ 1.-) should come in handy sometime in the future when I can find a square foot of wall space in the house. Thankfully, I have never gambled because I probably would get hooked on that just as easily as I feel that I am scoring big time anytime I pick up something for a Dollar. I regret that I already own a dozen Dollarama Quartz kitchen clocks because there was a brand new set set with at least two colors I do not own yet. ("What do you mean you still have the ones from last fall unpacked upstairs") Women don't think straight when it comes to planning for future gift occasions. The price may double and where does that leave me then?

I am not alone. While there this afternoon, we chatted with four of our friends from Sutton who, I suspect, were there for the same reason we were, to get out of the house, look around, buy a few useful items and enjoy a lovely drive through the countryside which in the past two days was peopled with deer. We counted 24 this afternoon alone.
But the best part is that when Nancy is at the cash register and smiles...