Sports Coloring and Activity Book
This is just your basic everyday coloring book, with the added bonus of reeking irony. It's filled with pictures of adorable, nearly identical youths, apparently having emerged from the gestation pod fully outfitted for sports ranging from football (which takes up 24 pages) to golf (3 pages, thank God). Each picture is accompanied by a helpful caption like "The goalie tries to keep the ball from going into the goal" or "The players have huge shoulders when they wear shoulder pads." The overall effect is that of trying to convince a slightly dim, very rotund child to give this whole physical movement thing a try. C-

Nail Puller
An excellent example of bad marketing: a bin in the dollar store filled with both nail pullers, which are basically hammers without the hammery bit, and actual plain old regular hammers which -- I cannot emphasize this enough -- have a puller already built into the back part. So for a buck, you can get a hammer or what amounts to the less useful half of a hammer. The peen. That's what it's called, you're educated now. D

Mye Incense
I bought this mainly because the scent is "Herb For Peace and Meditation," which is the smell I thought incense was usually used to cover. But I also like the way the package commands you to "Enjoy these incredible scents of nature (and nothing else!)." B-

Tippy Tops
Okay, we're all familiar with pencil toppers shaped like dinosaurs and race cars. They don't actually erase worth a 5-paragraph essay, but at least they claim to. These sticky paper pencil toppers just kind of wrap around your pencil like a sad little pennant, accomplishing nothing. Okay, that's odd enough, but these particular pencil toppers are in the shape of jeans pockets. Some of them even say "JEANS" on them, in case you're texture-blind. Uh? Are pencil banners, denim and pockets the hot new thing among the entertainment-absorbing youth culture? Of course not, this is the dollar store. But someone wanted them to be. D+

Racing Light Switch Wall Plate
It is impossible for me to put myself in the mind of a NASCAR fan. I tried once and I woke up in West Virginia wearing a CAT cap with only vague memories of fatback and carbon monoxide to help me piece together the events of the past week. However, I'm fairly sure that the hoods of the cars are not the main selling point. And yet, that's all this switch plate is: a little plastic car hood with a Valvoline logo and the signature of some Ed O'Neill lookalike. D

Dental Mirror and Pick
This is the most frightening item I found at the dollar store. Who is buying these? You can't use a dental mirror on yourself. Each possibility that squirms its way into my mind is more terrifying than the last. A really cheapskate dentist. A dental fetishist. Someone who dresses teddy bears in dental scrubs for sale as gifts. A fetishist of said bears. I don't want to think about it any more. C-