Dime Stores

Dime stores were a fun place to go and one could get almost anything one needed.
This article brought back fond memories of going to the dime store.
–Just for the fun of it–
(from the magazine TOWN JOURNAL, April, 1956)

“Gifts that would delight me For A Dollar or less.”   Byline Virginia Whitman

“It’s a standing joke about women and dime stores, but that’s where I like my friends to shop for my gifts.   I wear a glamorous housecoat maybe once a week-but I’m sure to dust furniture at least 100 times a year, peel potatoes around 200 times and wash dishes better than 500 times.

I’m grateful every day to the friend who substituted a vegetable peeler for my paring knife.  It cost her a dime to do it!  And that little copper-mesh ball on my sink tumbled out of a holiday package.  I think warmly of the giver each time I scrape a pan and save my nails.

Someone also presented me with a couple of loosely knit, treated cloths-they must be magnetized, the way dust clings to them.   I’d never have bought them for myself, chronic procrastinator that I am!

The other day, a friend gave me a little squeeze-bottle that squirts a fine stream to banish rust stains.   Could you beat that for 100 cents or less.

My gift set of aluminum scoops may have crowded the dollar limit, but how handy they are.   The biggest went into my flour canister, next size into the sugar, and so on.   My metal pick-ups (long live their donor!) are handy for grasping hot foods such as roasting ears, string beans and baked potatoes.

Now I am not hinting.  But in any dime-store houseware section, you can find: kitchen shears, a set of metal skewers, pickle and ice-cube tongs.   Also a crimper to Fancy-up pie crusts, a cheese slicer and fancy molds for extra special desserts.

A large, wooden mixing spoon; a pronged metal “frog” for flower arrangements; coasters, plastic spears for appetizers,a pint-size measuring cup,  a platoon of clothespins or bouncy sponge.    Thank you very much!