Where will I get down on my knees for a bargain?

Published Feb. 18, 2008

Value City is closing.
Sadder words were never spoken.
To me.
For you see, you either love or hate shopping at Value City. There is no in-between.
But the people who love it - me - find a lot of good bargains there for the people who hate it - my husband, my sons, my mother, my brothers and just about everyone else I know.
It's a place for treasure hunters - and people who don't mind crawling around on the floor looking for those treasures.
I was there at Christmas time, looking for presents - specifically sheets and men's dress shirts.
Get a shopping cart - if you can find one - and follow me on that Christmas shopping trip.
But first we have to get into the store, and that's not easy. There are tables laden with seasonal items - today it would be Easter baskets; at Christmas, it was wrapping paper and popcorn tins - that seem to have been placed close together to keep us from getting in the store, but we will not be deterred. Just push the cart hard and squeeze through.
The sheets are over to the right.
The shelves are lined with sheets of every color, good sheets with high-thread counts - and cheap. But they are packaged separately, the fitted sheet, the top sheet and the pillowcases.
There seem to be a lot of packages of tan sheets. I pull a couple of them off the shelves. The colors are close but not quite matching. I pull out a couple more.
Pretty soon I have more than I can hold, and none of them match. I put them all on the floor. I never realized there were so many shades of tan.
I keep pulling them off the shelf and soon I put another pile on the ground.
Then I get on my hands and knees to re-sort my piles.
Not a match in the lot.
I put them all back on the shelves. It's hot in here. I take off my coat, lay it over the top of the cart and survey the selection again.
White. White is white, right?
When I start pulling white sheets off the shelf, I realize that there is white and cream and patterned white.
Let's forget about the sheets.
I walk around the perimeter of the store toward the shoes. I don't really need any shoes but it's fun to look. I especially like to look at the women's shoes - fancy high heels - in size 12 and bigger. Who wears those?
Maybe the women who go with the men who shop across the aisle in the big-and-tall department, where I have seen size 6X.
Housewares are on the far side of the store.
In the clearance aisle are flower vases and baskets and picture frames. Lamps and candleholders and "art" objects. Some are broken and many are missing their mate - kind of like the sheets - but it's as fascinating as any shopping trip you can take.
The last stop is the dress shirts. I see a sea of lavender and an occasional bright blue or yellow on the shirt tables. This isn't looking promising.
In the end, I find a black shirt in the size I want to get but put it back. I'm simply too exhausted to weigh the merits of that shirt.
I head toward the checkout. Hours have passed since I squeezed past that wrapping paper, and I have nothing in my cart to show for it.
But that's the thing about Value City. You always knew that even if you didn't find something that day, you'll find something next time.
Except that soon there will be no more next time.