By Dale Hunt

Armed with pen, paper and camera, I prepare myself for the front lines.

Accompanying my wife, who’s going in – unarmed. She doesn’t even bring her purse, nothing baggy, it just gets in the way.

“You’ve got to be efficient, no hang-ups. We’ve got to be there a half hour early. Even then, there will be strong competition. See, the trick is to line up to the left side of the doors, because it opens to the right.”

Another lady locks her wallet in her truck. Slim is in.

“The Dollar Store is more of a Ten Dollar Store. Seventy dollars for a purse and $250 for a stiletto chair. Let’s just grab a rack each, imagine the looks. Today is a digging day.”

Today they are all familiar with each other and they are friends for now.

“That dress even pushed up my boobs, it was fitting, it was flirting, it was amazing. It’s just how it was. You got to be a vigilante. You’ve got to watch over your stuff. Even if they know it’s yours, they will go through it. Remember that dress was at the bottom of my basket! And you all know how skinny I am, so we all know who took it.”

Dogs tied to trees, babies suffocating in pink fuzzy suits.

The con starts, the line-up deviation, one from the rear leads the pack of aggressors to the window for a view. One in the line-up exhales smoke to contract a dooming cough that breaks the order further. It’s all part of the plan, time to bare your stripes, pull some hierarchy pecking order here, where time and placement become obsolete. A forgotten passage, a place where a familiar face and a gaze in the window will jump space threefold in the line-up. And now it doesn’t matter that the neighbour had to jump start your car, they’re there at the left side of the right hand opening door.

AND THE DOOR OPENS.

It’s 10 a.m. Thursday morning and it will all unfold like a well studied map.

There’s a system. No more cackling. No more happy face. Survival mode kicks in.

Today, it’s all quite polite.

“Oh grab that for your grandmother!”

The baskets are strategically placed. If you know where to look, there’s even a couple on the outside of the doors. People flow through the maze, a checkered floor pathway with ease. A handful work in pairs, some laugh, some apologize as they drop their stash in the busy bottleneck, between the cash register and the end of the SLACKS rack.

We get out of there with all limbs intact, a few bruises and me with a limp after my foot is stepped on by a high heel. Two shirts for me, cool cowboy black and a book on Calgary’s homeless, two sweaters for my wife and a red and black striped scarf and a pair of pants for our son, all for less than $16.

Great bargains can be found and a whole lot you didn’t bargain for. I would say if you are more of the relaxed stand-back type, I would suggest waiting until the afternoon to shop.

Dale Hunt reporting from Invermere’s downtown lower east side…

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