The readers have spoken, and I am twenty-five bucks poorerererr.

For my Dollar Tree adventure, I looked the part. I hadn't shaved in a while, I was visibly exhausted, and the bottom of my jeans were tattered beyond the point where I could've passed it off as some sort of style thing.

Realizing the $25 worth of Dollar Tree shit would not possibly fit in a handcart, I was forced to use an actual wagon. While it's amazing that Dollar Tree even has wagons, it's a well-known fact that nobody uses them. See, everyone wants to pretend that their trip to the Dollar Tree is a lark. They're there to "kill a few minutes," or they're there because they "just need a lot of paper cups for a party," or they're there for this or for that -- but under no circumstances are they ever really shopping. When you're pushing a wagon, you're really shopping.

I was pushing a wagon. I was really shopping. So began the cold war of nasty glances from the store's young employees, who regarded me with what was either disgust or pity, or possibly both. Unshaven, tired and pushing a wagon, I could not hide the fact that I was the archetype Dollar Tree shopper. They shot me their looks...looks that said, "you're really shopping here." I shot looks right back at them....looks that said, "well, you're really working here."

This silent battle went on for twenty minutes, and I felt like I was losing. I was spending money on ceramic pelican statues. At least they were getting paid to stand there.

Disregarding my usual inclination to decide between a "fight or flee" response in reverse alphabetical order, I marched on. I had a mission to complete and a promise to keep. Total strangers demanded that I write about 25 things purchased from Dollar Tree. It was destiny.

I left with way too many treasures to cover in one blog entry, but here are the first eight. If it's still light out by the time I finish writing this, I'll head back outside and brave wasp territory to take the photos for Batch #2. (Which is far weirder than this batch, because I'm nothing if not an endless crescendo-mounter guy.)

For now, enjoy these eight gifts from Mars:

Noah's Ark Playset: If you were under the impression that churches are the best places to get closer to God, I must correct you. Dollar stores are. The zany cast of characters from "The Bible" were all over Dollar Tree, taking every conceivable form -- including edible items. Still, any lingering notions that Dollar Trees were holy places was tempered by the fact that all God-related items were stocked next to things like inflatable parrots and six-packs of Bintyne gum.

I chose this Noah's Ark playset because, well, it's hilarious and an easy target. I can understand that they needed to exclude an actual ARK toy since it'd be too large for the retail price to make sense, but if they were going to push a Noah's Ark set and forgo the ARK, they could've done a much better job with the residuals...

Included in this accurate portrayal of the classic story are Noah, his wife, one sheep, a bale of hay, and several nondescript vegetables. Perhaps the shitty company that made this was trying to present the kind of food-for-thought "What If?" scenario that makes philosophers and Uatu run in circles. What if Noah was completely retarded and embarked on his God-given journey with only these tools? What type of new society could be forged from the fruits of Noah, his wife, one sheep and a four-day supply of carrots?

I could ponder for hours, but I have red toothpaste to distract me.

Close-Up Toothpaste: I don't mean it as an indictment, but I only ever remember that Close-Up toothpaste exists when I'm in a dollar store. For whatever reason, Close-Up has become the totem toothpaste of dollar stores everywhere. It isn't the only brand that they carry, but it's the only brand that they carry that doesn't come in a plain cardboard box with the logo quickly drawn on using dried out magic markers.

I haven't seen commercials for Close-Up toothpaste in centuries, but as a child, they were on all the time. According to those commercials, this toothpaste doubled as some kind of sex lube. Seriously, the ads for this stuff played like soft porn, with fresh-breathed lovers fiercely making out. Despite my never-ceasing desire to know what a toothpaste that red and sparkly tasted like, I was always too embarrassed to ask for it. It seemed somehow "adult."

Well, now I've tasted it. I spent my childhood totally incorrect. Close-Up toothpaste simply does not taste like Fruit Roll-Ups mixed with Fun Dip. It just tastes like toothpaste. Suddenly I'm Geraldo in Al Capone's vault. What a pitiful end to such a spirited journey.

Slime Egg: Like there was even the slightest chance that I was going to leave Dollar Tree without this little slice of joy pie. Many dollar store toys started off on far grander stages, and only found themselves dusty and dollarized after their good years were spent. Then there are things like this...things that could have only ever been sold in dollar stores.

I'd try to come up with some existential description of the Slime Egg set, but really, this is an item that calls for a completely literal explanation: Toy pan, toy spatula, slime egg.

It's unreal, surreal, disgusting and amazing. The Slime Egg is so many things at once that I don't know which part of my brain is best capable of processing it.

After you crack open the egg-shaped container and let the slime run out, you're left with a few ounces of the gloppiest faux egg ever forged, complete with rubber yolk. I have no idea what you're supposed to do with it, as it's too watery to actually hold, let alone "flip" with the toy spatula.

And don't get me started on the plastic toy pan, which is so incredibly flimsy that it actually can't support the weight of the Slime Egg, and in fact folds and cracks under the pressure. It's quite possibly the worst toy in history, but I'm not ruling out its potential as an ironic objet d'art, mainly because I feel so awesome using "objet d'art" in a sentence. Picture me in mirrored Ray-Bans when you read it.

Spider-Man Jumbo Eraser: Had they just marketed these things as cheap frisbees, I'd be fine, but I have many, many issues with these being peddled as "erasers." Okay, I'll admit it: Strictly speaking, they are erasers. The package doesn't include a list of ingredients, but if it did, I'm sure it'd say, "Ingredients: Erasers." If you want to get technical, I'll lose.

But really, could anyone actually erase something with this? It's way too thin and pliable -- you'd tear it apart if you tried. And let's not forget the fact that the eraser innards are covered with cheap black paint. Even if you were to effectively erase any misused quotation marks, you'd smear black paint all over your essay. It's just totally not feasible as an eraser and it's driving me fucking crazy. It's obviously a frisbee, so why couldn't they call it that? If it's because "frisbee" is a trademarked term (and I know it is, because spellcheck keeps telling me to capitalize it), I'd be perfectly fine with the standard "flying disc" workaround.

And with fourteen syllables, all is forgiven.

Witches and Wizards Clipart CD: Buried deep within Dollar Tree's forbidden pile of DVDs was this delightful collection of Witches and Wizards clipart. The sleeve points out that it was edited by Jon Gustafson, and apparently this is a big deal, but all I can gleam from that is that Jon Gustafson is not someone who chose a pseudonym before beginning his professional career. His surname makes me think of Vikings with gas. I hate Jon Gustafson.

I'm tempted to pop in the disc and revel in the glories of long-haired warlocks who use Palpatine's Force lightning to singe the loincloths of other long-haired warlocks, but I'm convinced that any attempt to load the disc will crash my computer. It's a risk/reward thing, and when the "reward" is a photo of Ogre Harry the Axe-Wielder, "risk" wins.

Grow-In-Water Slime Splat: Not much to say about this one, except that it's cute and the greatest thing in the history of the world. Dollar Tree had a bazillion grow-in-water toys from all different makers, but none made me scream like a dying bird quicker than this one.

There's a caveat, though. I will never put this in water, no matter how much I'm tempted -- and trust me, I'm very tempted. It's just so obvious that it's going to look like a nondescript glob of green after it grows, mainly because that's all it's supposed to look like. But you know how these grow-in-water toys work. They get bigger in water, but they lose a lot of their detail as they do. I don't want my slime splat to lose its natural curves and bumps. I'd rather have a tiny-and-defined slime splat than one that just looks like soaking Jell-O.

Nissin Hot & Spicy Ramen Soup: No secret jokes or gags are intended, I actually bought this to eat. It's delicious. Horrible for you, but delicious. Nissin is sneaky, too. As if the statistics listed on the nutrition facts label weren't bad enough for one serving, Nissin actually considers the bowl as two servings. Because so many people are going to split a styrofoam cup's worth of ramen, or save half of it for another day.

Heinous quantities of fat and sodium aside, the soup is miraculous in an overall sense, and fantastically spicy -- and even more so if you dare to make use of its included packet of gooey "soup booster," a type of brown slime that bumps the Scovilles into the stratosphere. The "soup booster" stuff kinda works like that old Honey Ooze packet from TMNT Cereal -- you know it's wrong, but no mortal can afford to care.

Inflatable Seahorse: With summer fast approaching, dollar stores everywhere are rushing to construct their hybrid luau/Independence Day sections. This is where such stores really shine, because if you need to make your backyard look festive and gaudy for the span of a four-hour party, you really don't need to be spending a fortune on it. I'm confident that I could recreate Trader Vic's on the strength of Dollar Tree's luau aisle alone, and being confident makes me feel taller.

To represent Dollar Tree's selection of luau decorations, I chose an inflatable seahorse. Just looking at him feels like a party. By "him," I of course mean George, and by "George," I of course mean my inflatable seahorse. A person cannot own something with eyes that soulful and not give it a name. George, please don't blink, not now, not ever.

Math says that I'm roughly 33% through my Dollar Tree haul, which means that there are approximately 2.00001 chapters left in this sensational series. Let's round down and call it a trilogy. Stay tuned for Part 2 of 3!