The Rules: Get a group of friends together. Set a low spending limit ($10, or more challenging, $5), then give each person a half hour to come back with the best basket of goods meeting whatever version of the game you prefer.

One version just dictates you come back with the overall best basket of bargain stuff. Another has each player drawing the name of someone else, then coming with $10 worth of items useful and suitable for that person. A naughtier version instructs each person to come back with the most embarassing or bizarre variety of goods, which another player drawn from a hat then has to check out with a straight face. An example might be, say, a bottle of KY Jelly, a piece of PVC pipe, Mustard, and My Little Pony beach towel. Ten bucks worth of condoms won’t do it. Bonus points for creativity and variety, here.

Last night, my family played the G-rated, gift version. The lesson in all of this is of course the wonderful variety of items you can purchase from Wal-Mart for a pittance. A few of the items rounded up last night:

My basket:

One 8-inch non-stick skillet.
One 5 ounce lemon pie.
One 5 ounce chocolate eclair pie.
One dashboard-mounted car compass.

What I got:

Two white shower towels.
One pair of flannel pajama bottoms.
A three-picture picture frame.

Another basket:

One Pacers baseball cap.
Two pair of winter gloves.
Back of Orbitz sugarless gum.

Another basket:

Two 9-pack bosex of Cheese-It snacks.
One ten-pack box of Ritz-Bits peanut butter sandwiches.
Five single-servings of Doritos chips.

Another basket:

One hair berret.
One pair of house slippers.
One box of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies.

My original plan was to get my dad a “retirement pack” for his upcoming retirement: One two-gallon jug of red wine. Ear plugs. And a bottle of ibuprofen.

Unfortunately, Indiana blue laws got in the way — no wine sales on Sunday. I was pleasantly surprised, however, to see that you can buy liquor at Wal-Mart in Indiana. Saw a one-gallon bottle of Jack for thirty-five bucks.

The Wal-Mart game works pretty well at Big Lots, too.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 17th, 2005 at 1:11 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.