Happy prices are the best kind

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ In Birmingham, Ala., there is a store called Happy Price ‘Z’… ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ In Birmingham, Ala., there is a store called Happy Price ‘Z’ Outlet. Before we get to the store, consider the name. What does the Z in Happy Price ‘Z’ Outlet stand for, and why is it in quotation marks? Is it not real? Just a knockoff, or a proposed, unconfident Z?’ I think the ‘Z’ is an algebraic variable that can mean whatever you want. ‘ ‘ ‘ It would be hard to explain just what Happy Price sells. But think about this: People say that they want their dreams to come true, but they really mean they want their daydreams to come true. Happy Price, on the other hand, is the place where the dreams that you have when you’re asleep come true. Here’s some inventory. ‘ ‘ ‘ You can buy a three-piece samurai sword set for $15. Ten dollars gets you a cane-sword and the feeling that you’re an evil English gentleman. Happy Price sells Mexican soccer posters alongside giant paintings ‘mdash; not prints ‘mdash; of a kangaroo. I bought a CD there called ‘Booty Bass Ballads.’ You can buy a fake platinum chain with a dangling hatchet for $1 or a hollow, Playstation-shaped chunk of plastic called ‘Tomb Raider.’ There’s a laser pointer that projects the shape of a naked woman. There’s a ‘potion’ that makes plants grow. They have it all, wall to wall: the refuse of every brainstorming session ever. ‘ ‘ ‘ Along the left wall is the Catholic kitsch. There’s a clock with Pope Benedict that blinks red lights around the outline of his figure and lights in his eyes that pierce your soul every hour. There’s a hologram that shows a waterfall on one side with a motor that makes the water really flow, while on the other side of the hologram is Jesus Christ nailed up on Calvary, only this time the motor makes his blood really trickle. And to sanctify the experience, they have rows of prayer candles, each candle specified for a saint you’ve never heard of and with long biographies in Spanish. ‘ ‘ ‘ Happy Price is a great place to go if you love words but hate language. On the packaging for a ‘Peaceful Lamp’ is the slogan, ‘In ruthless business war, the wiser eats the wise!’ Words to live by. For the kids, there’s the classic children’s card game, Female Saint Fighters, or the boxing toy, Pugilism King. The front of the box for Pugilism King declares, ‘Cool! Wow … Prevalent!’ The back explains, ‘2001! Surmount!’ ‘ ‘ ‘ The treasure that has made me happiest, though, is the ‘calculighter watch.’ It looks like a calculator watch, except on further inspection you find the keys don’t attach to anything and serve a purely cosmetic purpose, as if calculator functionality is a fashion must-have. As a consolation, though, if you press a button on the side, a huge butane flame shoots out from the middle of the calculator pad. ‘ ‘ ‘ There’s a MySpace group called, ‘Happy Price ‘Z’ Outlet Is Where I Will Deliver My First Child.’ No surprise. The store is the biggest magnet for Alabama’s hipsters since someone opened a hardcore venue in Birmingham’s projects. It’s weird. It’s cheap. It’s run by immigrants. And best of all, Happy Price is executed in total honesty ‘mdash; a case study in the importance of being earnest. From your first step in the door, you know that this, my friend, is not a renovated diner where the Black Lips used to work; This is the real deal, dog, and these prices are actually happy. ‘ ‘ ‘ But Happy Price ‘Z’ Outlet isn’t just awesome, it’s important. But just why is as hard to explain as the store itself. It has to do with the way the wares rebuff back stories. Did someone, somewhere on the same Earth where I grew up, think, ‘A watch that shoots fire is cool, but how about if people thought it was a calculator?’ Where is the factory that makes calculighter watches? And Pugilism Kings? And Tomb Raiders? I know these places must exist, but they’re so absurd to think about that I feel like a cave dweller ogling constellations. Happy Price is a place, like a forest, where there is order but no impression of human design. The store is small, the size of Primanti Brothers, but it teaches that the world is huge. ‘ ‘ ‘ The owners are as strange as the products. A young Chinese couple, they wound up in Alabama but speak little English. They, too, seem to have no origins ‘mdash; rootless as postulates of arithmetic. I can’t imagine them growing from children, or maturing to old people. All I picture is them washing up at Bayou la Batre in a crate of kangaroo paintings with nothing, not even a memory, just a daydream and this cryptic phrase stuck in their heads: ‘Happy Price … is that a Z? … Outlet.’ Though they work miracles, who could write their lives on candles? ‘ ‘ ‘ All that I could write would be: ‘Vote ‘yes’ to immigration and free trade. Stop bashing the Chinese.’ And I would light that candle every day. E-mail Lewis at ljl10@pitt.edu.