Stuff I Bought This Fall

While I suppose the two don't necessarily have to go hand-in-hand, in addition to my appreciation of retail history and design, I simply enjoy shopping. Specifically, I enjoy getting a good deal. There's a difference, in my mind at least, between being cheap and being frugal. My accountants' brain is probably a big part of that. Anyway, I say all that to introduce this post -- just a conglomeration of some stuff I've bought this fall, that's all. I've had a good time going all these places and scoring all these deals. I considered writing about it (like, pen and paper writing), but have been consistently too lazy to actually do that. Then I thought about blogging about it just personally/privately... but figured what the heck, y'all might be interested, too. Especially since I haven't posted in a hot minute! Again, to clarify, none of this should be construed as me trying to brag or anything like that... I'm just a guy who appreciates a good deal and wants to write about the fun he's had along the way. Here goes.

TJMaxx, Jackson

A while back it was announced that a new shopping center was going to be constructed next to the Costco in Ridgeland (the only one in the state of Mississippi), featuring Aldi as well as TJMaxx, Old Navy, PetSmart, and La-Z-Boy. Aldi is growing its presence in the area, expanding from its first market location which opened in Flowood a few years ago. La-Z-Boy is also new to the market, but I was very afraid that the other stores locating in Ridgeland would spell doom for each of their individual locations in nearby Jackson. Sure enough, in the weeks leading up to the new stores' openings, all three retailers abandoned their existing buildings in the state capital.

Rendering of the new shopping center, Renaissance Phase III. Courtesy The Clarion-Ledger

I actually didn't realize until about a week ago that PetSmart was a relocation, since I don't have a pet, but that store was located in the Target shopping center off I-55. Both TJMaxx and Old Navy were part of the same shopping center off County Line Road. It wasn't hard to picture Old Navy moving, as it had already relocated once before in its lifetime -- literally just a matter of yards from a neighboring shopping center on County Line (seriously, only 800 yards from the back of one store to the front of the other), not unlike the story of the former Best Buy stores on Winchester in the Southwind area of Memphis. It was easy to imagine TJMaxx making this move, too, considering how its parent company had already relocated the next-door Marshalls store to Madison a few years prior, in 2022.

I always thought it was strange to see a Marshalls right next to a TJMaxx. Both now-relocated stores, as well as a still-open Ross, occupy what I believe to be a former Service Merchandise building.

As someone who doesn't live that awful far from County Line, while I'm happy for the growth in Ridgeland and Madison, I've hated that it's had to come at the expense of Jackson, where these vacant buildings have considerable trouble attracting new tenants. And while the new stores may be nicer and newer prototypes, I much prefer the old Marshalls and TJMaxx locations myself -- they felt a bit less sterile, and certainly a lot less crowded. Everyone and their mother seems to be going to the new locations these days, whereas beforehand I don't recall the crowds on County Line ever being that large. Is that in and of itself a reasoning behind the closures -- people were afraid to shop on County Line? I suppose so, which of course makes it understandable why the stores would thus relocate, but I still lament it, nonetheless.

With the new stores set to open on November 6, 2025, I decided to check out the County Line shopping center about a week and a half prior, on October 26. To my surprise, Old Navy had already closed its doors, sign removed from the building and all. I assumed both stores might have some small discounts, if not storewide sales altogether, but I guess not for Old Navy! At the very least I thought for sure they'd remain open at full price until the move, but it seems they were fine with a gap period. That was just as well for me; I'm not really an Old Navy shopper, I was just going to go in to see what was there in anticipation of the move.

At TJMaxx, on the other hand, I hit the motherlode! I wasn't expecting much, maybe just some extra discounts on clearance merchandise. It's been so long now that I can't remember what, if anything, the Marshalls did when it moved. But lo and behold, the whole TJMaxx was on sale -- and 40% off, at that! I stocked up on some odds and ends, including some Halloween decorations, wood stands, a photo book, a belt, a basket, a coaster set, and some scent beads. I kid you not, I was in the store for two hours. I wasn't particularly trying to be there that long, but I got caught up in making sure I looked over everything that was there, as well as making some calls and trying to be on the lookout for stuff other folks might want. While my goal wasn't to photograph the store, I did take a few random pictures of the interior which I'll share below.

As I looped around a few times, more and more of the merchandise I'd seen earlier disappeared into people's carts. I'd wager the sale had begun a few days beforehand for the stock level to have dipped so low by the time I visited. I wonder if they had enough on-hand to keep the store open until November 5, or if they ended up having to close early and have a gap period like Old Navy did.

The line was decently long when I got into it, wrapping about a quarter of the way down the side wall. Every lane was open, and signs across the whole store advertised the 40% off sale.

Some views of the interior as seen from the front of the building. This was an older model TJMaxx.

I wanted this shot to show the "thanks for shopping jackson" sign at the front. The cashier I spoke with was a little disappointed in the move, seeing as how her existing commute was only 2-3 minutes. But with the new store it's not that much farther, at about 5-7.

The receipt tape had already been updated to show the store's new address in Renaissance Phase III. As I was getting ready to leave the parking lot, I looked in my rearview mirror to back up and noticed what looked like my friend's truck parked behind me. Right at that moment, he and his wife appeared at my passenger side window. We said hi to each other briefly, with me encouraging them to go inside sooner rather than later since the deals were going fast.

After driving around some more, I wound up in Pearl, first at the Dunkin Donuts, which surprisingly is the only location in the Jackson metro. Shipley is my favorite, but I like the occasional Dunkin run too, and I very rarely treat myself, so I decided to stop by. I was lucky that they had exactly one of my favorite flavor of Dunkin donut, double chocolate, left in stock; I splurged on a pumpkin donut as well. Then, after a stop at the area's Spirit Halloween, I drove over to the Big Lots 2.0 which had reopened back in April. I knew the stores were supposed to be celebrating their official grand openings sometime this fall, and as luck would have it, I happened upon the store right as the grand opening banner was being hung.

I will say that the place was considerably better stocked than it had been before. As a fan of Big Lots 1.0's food department, it was nice to see some closeouts mixed in, such as the Rao's two-pack vodka sauce jars (a very good deal at $4.99 for the pair). I was also happy to see a well-stocked knick-knack aisle, which almost reminded me of Tuesday Morning, the fallen retail chain I miss most of all. In fact, I actually purchased that exact "the first 5 days after the weekend are always the hardest" sign at a Tuesday Morning four years ago, and have had it on my desk at work this whole time.

I was surprised to see the store handing out actual sales flyers for the grand opening, and elsewhere in the store's seasonal department, there were some paper ads reminiscent of the final, ill-fated Closeout Man campaign taped to the shelves.

All in all, here's what I purchased that day. Not the prettiest picture, since I wasn't taking it with a blog post in mind at the time, but it'll do. It's getting harder and harder to find scent beads these days, so these ones were really good deals -- two-packs already marked on clearance at $4.50 each. After the discount, each individual container cost $1.35. I made sure only to buy the ones already marked down, as other two-packs still at full price wouldn't have been as good of a deal.

The coasters, located on the clearance aisle, had an obvious spot where a sticker had been affixed to them, but no sticker was present -- so I picked up a red clearance sticker near it on the shelf. I have to assume it went with the item, as it did ring up as an item from the "kitchen" department, and nothing else was noticeably missing a tag. $3.00 seemed like a reasonable price, too ($1.80 after discount).

I saw the "boo" sign while waiting in line at the register, and thought it was too cute not to snap up. I'm a sucker for anything with a smiley face on it. That, too, was on clearance for $3.00 prior to the 40% off discount. Finally, we come to the "Great Pumpkin" bowl, which pairs well with my Linus Funko Pop! figure. This is actually a ramen noodle bowl, intended to sell as a set with matching chopsticks. The first one I found still had the chopsticks intact, but then I found another that was missing the chopsticks. Both were on clearance, but the one missing the chopsticks of course was marked down further. That's perfect for me -- I get a better deal, and I don't have to be wasteful by buying something I don't need (since all I wanted was the bowl anyway, simply for decorative purposes). Score! (If it wasn't obvious already, I don't like wasting anything -- objects, food, money, what have you.) I can't quite read its sticker in the earlier photo, but I'm pretty certain it was the $5.50 item on the receipt ($3.30 paid). The other one with the chopsticks would've been something like $8 prior to the 40% off, I want to say.

I actually had a similar purchase not that long before this one at the Ollie's on County Line (which hopefully, unlike all these other stores, is there to stay!) -- an Ollie's branded tumbler on clearance because it was missing its lid. Again, perfect for me: I'm never going to drink out of it anyway, so that gave me the excuse to finally buy one!

Ollie's cup, because why not.

Last up before we close out this section of the post... I decided to visit the new, relocated TJMaxx on its opening weekend, just to compare the two stores. I was very quickly in and out. While the long line seen at the Jackson store made sense due to the 40% off closing sale, it was outrageous to me to see, at a full-priced store, a line that went literally halfway around the store -- not a turn of phrase; the image below shows the back walkway of the building. Crazy.

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Philadelphia, MS

I took the day off work on Halloween to travel to Philadelphia, MS, where I had tickets to see Wheel of Fortune Live at the Ellis Theater that night. I grew up watching Wheel of Fortune and it's just such a feel-good show. Unfortunately I don't catch it most nights these days, but I can't say how happy I am that it is now available on Hulu so I can watch it anytime rather than having to be in front of the TV at exactly 6:30. 

Their live touring production doesn't involve any of the talent from the real program and is not an actual taping, just an event for local audiences. Still, it was extremely fun, and I will definitely visit again next time they are in Mississippi. They actually were in Philadelphia for two nights in a row, which I think was partly to make up for the fact that last year's show, scheduled for the mold-infested Thalia Mara Hall in Jackson, had to be cancelled. They were also in Hattiesburg the year before that, but I didn't make the trip that year -- now I know the error of my ways! 

While there was no photo or video allowed, I can assure you that the show was great, and it was Halloween-themed, too, which was a nice touch and something unique to the day I just happened to pick (which worked out best for me simply because it was a Friday). I had been to the Ellis once before, for a Switchfoot concert, and can say it is a very nice theater that has been restored as part of Philadelphia native Marty Stuart's Congress of Country Music construction. The guy running the merch booth was perhaps the friendliest person I've ever encountered at a concert venue, even if the pins I had wanted to buy were unfortunately out of stock. (Not to worry, I still walked away with an overpriced long-sleeve shirt and pair of socks!) 

As for the show itself, the theater was packed, and those who got to participate on stage seemed ecstatic. You could choose whether or not to be entered in the random pool to be selected; I opted simply to stay in the audience. Of those who did get chosen, most were retirees, but there were also some middle-aged folks and even a few Mississippi State students as well (so I wasn't the youngest person in attendance!). On the tour, you're playing simply for points instead of a cash prize as you would on TV, but let me tell you -- had the woman who did end up winning the whole thing, an 80-something year-old great-grandmother who has been watching Wheel of Fortune for over 40 years, walked away with the cash equivalent of her point total, she would have gotten over $40,000. That's really good, even for an actual episode of the real thing!

Anyway, in the rest of the day leading up to the show that night, I simply bounced around the small-town Philadelphia antique malls. On the way in I had spotted a Walmart with the new logo on the outside, indicating it has remodeled to the latest "store of the future" prototype and decor package, but I knew the stores in Philadelphia wouldn't be open super late, so I didn't stop in; it's definitely on my list for the future, though. My first stop was the Square Peg Mini Mall, which I had not been to before. I picked up a uniquely shaped vase that was on clearance and a cool piece of pottery for 20% off. Then I went downtown to a pair of antique stores that are just a few doors down from each other; both of these I had visited with my mom the day of that Switchfoot concert I mentioned. 

At Jus' Pickin, I bought a decently priced coffee mug of the M&M's "Ms. Brown" character. I have a collection of M&M's dispensers featuring the spokescandies, which I mentioned recently over on flickr. By the time Ms. Brown debuted, they had more or less discontinued manufacturing the dispensers, so I thought the mug would be a good way to incorporate that character within my collection. (A couple weeks later, I found an M&M's Snuggie on the impulse buy rack at the Madison Walmart checkouts... so of course I picked that up, too.)

$6 mug displayed next to another of my dispensers, this being one of the rare ones featuring Orange, my favorite spokescandy.

The Snuggie also features the new Purple M&M character, so I guess I have them all represented now.

The other antique store was Cherry Pick'd. The owner there, Barry, is just a really nice guy. My mom and I had a great, long conversation with him last time we were there about bottle collectors/collections and various other things. He recognized me from before and even remembered we were from the Memphis area (not that I live there these days, but still). We talked some more, although he was closing up shop for the day by the time I arrived so I couldn't stay too long. I ended up walking out with a Christmas gift for one of my friends. It's a Chevy logo from an old vehicle, and he has always driven Chevys and likes trinkets like that, so it seemed like a logical fit. Afterwards I ate at Del Taco, which for some crazy reason happens to have a lone Mississippi location in Philadelphia, of all places. I got a $7 box featuring a burrito, a beef taco, a chicken taco, a quesadilla, and a drink, and it was both tasty and a very good deal.

I should have gotten a photo of the restaurant itself too, but oh well.

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Mississippi Gulf Coast

While I had planned my day off from work on Halloween, through a series of events I also ended up having the day off the following Monday, November 3rd. I had worked some unplanned overtime beforehand and had to be on the coast last-minute on the Tuesday and Wednesday of that week, so I decided to let things work out in my favor and head down a day early to have time for myself to explore. While I wasn't happy about the events at work, I definitely appreciated the bright side of that free Monday, as getting to explore retail on the coast had been on my list for a while. Before this year, I'd only ever been twice -- in 2024, for a Creed concert at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum which I saw with my parents, and prior to that, way back in 2005, which I don't really remember aside from the fact that it was just a couple of weeks before Hurricane Katrina.

Please excuse the dirty through-the-windshield shot.

At Cherry Pick'd in Philadelphia, I had asked Barry if he had any recommendations of other antique stores throughout the state. Two of the stores he mentioned to me were Flowood Flea Market (which we'll discuss later on in this post) and Antiques & More in D'Iberville. Naturally, that was my first stop that Monday afternoon. I really appreciated the recommendation, as it was a very neat place! Below are some of the items I found; not everything pictured is something I bought, and not everything I bought is pictured.

Sticking on the topic of M&M's dispensers, here are a few the store had. I have the roller coaster one on the left (purchased from Goodwill in Hernando many moons ago -- as a matter of fact, I think a friend of mine from grade school actually was the one to buy that for me), and I have one similar to the dispenser on the right (those older ones were produced before the M&M characters had developed into the distinct designs and personalities they have today). What was really interesting to me here was the time capsule in the center -- while I do have a 2000-themed dispenser, I hadn't seen anything like this! I didn't think it was visually interesting enough to buy, however, so I took a picture as the next best thing.

Note also in this image the two rubber duckies... this booth had a number of very unique designs for sale, these two being an astronaut and a popcorn vendor. Both very cool, but I opted to buy a few others that were even more unusual. More on that later.

This old school Disney Channel clock caught my eye, as did the restrooms sign -- the latter for two reasons. One, this was my first stop after a three-hour drive, and of course the notice on the door said no public restrooms -- you can't believe how relieved I was when I saw this sign! (Pun unfortunately intended...) And two, this is very clearly a recycled piece of Winn-Dixie decor -- I wonder if Antiques & More nabbed this sign off the nearby Marketplace-era D'Iberville store after it closed? (As a matter of fact, no it didn't, as the Sing Oil Blogger shows that store as having had a different style of restrooms sign. But still a cool find nonetheless!)

At a booth towards the end of the store, I found this guy -- anybody recognize him? If you said he's the Home Depot mascot, nice job! This is a plush figure from the 1990s, something I definitely never knew Home Depot ever produced. Naturally, I had to pick this up. Amusingly, the booth I found it at labeled the plush as a "Pokemon," no doubt because all the other plushes over there were labeled the same. Even funnier, the lady behind me at the checkout saw that and asked what a Pokemon is, so I had to explain that this definitely is not one!

Another side note (while I'm just rambling in this post anyway)... I do have Spotify, but don't use it very often (instead preferring my iPod and personal CD collection, SiriusXM, and Amazon Music). So my friends thought it was funny that my top song last year was the Home Depot Beat. Thankfully, that was not my top song again this year! (It also got my listening age within an acceptable range, placing me at 34... that's better than my coworker to whom my friend and I introduced Wrapped, which said he's 75!)

In case you thought I was lying...

One last item I found at the antique store was a pair of ten-pound weights, which were a steal at $8 for the set. At the register, I found out they were an additional 10% off, too. The Home Depot mascot was definitely the most expensive thing I purchased at $20, but it was worth it! (Okay, minus the hotel stay, of course -- but that was a good deal too. I booked through my credit card company and got $50 off to stay at Hyatt Place, which is a really nice hotel chain with perhaps the best hot breakfast out there.)

Next I stopped at the D'Iberville Goodwill, where I found another plush character. If any of y'all recognized him as Ernie the Keebler elf, then you owe yourselves a pat on the back! Funnily enough, he was marked on the price tag as "Christmas" -- I mean, I guess that's not wrong, since he is an elf, after all. Ernie was only $3 and hails from the 1980s, so I think that was a good find. I also picked up a shirt as part of their $1 Day Mondays sale.

These welcome signs are new to Aldi.

They kept the old Winn-Dixie sign frame by the road intact.

The D'Iberville Goodwill shares the plaza with that Winn-Dixie I mentioned earlier, which has since completed its conversion and reopened as Aldi. I got a few pictures and stepped inside to check it out. Nothing too special, but I did have my first sighting of the white fudge covered Oreos this season, so I picked up a few boxes. I keep them in the fridge and like to ration them out throughout the year. One box was for my mom as well.

For lunch I stopped at New York Pizza, as I've always wanted to try that style of pizza and see what it's all about. I got there just in time too, as their lunch special was set to end literally two or three minutes after I arrived. I enjoyed it, although it was fresh out of the oven so I definitely burned my mouth on it with my first few bites. After that I stopped at the D'Iberville Target, which until the new one in Tupelo opens, completes my checklist of Target stores in Mississippi. I already shared with y'all last year that I accomplished my goal of visiting all the Kroger stores in the state; with this one visit to the coast, I was able to check off all the Target, Dillard's, Books-a-Million, and Hot Topic stores as well. I had knocked out Barnes & Noble last year too, and am very close on Sam's Club and Ollie's, only missing Meridian and Pascagoula, respectively.

I was impressed by just how many Target-themed toys were for sale: they had shopping carts, handbaskets, cash registers, and even a full checklane playset. Incidentally, I'm not sure how well any of that actually sold, as I wound up seeing the checklane playsets as a Black Friday new goods closeout merchandise deal at the Memphis Goodwill stores. But kid me would have loved this stuff! On the other hand, though, it is slightly concerning just how prevalent brands are becoming in children's toys... one example being the Dyson vacuum toy also shown in the pic above.

Then again, who am I to talk: I bought this Christmas village Target store from the $5 section at the front. Upon a quick Google search, they've actually made these before, and they simply sell out quickly (no doubt so they can be resold at a steep upcharge online) -- so I guess I just had dumb luck in happening upon this one shortly after they were put out for the season! Below you'll see it pictured with my other retail-themed Christmas village buildings (including the Wal-Mart store, which you may recognize from my Meridian Winn-Dixie post, having purchased that at an antique store in town).

I also stopped by the Edgewater Mall, which is very aptly named, as it is definitely on the edge of the water! It was very pretty when I parked to go inside, and although I had unfortunately already missed the sunset by the time I walked out, what was left of it was still nice.

As I mentioned, my goal here was to visit the Dillard's and Books-a-Million stores, both of which can be seen in that exterior image above. I didn't buy anything at Dillard's. At BAM, I was excited to come across two really cool books -- first being the long-delayed 1990s (final) addition to the Peanuts weekday comic strip collection. Second, while I was on the floor looking at that, the nearby book "The Art of the SNL Portrait" caught my eye. I always have loved the bumper photos of SNL and found them really underappreciated, so I was excited to see a whole coffee table book dedicated to them.

It really pained me, though, that Books-a-Million's prices were so exorbitantly high. Y'all know I like to try and support bookstores, and regardless of the type of item, I so much prefer to buy things when they are physically in my hands instead of shopping online. That said, though, I simply couldn't justify paying over $100 for these two books at BAM when they were on Amazon for a combined price less than the price of one of the books individually at Books-a-Million. (The SNL book was just $12, as opposed to $55!) It hurt putting those books back on the shelf, even with the knowledge that they'd be delivered to me soon. So I made myself feel better by purchasing an M&M's puzzle that I didn't need, as at least its $20 pricetag was consistent with other stores online, unlike the books. (I later found the Peanuts book at a TJMaxx for a few dollars cheaper than Amazon, after I'd already bought it... go figure.)

Here's the SNL book, on my SNL shelf. Bonus points if you can identify all the characters.

All these other pictures are just some random scenes. At the Belk store in the mall, I was surprised to find the second level all but closed off, with only a small square around the escalator/elevator landing being used for some clearance sales. I wonder if that means the store isn't doing well. If this is all they're going to have up here, I wonder why they bother even keeping the second level open at all.

One of the stores in the mall was a local Mississippi-made crafts shop. I thought this leather dice castle was really neat, and a friend of mine who plays D&D might like it... but it was way too expensive for a gift. (Not saying it's not worth the price being charged, though -- it certainly was very well-made and took a lot of skill!)

My final stop of the night, after dark (stupid time change), was the Ollie's in Biloxi, where I got a box of canned fruit for the Thanksgiving food drive. I always love a food drive, and I bought a bunch of stuff from Sam's Club for it, too. I got several good Instant Savings and clearance deals there, and the price of the fruit at this Ollie's and a 4-pack of mac and cheese at the Jackson Ollie's were great, too. What really made me happy was seeing the dramatic increase in participation in the food drive from our office this year; in years past our collections had always been rather pitiful. This year we collected at least double what I'd say I've seen in the past, and from all categories requested too, not just the usual green beans and corn.

Our firm also sponsors a red kettle for the Salvation Army every year -- bell-ringing day is always my favorite day of the year -- and this year participated in the Angel Tree program, which I and a couple of my friends signed up for. I got all the clothing from Target as part of their Black Friday sale, and picked up the toys on the wish list from the Ridgeland Walmart. The Angel Tree child asked for Minecraft Legos and a scooter; Walmart had a 5-in-1 Christmas Lego pack which I hope is perfect, another set on clearance, and the scooter was also marked down even though nothing was wrong with it. I hope all of these gifts make it to the kid and he has a great holiday. I definitely want to do that again if work offers the opportunity next year.

Angel Tree gifts from the Ridgeland Walmart.

Here's the picture I took that night in my hotel room of all my scores for the day. In addition to the items already shown earlier (and minus the weights, which I left in the car!), you can see the Goodwill shirt I mentioned, the white fudge Oreos, and the M&M's puzzle, as well as three very unique rubber ducks from the antique store -- a mariachi band member, a clown, and a rocketship! I buy my friend who owns a Jeep way too many ducks, but I think they make nice gifts. And it's always cool happening upon different ones like these.

Something ironic about that unplanned three-day stay on the coast (two days spent working) is that the very next week I had already planned to be on the coast again, having previously bought tickets to another concert at the Coliseum, this one co-headlined by A Day to Remember and Yellowcard. That concert was on a Thursday night, the 13th, so I had taken Thursday and Friday off work. I got tickets for myself, my best friend, and his brother. They've liked A Day to Remember for years and I'm more familiar with Yellowcard, so it was perfect.

The concert was very undersold, so we bought our tickets fairly late in the game, but still got good seats. As a matter of fact, I was going to buy some in the upper bowl, but the lower bowl was only a few dollars more (and still less than $50 altogether, even including fees) so my friend convinced me to pick some seats there. That decision actually paid off really nicely, as the day of the concert, I got an email that they were moving everyone from the upper bowl down, to fill in all the empty seats. I have no clue why they didn't make the upper bowl unavailable from the start, but who knows. I'm just glad we got to keep our seats, as I don't think I would've been very happy with seats we didn't get to pick. As it was, we were at the front row of our section, so we didn't have to deal with people trying to squeeze past or standing up and blocking our view -- I always try to be strategic when picking seats for those reasons. I'd imagine at least part of the reason it was so sparse is because I never saw any advertising for the concert; the only time I ever saw ads for it was literally the night before the show, as pictured above.

Anyway, the concert was great! My friends were impressed by Yellowcard and loved A Day to Remember; they played pretty much every song they wanted to hear. I'm glad they had a good time and of course I also thoroughly enjoyed the show. As luck would have it, my friend's brother was already on the coast that day for a two-day work conference, with a paid-for casino hotel room, so that worked out awesomely; we both got to drive down together and crash in his room that night (but only after going down to the casino floor for about an hour after the concert, where my friend played some blackjack and won $60). It was a really fun night. Some women on the casino elevator saw my All Time Low "it was never a phase" t-shirt and liked it; when we told them about the concert they had missed, they were upset they hadn't heard about it! The next morning we simply stopped at a gas station on the way back since neither of us wanted a full meal; I splurged on a honey bun, which I hadn't had in years, and now I haven't been able to stop thinking about honey buns since, lol. We'll definitely have to do something like that again sometime, and next time maybe we'll finally get to stop at Edd's Drive-In which I've heard a lot about (unfortunately it was too far out of the way on this trip).

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Other visits

For the rest of this post, I'll just quickly highlight some other small visits and things I bought this fall that weren't necessarily part of any big trips. As we approached an October 15th deadline at work and had some major frustrations during the week, I decided to take a weekend and go home to see my parents for a trip to Wolfchase Galleria, where I hadn't been in forever. There, I found the new Primark in the old Sears building open. The rendering below shows it occupying the upper level, but in actuality it's on the lower level (which has the larger exterior facade). The store was nice and I found some nice new sleep pants there on clearance, which I'd been needing. They're very comfortable.

Primark rendering. Courtesy The Commercial Appeal

We also went inside BoxLunch, which is a very cool store owned by Hot Topic but more pop culture-based in its merchandise than music-based. When I was very young, I loved Blue's Clues, so I couldn't resist purchasing the real-life salt and pepper shakers designed to look like Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper (plus Paprika). I had not planned this at all, but the greeter at the door told us BoxLunch was celebrating its tenth anniversary that day and handed us a percent-off scratch ticket; I think I got something like 30% off my entire purchase. I got an additional discount for signing up for their rewards program, and I was happy to see that the item had already been marked down before the purchase even though the sticker didn't identify it as such. All in all it was a very good deal, and I enjoyed my visit. I wish they'd open a BoxLunch store in Mississippi!

I am five years old.

While we're on the topic of good deals and Hot Topic stores (or at least a Hot Topic sibling), I'd like to mention a visit to the Hot Topic at Tanger Outlets in Southaven earlier in the year for my birthday... I had a $5 reward, and found a Brendon Urie Pop! Album on the shelf. I didn't need it, but I didn't want my reward to go to waste, either, so I picked it up even though it was marked at $30. When I went to check out, the cashier applied my reward, handed me the item, and told me to have a good day. Confused, I said, "uhh, I haven't paid yet..." to which I was told the item had apparently been marked down to $5, so the reward fully covered it. Score!! And that's the story of how I got a free $30 Panic! at the Disco Funko.

I chimed in with a "haven't you people ever heard of..."

Anyway, back to the Memphis story, we went across the street to the Skechers outlet looking for a new pair of shoes. They didn't have one I liked, but the nearby DSW did, as well as some Socksmith socks, which is a cool brand. Finally, I got some more socks, and ducks, at Painted Tree Marketplace, a vendor mall store which I also wish had a Mississippi location.

In September, I visited Kohl's in Flowood as they (again, unbeknownst to me) happened to be celebrating 20 years of Kohl's Cash. Naturally, I had to pick up a t-shirt to commemorate the occasion (along with a set of small fall pillows that were cute). I also had my eyes on the above Wyatt Waters print of the Biloxi lighthouse from a store in town. I first saw it on Labor Day weekend; the store was having a sale, but I didn't even bother asking the price, as I was trying to be good and not buy wall art I don't have room to hang up. But it ate away at me after that, so I went back another weekend, only to be quoted $200 something. That's not an unreasonable price per se, given the print is actually signed by the artist and features a custom illustration, but I still passed, banking on another sale happening soon.

However, in following the store's posts online, I discovered there was a vintage festival being held in Pearl in early October, and lo and behold the store was a vendor and this print was pictured in their booth. I gave in and went over to buy it just to make sure no one else did. Furthering the idea that I should have just bought it over Labor Day weekend, it turns out that the glass in the frame had shattered as they were moving it to the festival... sigh. I got them down to somewhere around $150, including tax. Oh well, I'm glad I have it. Like I said, I'm a sucker for wall art, especially Mississippi themed stuff, and I loved the style of this print and the fact that it features the lighthouse as well as the stoplights and interstate signs. With this year being the 20th anniversary of Katrina, and having visited a special photographic exhibit at the Two Mississippi Museums to that effect, the print just really spoke to me. My friend and his wife (who I mentioned earlier in the TJMaxx escapade) joined me at the festival and at Cracker Barrel afterwards, and we all had a really good time.

Poem on the wall at the Hurricane Katrina museum exhibit.

In-between my visits to Philadelphia and the coast, that same weekend, another friend of mine wanted to hang out. While he suggested a highly rated pizza place in Cleveland, MS, I didn't want to travel far what with all my other travels, so we just stayed around the metro and visited the Whole Foods in Jackson (which surprisingly I'd never been to) and Nandy's Candy nearby. The main event of the day was dinner at Ruby Tuesday in Pearl, which was appealing to both of us since he has enjoyed learning about broken chains from my blogging. Needless to say, I'll probably save that for a separate post in the future, but I will go ahead and spoil the ending: the food was actually pretty good, I would go again.

Later in November, I had plans to go to the Flowood Flea Market, which as I mentioned earlier is one of the ones recommended to me by Barry at Cherry Pick'd in Philadelphia. The day before, I had learned one of my friends bought his first Christmas tree. I had been trying to think of a gift idea for him, so that worked out perfectly: he loves Chick-fil-A, so I thought surely there's got to be some CFA ornaments out there. In yet another event of good timing, I learned that just that week Chick-fil-A had announced the 2025 edition of what are apparently annual ornament drops. I panicked, though, when I checked the local restaurants on the app and saw they all had only one or none of the ornaments available. The nearest location to have all the ornaments still in stock was the Chick-fil-A in Clinton... so that's where I ended up getting dinner that night. Normally I would do dine-in or pickup, but I didn't want to risk someone taking my pickup order off the shelf since I was a 30-minute drive away, plus they were offering 50 extra rewards points for using the drive-thru that evening. I was hungry by the time I got there and then still had to sit in the drive-thru for a decent amount of time (the place was packed!), but ultimately I am happy to say the bag was secured.

They also had a spicy chicken sandwich foil bag ornament, but my friend doesn't eat the spicy, so I just went with these two. They were reasonably priced, $7.99 each.

The Clinton CFA is an outparcel of the Walmart in town, and that Walmart is the only one in the region that sells Stagg chili, so I popped in there (after eating in my car in their parking lot) to pick up a couple of cans. In their clearance aisle, I also spotted an ad icon Funko Pop! of the Voodoo Ranger mascot. I don't drink, but I liked the design, and in contrast to most of Funko's recent ad icon releases, at least this one was an actual character instead of an anthropomorphic food item. At $5, I picked it up, and I think it looks nice in my collection.

Also on the clearance aisle at the Clinton Walmart were a handful of SpongeBob blind bags. I normally don't give in to blind bags because I dislike the high prices and the gimmickry, but I had previously (like, a couple of years ago) bought a handful from this set when I found them on clearance at Hot Topic and Books-a-Million, trying to score the Fred character. I did, and I was happy. I was surprised to see them again years later at this Walmart, but gave it a shot to see if I could get Mrs. Puff, the other character I wanted. I guess I was feeling lucky, and indeed, the very first bag I picked to open once I made it to the car literally exploded open, with the figure that shot out being Mrs. Puff. Sweet!

"Oh Neptune" Mrs. Puff

Voodoo Ranger and Mrs. Puff

Voodoo Ranger among some of my other ad icon Funkos (don't worry, I have more). The shelf was also mentioned on the blog before, although I didn't include a picture of it back then.

Back to the Flowood Flea Market I mentioned. I made my way there the next day as planned. I had been before, and it's a cool place. The reason I prioritized making a visit this fall is because it had been announced that their landlord would not be renewing their lease. Luckily, they found a new home in Canton, in the old Piggly Wiggly building no less (I'd be interested to see if there are any relics inside there!). To prepare for the move, many of the vendors were holding sales to clear out merchandise. About a third of the warehouse had already been closed off, but I still found some good stuff at the booths that were still open and enjoyed looking around. I also appreciate that I picked a good day to do it: the warehouse is not air conditioned or heated, but the weather was such that it was just a tad chilly inside. (Antique stores like that in Mississippi are absolutely sweltering in the summertime, like the Lucky Rabbit in Hattiesburg.)

In addition to something my mom wanted and another ducky (not a rubber one this time, though -- a 3D-printed buff duck, actually, which I thought would be funny), I picked up the three funky frosted glass, bowling pin-shaped vases shown above (just $5 each after the markdowns, which I thought was a steal) as well as the Paula Deen butter mug. Let me explain that one... way back in middle school, a group of us used to draw some comics featuring, among other stupid things, Paula Deen and her love of butter. Against my better judgment, I dug up one of those drawings and included it below as proof. I am not proud of it, but I have no regrets in buying the mug.

Yes, there is also a child trapped underneath all of the butter in the overflowing carts.

It's probably worth mentioning that I don't drink coffee, either, and therefore whenever I buy a mug it's usually just for shelf decoration. Over Black Friday weekend, when I visited my parents, I wound up buying two more. My mom, uncle, and I wound up going to several places, in particular numerous Goodwill stores, as Memphis Goodwill was hosting a Super Saturday 50% off sale at its stores. At the one in Hernando, I found, of all things, a HomePlace mug -- HomePlace being a long-defunct retail chain that I don't even remember; I only learned about its existence back when Sports Authority in Southaven closed, as it turned out the building was a HomePlace before that. Shortly thereafter, I discovered a HomePlace cart randomly marooned in the nearby hhgregg parking lot -- no doubt having hung around the Sports Authority building the whole time until its closure -- and contemplated taking it home, but ultimately passed. This mug was a neat little way to bring home a piece of that story all these years later.

The other mug you see in the image above came from Marshalls... obviously, given the ghost is holding a bag reading "I'd rather be at Marshalls." You see, earlier this year, I happened upon a mug at TJMaxx reading "I'd rather be at TJMaxx" (see below). I thought it was neat, but didn't like the price tag and, having no place to put it, passed. However, like the Biloxi lighthouse print, this turned out to be another instance of "I should've just bought it when I saw it," as I kept thinking about it in the months to follow. I never have seen another of those TJMaxx mugs, and the ones available for sale online are of course marked up. When these Halloween ghost mugs came out, I thought they were corny, and I didn't particularly care to buy them either. That said, knowing now their scarcity, and loving a good deal, the fact that this post-season Halloween mug was still for sale at the Southaven Marshalls piqued my interest. It wasn't marked on clearance, but all the other Halloween merchandise was, and it was hidden away and quite dusty. I asked the cashier if by chance it was supposed to be on sale, and she checked the system and confirmed it was only $6, so I went for it. I was also fine with having the ghost version of the Marshalls mug, because I feel like that way it wouldn't compete directly with the regular version of the TJMaxx mug, if ever I should come across one (or just give up and buy one online).

Of note, I have stumbled upon a cache of "I'd rather be at HomeGoods" mugs locally, but so far haven't felt compelled to purchase one of those... I don't really have as strong a connection to that chain as I do its two siblings. Hopefully this won't be yet another instance of me regretting that later, though.

Wanted. Last seen in Olive Branch in May 2025.

Last but not least, I'll mention Abandoned Antiques in Millington, TN, which we also visited the day after Black Friday. That's consistently one of my favorite places to visit; I just hate that it's so far away from me these days. In addition to a 1970s blue Minnie Mouse figure (to match a green Mickey Mouse I purchased from another antique store, and overall because my aunt has her own collection of these and I've always liked them), I spotted small figurines of Dagwood and Blondie, from the comic strip. I have a big collection of comic strip anthology books, and I almost walked away without these, so I'm glad my mom convinced me to buy them, as they are now probably my favorite purchase from this Thanksgiving. I can't find much about them online, but I have to assume they were very reasonably priced, and it's worth mentioning that the whole store was 10% off for Small Business Saturday, too. I like to think they pair nicely with my similar Beetle Bailey figures shown below.

An associate had to get a ladder to get this down.

Notice the misspelling of "Bumstead" on the price tags. To be completely honest, the Blondie figure isn't my favorite, but Dagwood holding the fixings for a "Dagwood" was just too good. And although they were priced separately, it wasn't like I could just leave Blondie there alone!

Pardon all the dust...

I found an eBay listing for these; it looks like they were released in 2000 to commemorate the strip's 50th anniversary. I am struggling now to remember where we bought them. I remember getting a Beetle Bailey bobblehead from a long-gone store near the Casino Factory Shoppes in Robinsonville, so perhaps these came from there, too...

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I know this wasn't a particularly retail-centric post, but I enjoyed writing it, especially the more true-to-life "blogging" format, and I hope y'all have enjoyed reading it, too. I'm not sure when my next blog post will be, but I wish you a Merry Christmas and happy holidays, and I'll see you back here sometime in the new year! Until then and as always, have fun exploring the retail world wherever you are :)

Retail Retell