There is a store in this country where everything costs one dollar, and I went in to find the catch. I am still inside, philosophically. Scissors: one dollar. A mug: one dollar. Reading glasses, a birthday card, a chess set, gardening gloves, a ceramic frog: one dollar EACH. I picked up the ceramic frog and examined it for a long time. It was a perfectly acceptable frog. Some craftsman made this frog. The frog crossed an ocean, as I did. One dollar. I asked an employee how any of this is possible. She said, "Don't think about it too hard." DON'T THINK ABOUT IT TOO HARD. That is not an answer. That is a warning on a sealed door. I disobeyed her, obviously. I have thought about it extremely hard, and here is where I landed: this store is not commerce. It is a TRAINING GROUND. Every item asks you the same koan — "It is one dollar. Do you need it?" — and every aisle reveals your character. I watched a man stand motionless before a dollar lighthouse figurine for two full minutes. He was not shopping. He was being EXAMINED. He bought the lighthouse. He failed. (We all fail.) I entered for tape. I left with tape, two mugs, a flag windsock, glow sticks, and the frog. Total: seven dollars. I defeated no koans that day. The frog sits by my door now. My wife asked where it came from. I said, "One dollar," and she nodded, because in this country that is a complete sentence, a receipt, and an absolution, all at once. I will return. The store knows. The frog was never the catch — the frog was the bait, and the catch is me.