We never had a "Dime Store" but ours was 'The Stationary Store" where you'd buy your cards for all occasions, but there was a small toy section that I bought everything from Wacky Packages to Matchbox cars to The Super Elastic Bubble Plastic mentioned above.
What was funny is right around 1968-70 they turned a section of the store into a "Head Shop"...no drug paraphernalia was sold, obviously, but they went heavy on the Love Beads, Black Light Posters, Glo Paint, Incense and other cool things. It was Spencer's Gifts before there ever was one. Believe it or not, it was kind of innocent stuff, no where near the stigma of stores that sell it today....

I do...and I STILL have the few that I got from those loaves of bread. IIRC, this was during the Summer of '74. We'd go thru a loaf of bread every other day (me & 4 other sisters) so I collected quite a few. One thing that'll make them stand out---they ALWAYS had the grease stains on the backing due to being placed on the bottom of the loaves.
If you haven't guessed, yes, I have a pedantic knowledge of Wacky Packages. I personally own close to 7500 (probably more) of them.

OK, here's a test for you guys and unfortunately I don't have the answer...back around 1972-74 I got a birthday present that consisted of these tiny (1") cars that would speed around on a track. I believe gravity was the fuel, but I could be wrong. It had elevators to bring the cars to the top of the track, Rube Goldberg-style set up. Think the game "Mousetrap" but adapted to cars....man, if any of you answer this, I'll be spending the next week on Ebay trying to find it!

My 1st calculator...

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Can't help you on the title of that theme (it WILL come to me, and I'll post it then) but here's my Seeburg 1000, actually it's a Seeburg SEP-1 Encore. Identical to the 1000's mech, just in a fancier cabinet. I have some 3-4000 (yes, THOUSAND) of the records for these and I'm in the process of digitizing them all for posterity. Yup, THAT'S going to take some time.....

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Well, if you should feel COMPELLED to explain it, you can say that was manufactured long ago and people didn't wake up looking to be offended each and every day. That should shut them down. Don't play into it.

Props to your niece! She has common sense, which sadly isn't so common anymore.

Think about standing in your favorite mall in the early 1980's (Mine was the Trumbull Mall, Trumbull, CT) and then fast forward about 35--40 years. Who would ever imagine that they would be in danger of closing/being razed/converted to "affordable" housing. Never!
Sadly, our malls of our youth are the same as our parents Drive-In's of THEIR youth.

I think the last GOOD movie I've seen was 'Secondhand Lions' some years back. Movies nowadays absolutely suck. Cottonm4 said it perfectly...stupid computer graphics, explosions, etc. This is supposed to keep the viewer entertained I guess. Screw the story line, the plot, etc. It doesn't matter anymore. How sad.