You reached inside and pulled out...a pair of glasses? They looked like a pair of those old vintage 60s sunglasses, with an odd cat-eye shape and lenses tinted a funny shade of pink. They were a bit tacky, you thought to yourself, but that kind of old thrift-y fashion was kind of in these days. Plus, they were supposedly magical. You turned to the store clerk behind the front counter, and raised the glasses in the air.
"How much for these? And, uh, what exactly do they do?"
The clerk, a bored looking college kid with multicolor dyed hair and septum piercing, just shrugged.
"I dunno," they said, "What does it say on the bin?"
"75% off."
"Huh. Then they're 75¢ I guess."
The college student sounded bored, and you fought the urge to roll your eyes. Even if the glasses were junk, anything magical that cost less than a dollar had to be worth it.
"You don't look like the type of person I'd expect to work at a 'magic' shop," you muttered, but pulled out a dollar bill, "And again, what do they do? I'll buy them no matter what, but they're supposed to be magic, right?"
The student gave you a withering look.
"Thanks for your comment about my lovely place of work," they said dryly, but took the proffered dollar bill, and, sighing, explained, "They're rose colored glasses, right? Like the old saying. You look through them, it makes things...nice. Makes everything a little bit better. Makes the world really be the way you wish it was, at least in terms of looks, you get it?"
You nodded, eyes wide. If the things really worked you could do a lot with them. The description was vague, sure, but making things really be how you saw them, or how you wished they were?
"So I just look at stuff through them?" you asked as the clerk put the glasses into a gift bag with my receipt and a wad of pale purple tissue paper.
"Yup," they said cooly, "Only works on people, though. You can't look at a dollar bill and make it a twenty."
You nodded, mind already full of possibilities, and turned to leave.
"See you," the clerk muttered, but you were already not paying attention.
They made an annoyed face.
"Jerk," they muttered, "Don't blame me for not telling you. Not like you would have listened, probably."
The clerk opened the cash register and placed your dollar bill inside, while you walked home, completely unaware that the glasses didn't exactly work the way they were supposed to. Maybe if you'd caught the clerk in a better mood, or been more polite, they would have explained how...