Finding ourselves captivated by a mysterious little brown monster who's been showing up in the Target Halloween ads as of late, Charlie and I drove over to Target (our favorite place to shop) to see if we could get our hands on a Domo gift card. (The ad cautioned "supplies limited.") Just who is Domo? From the tag on our newly-acquired Domo pillow case, "Hatched from a mysterious egg in an underground cave, he first made the scene in Japan -- where his TV-fueled imagination and wide-eyed exuberance led him into tricky situations." I so love quirky Japanese characters.

Why a Domo gift card? You've got to love Target's canny marketing folks. Their gift cards have now crossed over from the realm of the merely functional to become toys and collector pieces. (Charlie likes to save his spent gift cards, which tends to add to the household confusion.) This particular card features a cutout Domo with magnetic Halloween costumes (included inside the gift card packaging) so you can dress your Domo in different costumes. (Remember Colorforms?) Domo is now part of our refrigerator collection with accompanying ensembles (again, I am so easily entertained).

Here is what he looks like in his different guises: Mummy Domo, Dracula Domo, Franken-Domo, and generic ghost Domo.

The deal: I'd buy Charlie a $5 Domo gift card so he could purchase the alien action figure he's been coveting, then he'd get to keep his Domo gift card/costume character. We saw the Domo pillow case (marked at $4.99) which became an instant must-have (and his alien action figure was out of stock), so I gave him the choice: gift card or pillow case. Clever boy. "Mom, you can put $5 on the gift card and I'll buy the pillow case with it." So he gets two Domos for the price of one, and that will serve as his October allowance. (Hey, times are tough.)

...And for those of us who don't know who or what Domo Kun is, here's a short Japanese video that won't explain anything...

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