Dirty Don's is so down-and-dirty that it makes most dollar stores look like Nordstrom. The 80,000-square-foot warehouse off Raytown Road isn't air-conditioned (though there are several electric fans for hot days), and items are arranged in helter-skelter fashion. But that's part of the fascination for fans of owner Don Glenn's salvage extravaganza. Perhaps a truck wreck, a shipping-container accident or a train derailment caused a carton of perfectly good items to be damaged on its way to traditional retail stores, including upscale shops. If the items inside the carton are in good shape, Glenn buys the lot. Foodies who shop at Don's suggest hitting the coolers first: There often are good cheeses, bacon, meat and frozen breads in the collection of mismatched freezers and refrigerators. Then it's time to wheel your shopping cart through the labyrinth of merchandise, which changes weekly. Need a box of hairnets? Home perm kits? Belgian dark-chocolate bars? Newman's Own salad dressing? It's all there, somewhere, on one of the unmarked aisles, along with Isaac Mizrahi flip-flops, packets of Asian soup mix, Cocoa Pebbles cereal, blue glass tumblers, Nair hair remover. And over in the toy section is Barbie's obviously gay sidekick, "Blaine," still in his original box. And that's just the tip of the dirty iceberg.
