Another Baltimore re-post!!!!11!1

In that famous scale of stressful events in a person’s life, moving is ranked higher than divorce, higher than the death of a parent, higher than the death of a pet, higher than the death of a divorced parent’s pet. The only life event that it is ranked below is one’s own death.

...mauled to death by wild animals...

In theory, this seems appropriate. In practice, however, there are many deaths that, to me, should actually be ranked well below moving. Sure, falling out backward from the window of one of those gondolas that ferry people back and forth high above our nation’s amusement parks would be more stressful, but passing away in one’s sleep from natural causes is a walk in the park, comparatively. I’ll give you being mauled to death by wild animals, but an embolism in the brain is strictly in my corner.

All of this is a roundabout way to introduce the modest story of the move that Heidi and I made from Austin to Baltimore. Perhaps we should have taken it as an omen that on the night before we were to close on the sale of our house in Austin (which, not coincidentally, was also to be my last day at work and the day that we left for Baltimore), I went to bed feeling a little off, and awoke at about one in the morning with a raging fever. Within the course of five minutes, I went from shivering, to shaking, to shaking uncontrollably and wondering whether I should go to the emergency room.

As it turned out, I just put on about 4 layers of clothing, went back to bed, and woke up in the morning feeling shaken but at least functional enough to go sign my name multiple times. To let you know how shaky I was feeling, let me just say that I traded my morning Mountain Dew in for a glass of something fizzy and allegedly medicinal without even a whimper of protest. The surreal experience of signing over the place you’ve been calling home to strangers is only heightened by a good, hard post-cold sweat haze.

I made it through the closing, collected my things from the office, and then crashed for the afternoon. We had decided to go ahead and leave on Tuesday evening to avoid traffic on I-35 and to take some of the miles off the next day’s drive. I woke up feeling well enough to drive, so we were off.

Our first day of traveling went smoothly, almost too smoothly. We didn’t hit any traffic, we successfully smuggled our three cats into the hotel room (Red Roof allows one pet per room, and Mokey is kinda too big to really smuggle). The parking lot was big, mostly empty, and went all the way around the hotel, three things that are key to successfully parking a huge moving truck. We slept well, almost too well...

Stacey's PEEVE O'THE WEEK!!!

All right, All right, I know--my post this week should be people who SAY they're going to post on Monday but don't until Wednesday. But, I'm not going to write about that. I'm not even going to humor you by putting it in BIG LETTERS!!!

What I am going to write about is BAD PRODUCT PLACEMENT!!! Nadi and I are finally getting around to watching that "Comanche Moon" miniseries that we DVPVRWhatevered. Now, I have to admit that we DO skip through the commercials, but I noticed little glimpses of: Diaper Commercials! Slimfast commercials! LeanCuisine (or whatever) commercials! These are NOT my favourite commercials! I HATE these commercials! Now, I used to watch a few of those daytime home improvement shows aimed DIRECTLY at women, and yes, I had to suffer through these exact commercials and WORSE. And, if I remember correctly, they were not taped, so I actually had to WATCH them. I saw more than enough naked baby bottoms and tampons being dipped into blue liquid to last my lifetime, lemme tell ya.

...Chinos, Attractive But Not Sexy Campshirts, and MORE!...

The worst were the ones with perky housewives (who all shop at "Chinos, Attractive But Not Sexy Campshirts, and MORE!") wearing slightly disapproving but mostly amused expressions, while reaching for paper towels while their children, WHO ARE OLD ENOUGH TO CLEAN UP THEIR OWN GODDAM MESSES OR NOT MAKE THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE wear Huck Finn grins and run off to play. Man, it makes me want to beat my own children, and I don't even have any. It makes me want to beat my OVARIES!!! But, having said that, at least those are logical commercials for the given audience. Certainly overweight baby-wielding women are NOT the main audience for a Western?? You know, cut from a scalping to "shoes on sale now at PAYLESS!" Hmmmmm.......

However, this weirdness is still better than scenario 2. So, you're sitting there watching House MD, CSI, or I guess if you're a doofus, Grey's Anatomy, or something. Someone has just lifted up a giant mass of skin and internal organs, and said something like "this is what we found in his stomach!" or "this is all the killer left of him!" then WHAMMO they cut to a Domino's commercial with Xtra gratuitous slimy cheese being stretched all over blood red sauce and meaty chunks of, well, meat. Or "New at Ruby Tuesdays, gourmet Angus burgers, Xtra pink and juicy!" Yeah, no thanks, I've got my own regurgitated dinner over here to enjoy. Again. Doesn't anybody think about these things??? Aaah, I fear, only myself. Happy ta point that out for ya, there, for you to think about. I'm sure you're Sooooo Happy!

So, who says you can't learn nothin' on the internets. Not from me maybe, but there is, like, Wikipedia and stuff. So go there now! And stop watching TV! Because it's gross. Especially the diaper commercials.

The Natural Twenty (final part)

I usually give customers five or ten minutes on their own, if they are even in the store that long, and then I’ll make my way over and see if there’s anything specific I can help them find, or anything expensive I can convince them to buy. This customer, though, I gave 15 minutes, because I figured I could combine checking in with them with my last call for alcohol spiel.

“Hey…finding everything alright? I’m going to go ahead and close up in a couple minutes…”

“Yeah, I’m sorry…I just came in here to get away from someone I met at that coffee shop around the corner just now, I don’t even…I mean…people really buy all this…”, finished with a general weak wave around the shop.

“Yeah, people do, I guess, or some people…so why did you have to hide out? Things went that bad?”

“I don’t know, not that bad, I guess, but I could just sort of see from the way things were going, that it was all going to end with one of us making sort of half-hearted promises about calling the other one, and then a few emails, and then just nothing, you know? It seemed like a lot of trouble to go to, all of a sudden, so when they went to the bathroom I just put my coffee down and took off.”

I wouldn't describe the resulting silence as awkward, necessarily, but it was a definite silence all the same.

“OK, so that was way more than you needed to know, and you’re closing down, so I’ll get out of here. I feel bad…do you have anything my 12 year old cousin might like? His birthday’s coming up, I think.”

So I sold one more unit of the hottest new figure with the kidz these days, and it made me feel better, a little bit, to know my stupid little store had been really useful to someone, if only for a few minutes…made it easier to get through inventory that week, anyway.

Re-posted from Xmas 2006 (when we were in Baltimore)

...a half-animatronic Turducken of death and destruction...

So, this guy in my office decides that it would be a great idea to bring in this animatronic Santa that plays a bastardized version of that super-sucky 80s-90s pop song that basically goes "Y'all ready for this?", only modified (of course!) with cute references to Christmas and stuff! Like, Omigod!

So, of course, it ends up sitting on the desk of the receptionist, the next cube over from me. And, of course, every time a person comes into the office who has not yet been subjected to this hell-machine's demonic charms, someone stops them and regales them with, "Oh, you've just got to see this!!!! It's so funny!!!!!", and then unleashes the shit festival with the press of the appropriate button.

I am about 3 plays away from setting the fucking thing on fire, then finding the guy who brought it in and stuffing it up his ass, then setting HIM on fire, and finally finding the person responsible for this thing's existence and shoving the entire flaming wreckage up THEIR ass, like a half-animatronic Turducken of death and destruction.

And that, to me, is what Christmas is all about! Plus, Jesus was born! And peace on Earth!

Stacey's PEEVE O'THE WEEK!!!

Greetings, my undoubtedly attractive, well educated, and totally imaginary audience! Today's post is, for me, a bit of a letdown, I must confess. I had composed( in my head) a brilliant, moving post, grousinatin' about PEOPLE WHO "DIS" BRETT FAVRE! That was, however, before he threw that stupid interception and sent the (I can't stand them super icky) GIANTS to the Superbowl. I must admit that, even I, now, almost, almost want to "dis" him myself. Almost.

So instead, you will be treated to a topic that is an old standby for any Grumpy Old Man: TEENAGERS!!! Now, I'm not completely heartless, I well remember my own days as a teen, wondering if those hoop skirts made my butt look fat, silently avowing that the next time Bobby Joe McDanahan dipped my pigtails in the inkwell I would either kick his ass or marry him, Gol-durn it!!! Nonetheless, I know full out idiocy when I see it.

...looking around for a lizard man...

So the other day I was walking a dog in a lovely, scenic little park complete with a large pond/small lake, right across the street from the local high school. I noticed a group of six girls standing out in a circle on the ice, about ten feet from the edge of the pond. Now, I thought this was rather alarming, because here in Colorado, unlike some God-forsaken place like Green Bay, we actually get periods of warm weather interspersed with our cold, but not even THAT cold, weather. For 3 days before this, the weather had been over 40 degrees and sunny.

Therefore, I thought they were more than a little loony to not only be that far out on the ice, but that far out in a big group of six, at LEAST 600 lbs o'peoples!!!! But, they didn't seem to be crashing through the ice, so I just kept one hand on my cell phone Just In Case. So then, one of them went a little closer to the shore and picked up a really big rock, seriously, if it had been any larger and styro-foamy-er I would have started looking around for a lizard man, because THEN she lifted it up over her head and SMASHED it onto the ice RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER FEET!!! I couldn't believe it. Then she walked out about 5 more feet AND DID IT AGAIN!! AND AGAIN!! AND AGAIN!!! I was thinking "my God, this MORON is going to drop herself into the water and I'M going to have to heroically jump in and save her and freeze my ASS off!!! Then, she stopped. And I thought, I AM SAVED! But then, the other five girls wandered out to the middle of the lake/pond, which would be bad enough WITHOUT the fact that there was a FOUNTAIN going in the middle of the pond, with a 20 foot radius of completely unfrozen water around it!! And 2 of the girls went, I swear, to within ONE FOOT of the unfrozen part, and just stood there, looking down at the water and waiting to DIE!!!

At this point I just gave up on them entirely, thinkin' ol' Darwin must know what he's talkin' about, and took the dog home. On my way back, no-one was there. So, either they all went back to class never to know how close they came to KILLING ME, or, they all DIED!!!! We may never know. Or, want to know. Or care even if we did know. So there.

A Loss of Innocence.

Alright, maybe not, but it does sound dramatic. How about a loss of the feeling that all is well and good in the universe? Nah... I never really HAD that feeling. Well, suffice it to say that I am UNSATISFIED with the answer as to what THOSE THINGS are. Not that I don't believe you, I too waded through the snark infested waters of the internet (see how I did that? SKILLZ!) and found something similar, I believe the post was something like "the [futuristic pipe wrenches sporting bright yellow magnetic fields] are a post-modern interpretation of the bridge and lighthouse combo that can be seen at the entrance of the stadium" or some such nonsense. Post-modern, indeed. I never did trust them beatnik artists with them fancy berets tilted at some crazy angle. I however, have another, more sinister interpretation. Don't they look ever so slightly like some sort of futuristic razor???? Gillette Stadium... well, you do the math. I think I've uncovered a conspiracy. Anyway, regardless of their stated reason for existence, I think they're hideous and distracting... that's probably why the Pats win so much, all the visiting teams have one eye on THOSE, wondering what they could possibly be. And I, for one, will still be cringing everytime the ball is near the 50, trying desperately not to notice these offenses, and no doubt failing miserably. Pllllbbbbttt.

a-HA!!!

Who ever said that the internet was useless? Oh, no one, really? Well then, who ever said that the internet was useless except for all the free porn?

Well, that's a little less true today than it was yesterday, folks, for I have plumbed the darkest depths of Google image search, combined that with some other sleuthing, and SOLVED the enigma that I so blatantly failed to solve in that post about Ayn Rand's magical European male model logo, or whatever. I think I was drunk.

Anyway, HERE are the logos Stacey was talking about in her post:





Now, granted, they DO look kinda weird...but not when you see them next to this!



It's the official logo of the stadium! Because nothing rallies fans at sporting events like a good ol' fanciful representation of the very place they're standing in to watch the game! A logo as good as this one practically screams, "Hey, do you think anyone thinks you're stupid for shelling out $275 bucks a pop to sit in the nosebleed section when your stadium looks like THIS!?!?"

Apparently, it's supposed to represent the stadium when viewed from a certain angle, like so:




I don't know about all that, but I do know that the mystery is now solved, and I can collect my $300 consultation fee! Thanks Al Gore!

The Natural Twenty (part 2)

I should know, I guess; I mean, it’s my store and everything. Not that all the stuff in here has a lot of resonance for me, obviously; probably 90% of the stuff that actually sells was created way after my teenage years, even. But there are individual pieces that it would take a lot more than the generally accepted market value to get me to let go of, that’s for sure. And not just the Boba Fett in an unopened box type stuff, either. There are plenty of run-of-the-mill figures with half the color worn off their faces that I keep in the glass display cases up front as well, because they are my fetishes, the plastic totems marking my membership in the global tribe of childhood worshipers.

So I’m left with interactions like the one I had about a week ago, on a day much like this one. It was about 20 minutes until our posted closing time, and the tinkle of the door bell was a welcome addition to the increasingly restless mouse clicks that had been the only sound in the shop for at least half an hour.

“Hi…PowerPuff girls figures?”

I pointed with my left hand, flashing the lack of a ring quite consciously. Chris and I disagreed about that minor piece of deception, sometimes heatedly, but I figured that I could use all the business I could get, and if I could keep someone hanging around even a little longer or more often by seeming available, I wasn’t in a position to have any qualms about it.

Da Pats

C'mon, Stace, that logo isn't a space wrench! It's...what one of our Yankee Doodles would look like if they were a semi-emaciated European male model wearing a larger-than-life sized aerodynamic cycling helmet! Just look!



Uh...well, it's easier to see if you just look at it by itself, I guess, like so:



So, to sum up, it's not your granpa's "Pat Patriot"! Or your great grandpa's. It's more like Pat Patriot if he were written into some totally crappy novel by Ayn Rand, where he was this brilliant, athletic, ascetic and aesthete-ic football playing ubermensch who refused to compromise his completely radical and Platonically ideal style of football playing to pacify the average NFL fan, or even his sympathetic but ultimately impotent head coach. Man, I think I might go write that novel right now!

Stacey's PEEVE O'THE WEEK!!!

O.K. peoples, here's the deal. I have no shortage of peevitudes to grouse on about, I assure you. Why, there's THE COWBOYS for example, or TEA!!!, or LENNY KRAVITZ, or even THE IDIOT COWBOYS WHO CAN SOMEHOW, IN SOME YOGI-LIKE MANEUVER, SHOOT THEMSELVES IN THE HEAD AND THE FOOT AT THE SAME TIME, SIMULTANEOUSLY LAMING AND KILLING THEMSELVES!!!. However, none of these topics seem as relevant to me, today, as THAT THING PAINTED ON THE PATRIOTS FIELD!!! Or, to be more accurate, THOSE THINGS, since they DO mock me in stereo. For those of you who don't follow football (fools), these things look, and I can describe them EXACTLY, they look like giant futuristic pipe wrenches with yellow markings coming out of the "business end" of the wrench, which I take to be symbolic of some sort of magnetic field. I can also describe exactly what they do NOT look like, which is: a musket, one of those tri-fold hats that oh, I dunno, PATRIOTS like to wear, even a super old fashioned pipe wrench from back in the glorious days of Patrick Henry (maybe?) and oh, whoever else. I also happen to know that the Pats have NOT changed their mascot to some sort of space age plumber, as just THIS weekend I saw their weird-ass giant-headed patriot type guy frolicking around with his tri-fold hat on. (There's GOT to be a name for those...). So I'm left with the question, "what the Hell ARE those damn things!!!!!!!". It's gotten so bad that I can't even concentrate on plays that take place in the middle of the field, I simply stare at those things, waiting for the magical moment when they reveal themselves to me, like the "young woman" or "old crone" in that old eye-teaser thingy.
So, to summarize, these things are super annoying and MUST BE STOPPED!!! Now, Nadi (who, as you in the posse (or those of you who simply keep up w/the latest celeb gossip) know, is my husband), thinks that I shouldn't be annoyed by, or gripe about, these things until I know what they are. What!?!? WHAT!?!? THAT'S THE POINT!!! It should be OBVIOUS what they are!!! Like the big old star in the middle of the Cowboy's field. Nice. SIMPLE.
Therefore, I leave it up to you, the merciful reader, to end my sorrows and just tell me what they are. So, PLEASE, ANSWER THIS POST and let me know "oh, it's so totally a bayonet if you look at it from the side" or "if you squint just a little it's a depiction of the Boston tea party! DUH!!!".
And always remember, "A frown is just a smile taking a nice relaxing nap that it REALLY doesn't want to get up from. ( Aaaahhh.)".

How 'bout them...err...shit.

You know, I've been wrestling with myself for about an hour about blogging on the Cowboys' game tonight...I know I should be strong and resist the impulse, because I know no one else cares, and it's just stupid, performance-enhancer and domestic abuser infested football, but I JUST CAN'T!! I can't sit by and watch such a talented TEAM come out and play some really uninspired football, and make just enough mistakes to cost themselves a game, and not give vent to my frustrations.

I guess the beauty of being a fan is that at times like these, you just wallow in your anguish for a few weeks and then move on to next year, but when you have as much talent as the Cowboys this year, it makes that transition period so much more painful.

There, I've said it! I promise (on behalf of Stacey and myself) to return you to your regularly scheduled tirades and/or enigmatic short story posts tomorrow. But tonight, let's all shed a tear for a beautiful dream that will never be.

The Natural Twenty (part 1)

There were fourteen people that came by today, fourteen discrete instances of Homo sapiens. That was actually not the worst I’ve seen, but only two actually bought anything, and it wasn’t like last week when purchases were averaging $250 or $300; these were strictly in the $20 and under range. Not enough to cover the light bill, not to mention the rent.

I’ve been running my own comic book and gaming store for a year and three months, and it’s days like this that are bringing me closer and closer to looking for someone to sell out to, the whole kit and kaboodle. It’s hard enough to put in your twelve hours, day in and day out, not even counting all the hours doing extra paperwork or inventory, without getting to the end of a day with the realization that you NEED tomorrow to be better, or you might not be able to afford the day after that.

Chris keeps telling me I just need a new name, or a new image, but I’ve seen stores come and go with way cooler names and locations than mine, places that had different games going on six nights a week and twice on Sundays, places that actually had enough customers come through the doors to bother digging out the fire department’s maximum occupancy sign and posting it. It’s a matter of connecting with each of the hopeless cases that shuffle in every day, because you never know which ones are secretly sporting a pile of cash that they don’t have anyone to spend it on and a smoking hole, an unending hunger in the center of their chest for anything that reminds them of the time that they still could control something absolutely, that they really had something figured out.

Stacey's PEEVE O'THE WEEK!!!

Welcome back to the zone of all things annoying, teeth-grinding, and horrific. So, my post this week WAS going to be, as I previously hinted, Winter related. To be specific, it was PEOPLE WHO DRIVE 20MPH ON LONG, TWISTY ROADS I CAN'T POSSIBLY PASS THEM ON, IN 45 THOUSAND DOLLAR LEXUS 4-WHEEL DRIVE SUVS, WHILE I AM STUCK HELPLESSLY BEHIND THEM IN MY $13,OOO, 9 YEAR OLD SUZUKI, FLAILING MY (MITTENED) HANDS AROUND AND SCREAMING " I'M FROM TEXAS AND I DRIVE FASTER THAN YOU MORONS!!!". But that title seems pretty self explantatory, doesn't it? Therefore, I have decided to write about something just as annoying, and more recently on my mind, which is PEOPLE WHO GO TO SPORTS BARS FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF NOT WATCHING SPORTS!!!

Last weekend we went to the local sports joint to watch the (obnoxious, crappy-assed) Seahawks play the (too lame to win) Redskins. About halfway into the 2nd quarter, three women came in and commandeered a gi-normous table, two sitting on one side and the other all by herself at the other. They then proceeded to discuss the super-happy fact that the one sitting by herself was pregnant, and that they had pumped unbelievable amounts of breast milk when THEY were preggo. Then a few husbands, another wife, and a kid showed up, and I got to listen to the pregnant one talk to the kid in an extra loud, helium-sucking inspired voice, saying things like "did you get a soda? Do you like your soda?" The kid, who was like, 6 or something, NOT 0.4, wisely ignored her (which I thought was pretty funny!).

So then MORE hubbys showed up, and they hit on such scintillating topics as how much beer they didn't drink while their wives were pregnant, the fact that they were thinking about buying a Lexus (this IS Boulder) and the fact that they had seen the Transformer movie. Not the movie itself, mind you, the plot, the special effects, but the fact that the movie existed, and they had seen it. I don't know HOW they did this, AMAZINGLY I can't remember every riveting word of that conversation, but I swear on a 3 foot high stack of Anthropologie catalogues that it lasted for TEN MINUTES!!! But, and here's the most important part, the WHOLE time we were there, and I KNOW this because I had to look over their heads to see the T.V., ONE guy GLANCED at the screen THREE TIMES!!!

It's kinda like when you go to a concert, and the people in front of you talk through the whole thing. Just stay home, put your Rush CD on as loud as it'll go, smoke enough pot to make the air all hazy, and save yourself 80 bucks!!! Man, I remember when we went to the Paul Simon/Bob Dylan concert, THE WHOLE TIME there was this GRATING voice going ON and ON about every God-Damn thing you could imagine...oh wait! That WAS Bob Dylan! AHHAHAHAHAHAA!

So, just remember, "Anyone (who has recently had a lobotomy) can love Elmo, but it takes someone REALLY special to love Oscar".

Santa Claus is Coming...

I don’t know how long he had been standing there before I saw him, but once I noticed him I found myself glancing over every once in a while to kind of keep tabs on him. It was obvious that he was alone, just kind of hanging out between two racks of women’s pants, not far from the end of the line but not getting in it, either.

It’s something you hate to see as a seasonal Santa, because kids like that are always the ones that ask for mommy to get her job back for Christmas, or for some toy that costs like five dollars that they’re obviously still not going to get.

I had at least 20 minutes left to my next break, but I was about to break early when I saw the kid slink his way into the back of the line. He surprised me, I have to say, and it gave me some hope that he might just be shy or something.

As he climbed up in my lap, though, I knew it was going to be bad. He had the kind of grubby hands you get from hanging out in the nooks and crannies of malls for too long by yourself, and a way of not looking at people that said all the things he wasn’t saying for him. I took a deep breath.

“Hey, kid. What’s your name?”

“I know you’re not Santa Claus, man.” His voice was all wrong; flat, with all kinds of stuff beneath the surface.

“I know, don’t worry about it. You can sit here as long as you want.”

He kind of sighed, and rubbed the back of his hand across his nose. “It’s just my mom’s been sick, and I wanted to get her something…”, trailing off with a dangerous voice quiver.

“OK, OK, it’s going to be alright. What kind of stuff does your mom like?”

“She likes those meat things they sell around Christmas, you know, in plastic?”

“Yeah, like a beef log thing?”

“Yeah, like that. I didn’t know they were so much, and she just gave me money for a pretzel or something while I’m walking around.”

“You know what? If you wait right here, I think I can do something for your mom.”

“I was supposed to meet her at the big Christmas tree downstairs a while ago…”

“OK, I’ll meet you down there then. Just give me five minutes, OK? I’ll be the one in the Santa suit…”

I nearly got a smile out of him with that one, and that was enough, at least for the moment. I told my helpers to hold down the fort while I took my break, and headed back to my locker.

I guess this was my big “Gift of the Magi” moment, because I had a beef log in my locker that the mall operators had given us all on our first day this year, as a way of getting us into the Christmas spirit or something. They hadn’t skimped, at least; I had a two pound Swiss Colony beef log, unopened, with the gift box and everything. I don’t really go in much for them, myself, so it just took me a minute to get the bow back in reasonable condition, and I headed downstairs.

I guess it had been a while since I had been down to the big tree, because it seemed brighter and cheerier than I remembered. People were milling around excitedly, and lots of kids were staring at me, of course, but parents were pretty good about keeping their kids away when I wasn’t doing “official” Santa business.

I saw the kid start waving when he saw me, although I didn’t see his mom. It’s amazing what a little hope can do for kids when they’re that age, because he ran right over to me.

“Hey Santa!”

“Hey kid. I have a little something for your mom, is she ar---“

He was so short that I never saw it coming, a straight right hand to the crotch. I dropped like a sack of flour, and at knee height I could make out the wild excitement that now radiated from his face like anarchic sunbeams.

“Wh…ughhh…”

“Man, screw that beef log, gimme your wallet!”

I staggered to my feet only to have him launch himself into my chest, sending both of us in a sideways tumble into the stack of fake presents around the tree. People were frozen all around us in various states of disbelief, and the kid somehow managed to steal his hand into my pocket and snag my wallet while I tried to get a foothold, or handhold, or something. He was three steps away before I even got to my feet, and I knew he was gone.

I screamed, “Fuck you AND your mom, kid!! I hope she really IS sick!” Probably a mistake, what with the Santa suit and the people all around hanging on every word, but I was in the moment, you know?

So then this guy in a baseball cap starts running over, and as he gets closer it becomes obvious that it’s Ashton Kutcher. He’s laughing in these loud uncontrolled whoops, and my stomach suddenly drops about a foot.

“Hey, man, you got PUNK’D!!” My mind now processes the extra lights for the cameras, and then the cameras themselves, and some guys with boom mikes coming in…

“Man, come on. I thought you guys just did famous people…”

“Yeah, I know, but we’re doing a Christmas special, you know, ratings are down, blah blah blah. Man, you should have seen your face! C’mon, we’ve got a hi-def monitor set up over in the security area, come check it out!”

I noticed the kid walking back towards us. “Is he a real actor, too?”

“No, he’s just some local kid. He’s a natural, though, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, Ashton, a natural. Look, I’ve got to get back to Santa-ing, if it’s alright with you…”

“Yeah, man, just come over here and sign some stuff for me and all that. Leave us an email address and we’ll let you know if your clip is going to air, but I’ll bet it will unless there was some technical screw-up, because THAT was CLASSIC!”

As I turned to follow him to the security area, I heard the last few lines of what had been playing during this whole episode, over the mall’s PA..."Happy Christmas to all, and to all, a good night!"

melancholy, Tuesday style

It was the seventh time this month that I had gotten the same phone call, and it was starting to get seriously under my skin. Or, actually, if I could backtrack for just a second, it was the seventh phone call that I KNEW OF, because I don’t have voice mail or an answering machine or anything like that. So the person could have been calling five times a day for all I know, waiting for the times when I was around to pick up the phone. (It’s a Western Electric Model 500, by the way, a real piece of craftsmanship from a time when people cared about their work.)

It always took me a second to realize what was going on, when the calls came, because of the popping and crackling that immediately overwhelmed what was usually the nearly inaudible hum that greeted me when I put the phone to my ear. I think that always left me a little off balance for what was to follow, even when part of my brain had already grasped the situation and had begun to play out various scenarios and outcomes, completely unbidden.

The calls were always slightly different, but exactly the same -- a few snatches of a woman’s voice, the ham radio static of a bad connection, words that somehow changed before they could be finished, forming phrases that didn’t have any meaning. The rising electric howl moved from the background to the fore, overwhelming every effort to ask whomever this was to repeat herself, to slow down, just to give that one piece of information that everyone asks for first, as if it matters: her name.

I would always ask, with a frightened desperation creeping into my voice in unconscious sympathy with the cacophonous half-language that I was trying to decipher, but I never got an answer, or at least an answer that meant anything to me. Then I’d hold the receiver close to my ear for long minutes even after the line had clicked dead, even after the automatic beeping began, signalling that whatever I was looking for from this particular instance of the great communications network that blankets our country was not there to be found.

So last week I bought one of those self-phone-tapping devices, so I can record the next call I get. It’s been twelve days now since the last one, and I hope that I haven’t somehow spoiled whatever conditions existed that have been bringing these calls to me. I don’t know, maybe it would be better this way, where it always remains a bit of a mystery, a story I can tell my non-existent grandkids.

Or maybe I’ll just get an answering machine.

Introducing Spencer's Plain ol' Book Club

OK, it might just be TOO crazy, but what I'm envisioning here is an online book club, sort of like when, in the late 90s, there were e-stores and e-massage parlors and e-everythings. It'll be just like that, except I won't raise and then squander millions of dollars in seed money (unless someone happens to have that lying around, in which case I will gladly accept it and almost certainly squander it).

I thought it would be appropriate, then, for our first book to be available through Project Gutenberg, an online collaborative effort to preserve all of human knowledge, or at least that part of human knowledge that currently exists in book form, in electronic format for people's use all over the internets. So, go here and download the text to Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, which will be our first book! And it's free, so no excuses about not having 75 cents to go down and pick it up from the thousands of used copies available at your local college type used bookstore.

I'll be posting my thoughts on the monthly tome on the last Saturday of every month, and then announcing the next book on the first. So, curl up by the e-fire with our good friend K, and have your comments ready!

Stacey's PEEVE O'THE WEEK!!!

Welcome to my shiny new post, which Spencer has foolishly allowed on his blog! This is my chance to rant and rave about all the things I usually do verbally, now in print! I'll be posting every Monday, because Mondays suck in and of themselves, and some EXTRA suck, like, let's say you were playing for the championship in your fantasy football league, and you were behind, but you had L.T. left! but the Chargers were playing the Broncos, who were so horrifically bad that there was no reason for the coach NOT to pull L.T., so you end up in second place by LESS THAN TWO POINTS! My God, what a chilling scenario!!

O.K., so the PeeveO'theWeek is..... WINTER! I know, you're thinking I'm never going to make it through 52 weeks of this if I cover such broad topics, but, don't worry, I have Sub-Topics!

...the problem was that we BOTH had mittens on...

So, last week we had a big snow, about 8 inches, and the next day the roads were super-icy and dangerous and everybody was driving 20 mph (which was VERY annoying and just HAPPENS to be the subject of my next post) when suddenly some idiot dude turned RIGHT OUT IN FRONT OF ME!!! I couldn't slam on the brakes because I would have skidded all over the place, so I did the next logical thing which was to slam on the horn and flip him off. Then he had the audacity to flip ME off!! So I flipped him off with BOTH HANDS!!! The problem was that we BOTH had mittens on, so we just looked like we were flailing about nonsensically, and it was highly unsatisfying, I must say. Even gloves, for God's sake... but it was too cold for gloves!! You HAD to have mittens. So, there you go, discuss. Y'all down in Texas may have to use your imagination.

So, until next week, just remember-- "You don't have to be old, or a man, to be a grumpy old man. But it helps a bunch to be grumpy."