A Flash Of Brilliance Or Get It The Hell Off Me!

After hitting the comic shop I decided to head to Home Depot to see if they had that Black and Decker tiller/cultivator thing in stock.
The route I took brought me past CiCis Pizza, and, as it was after 1:00 I figured that it probably wouldn’t be completely packed, so I decided to stop there for a late lunch.
It actually wasn’t too crowded, but still crowded enough that I didn’t want to hang out there any longer than I had to.
After that I stopped at Home Depot and found that the tiller was in stock, so I picked one up.
From there it was off to Target to get the weekly shopping done.
Before I could do any shopping, though, I had to answer nature’s call, which I hate having to do when I’m in a public place, though I was amazed to see that the systems that are in place to monitor whether or not I need to use the bathroom were apparently not working today as the bathroom was actually open and available. Given my pressing need to use the facilities I thought for sure that it would be closed for cleaning.
One of the reasons I hate spending a significant amount of time in a public restroom is that it’s pretty much impossible to get anything even remotely like peace and quiet, which, quite frankly, I view as a prerequisite for a positive restroom experience.
I had no hope of getting peace and quiet to begin with, but if I had, that hope would have soon been shattered by this little kid loudly making use of the stall next to me.
The whole time he was in there he was singing to himself, but beyond that he kept loudly talking to his dad, who was outside the stall waiting for him.
Of course, what was kind of odd was that the dad was apparently even more annoyed by the kid than I was:

Kid: Dad?
Dad: *Sigh* What?
Kid: I love you!
Dad: Just hurry up!

After that it was time to wade through the obstacle course of ccrying, screaming – and apparently parent-loving – children and try to get my shopping done.
As I was trying to get to a particular item, I had to move past the aisle and wade for a father and a pack of girls – I’m thinking that a group of children should have a name of its own, like a pride of lions, or a murder of crows – to get out of my way. The father was moving along without paying too much attention as to whether the group (Gaggle? Pod?) of girls was actually moving with him, choosing to simply trust that they would actually pay attention when he told them to “Hurry up.”
I stood there waiting for the lat of the girls to get out of my way when I became aware of tiny hands grabbing at my leg and I turned to look down on some little girl who was grabbing onto the cell phone case on my hip and saying, “You got a new phone!”
I stood there saying, “Uhhh…?” and internally screaming “Get it the hell off me!”
The girl grabbing at a strange man was enough to get the father to actually pay attention to what his daughters were doing.
That the girl was grabbing at me because she mistakenly thought I was her father didn’t make things any less uncomfortable.
As I moved on the thought occurred to me that there should be stores that cater exclusively to singles and childless couples. I mean, it makes sense; we’re a pretty desirable demographic, as, after all, we tend to have a lot more disposable income than those people saddled blessed with the litle monsters financial burdens miracles.
Of course, I realized that there’s no way for stores to legally discriminate against families, so the only method to weed them out would be to provide some disincentive to shopping there, which wouldn’t be quite foolproof enough for my tastes.
Then I had a flash of brilliance. Casinos, bars, and strip clubs can legally keep children out, so the solution is obvious: create casinos and strip clubs that also sell groceries, electronics, and other consumer products and household goods.
It’s the perfect solution. I mean, it even solves the problem of old people, as they’ll be parked in front of the penny machines all day long, keeping the aisles clear of sideways carts.
In the alternative, I suppose I could finally give in to Stacy’s suggestion and start doing my shopping online at Harris Teeter, but I don’t see how that’s going to get me a lapdance while I’m buying produce.

Wait, I Thought I Was The Only One

Catching Up

One day last week I noticed that I was out of paper towels. I didn’t want to bother going out and buying some at the time, so I decided to just stop and pick some up on the way home from work the next day.
An exciting story, I know, but the point is that it got me to thinking about how there are some things – like paper towels – that I kinda-sorta buy in bulk, but the bulk quantities never seem to last quite long enough. This line of thought led me to conclude that I should finally bite the bullet and get a Costco membership.
So I went online and signed up and a few days later my card arrived.
On Saturday when I did my weekly venturing out into the world I stopped at the local Costco to activate my card.
I’ve been in Costco a few times with other people, but I never really paid that much attention because I wasn’t there actually shopping. When that dynamic changed on Saturday I noticed just how horrible the place is. It’s like something taken directly out of my nightmares; it doesn’t just have products in bulk, it has people in bulk.
Way, way, way too many people, and all of them in my way, scrambling to find the supposed deals that membership entails.
Speaking of deals, I have to say that I was unimpressed. People say you can save a lot by shopping there, and I’m willing to believe them, but I personally didn’t see much evidence. I saw a TV that was being sold at a decent but hardly phenomenal price, for example, but when I left and went next door to Target I saw the exact same TV being sold for the exact same price. What is that membership fee paying for, exactly?
I was also annoyed about the activation of my card, which involved getting my picture taken and printed on the card because god forbid someone should come in pretending to be me and save fifty cents on an industrial-sized tub of peanut butter or something.
Not really a big deal, but the principle of the thing just activated my Fuck You Reflex, which is related to my Suck My Dick Reflex and my Blow It Out Your Ass Reflex. Of course, that’s hardly surprising, given that most everything activates one (or more) of those reflexes. Fortunately, I have a pretty strong Restrain My First Reflex Reflex.
I know I’m going to have to go back at some point to justify the cost of the membership, but I don’t think it’ll be soon.
By the time I got out of there and got to Target I was in a pretty foul mood, which wasn’t helped at all by the equally obscene number of people there shopping, or the fact that everywhere I went there was a crying/screaming child. There was just no escaping them.
So I grabbed the bare minimum amount of stuff I needed and got the hell out of there, as the mantra I had been repeating to myself – I will not go insane I will not go insane I will not go insane i will not fucking go insane – wasn’t really doing the trick.
On Sunday I drove down to Reagan National Airport to pick up Scott.
I hate driving someplace for the first time, especially when it’s likely to involve a fair amount of traffic.
My GPS didn’t help matters any, choosing a bizarre and less than straightforward route to get me there.
Once I got there I decided to just park and wait inside, as the cell phone waiting area was tiny and cramped.
So I found the baggage claim area for his flight and sat down and waited, only to get a text message from him telling me that he was waiting outside, as he didn’t actually have any checked baggage.
Eventually we found each other and were on our way.
His flight didn’t get in until 9 PM, so, assuming that I’d have to drive him home, I figured it would be pretty late by the time I got home, sometime well past my usual bedtime. So in preparation I took a nap during the day and caffeinated myself pretty heavily in the afternoon.
Turns out he’d left his car parked at work, which put it essentially on my way home, so I ended up getting home much earlier than expected. The nap and caffeine had done the trick, and pretty much overpowered the Tylenol PM I took in an attempt to get to sleep.
Just as I was, finally, drifting off, my phone rang.
It was some sort of recorded “Public Safety Message” telling me that some undefined incident that had occurred earlier in the evening on my street was “under control” and that there was “no cause for alarm.”
If there’s no cause for alarm, why are you calling to wake me up at 12:30 in the morning?
I only want to be woken up if there is cause for alarm.
And thanks for being incredibly vague about this “incident” that I’m not supposed to be alarmed about. Was it a robbery? A murder? A terrorist attack? Seriously, referring to something as a generic “incident” doesn’t really inspire peace of mind.
The whole thing reminded me of Homer’s Everything’s OK Alarm on The Simpsons.
In any case, all of these things combined to make for a very tired Monday.
Now that Scott’s returned we’ll be reinstituting Riff Trax night, though this week we’ll actually be using it to see the latest Harry Potter movie.
And that – with the exception of the awesome facts that MTV’s The State: Complete Series came out on DVD today, I ordered it from Amazon for a great price, and will be receiving it on Thursday – is pretty much all that’s been going on since I last posted.