Kidnapped By The Golden Girls
So yesterday I'm invited to join a group headed out to see Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind. I give myself the night to consider whether this is a trip I can actually pull off. I could use public transportation and perhaps a late night call to the old man fora ride from the red line at the Dan Ryan (or perhaps an extravagant expenditure of my remaining funds on a North side hotel room). The nice convenient Metra stops running long before the show gets out (bastards) so I didn't make an immediate decision when I got the email last night, rather Itook the night to sleep on the decision (truthfully I had forgotten about the red line as an option for a return trip and thought my only option was to try and get a hotel room. I wasn't really sure I wanted to completely empty out my wallet, but really did want to get out of the house for an evening and was having a bithc of a time making up my mind).
Time, however, made my decision for me. When I woke up this morning (to a cat being thrown in my bed) the old man informed me that I was to escort my mother on a shopping trip to the Lighthouse Mall. I said no. He said yes. I said no. He said I'll give you money so you can buy something. I said no. He handed me a fifty dollar bill. I said no. Then I got in the shower because I knew I was going and there was no arguing with em.
The trip alone is a special kind of hell for me. I'm six foot three inches tall and it was a tiny little car. The front seat was offered to me, but I wasn't about to make em talk / shout back and forth over the seat for the hour plus trip, so I took the back and my knees were screaming bloody murder by the time I got out of the car. Then there is the entire discussion between grandmothers planning their shopping excursion: what store to hit, will there be a break for lunch, baby talk, shopping talk, me trying very hard to read and go to my happy place, but they are much to loud and even with sunglasses it is too much light shining on the page. I sit in the back and point out every sign for a strip club or adult bookstore as we pass, suggesting possible lunch solutions. I want boobs and steak! They ignore me.
After two stores I'm dead set to be miserable. I've got a bag full of breakables and have endured a store full of middle aged women dragging vacant eyed men about, taking things off racks and asking men questions about what they think about each particular piece as the men try to grunt out support without actually voicing an opinion (and thus loosing a portion of their masculinity). They too were in my hell, but many at least had the hope of sex when all was said and done. They weren't going to get sex, but they at least had hope of sex. I did not have this hope.
After a trip to the car to unload the first supply of goodies I'm about ready to start in with the snide comments and show just how unhappy I am to be on this trip. Then we go into London Fog (whose website is just some weird flash thing for some reason or would have linked it). Here too I am bored as the mother tries on a succession of coats and finally settles on a nice wool coat and scarf. I refrain from being a total grumpy bastard or from making to many comments about the third world nations these goods are being produced in. Then we walk over to the hats. My mother tries on a few and I look up from the floor to see a humungous selection of wool felt fedoras. I try to keep my excitement in abeyance, after all it is a rare thing to actually find a hat that actually fits my head. Just go look at the hats and take in their sheer coolness. The first couple ones I pick up are much too small. This is too bad as they are a nice grey wool that I would have liked very much. Next are the green. Low and behold an extra large fedora! It fits. It Fits! Joyous day. Just for (explicative deleted) sake I try the stack of black fedoras noticing one seems larger than the others. It fits as well!
The mother seeing just how Happy I am with the hats, buys both of them for me. She doesn't even take the fifty the old man bribed me to make the trip.
After this the mother can do on wrong. I gleefully join her for a tour of the china shop. I am happy to look through the stack and stack of baby clothes to find jus the right size outfit for my niece now and the perhaps the fleece one sized to fit her for 12 months. Whatever you want mother. I have hats. Cool hats! Fall Winter and spring I can cover my bald spot with a fedora instead of a ball cap. I'm the man.
Then it gets better. On the way out of the mall we stop at a butcher shop that specializes in jerky. I get a pound of beef surloin jerky that has been cooked in a red wine (a little spicy but delicious) and a bound of this ham jerky that is just out of this world. By the time we hit the restaurant (not the strip club I had suggested, but such is life) I am almost full from the samples the butcher kept pressing on me.
In summary: I failed to plan ahead and got shanghaied by the golden girls. I could have been a miserable bastard. Instead I got hats and Jerky. I'd rather have hats and jerky over a cheap motel any day. (And the hats are made in the USA so I don't even have to feel guilty about poor third world people being paid pennies to make my cool hat!)
More Laters
Time, however, made my decision for me. When I woke up this morning (to a cat being thrown in my bed) the old man informed me that I was to escort my mother on a shopping trip to the Lighthouse Mall. I said no. He said yes. I said no. He said I'll give you money so you can buy something. I said no. He handed me a fifty dollar bill. I said no. Then I got in the shower because I knew I was going and there was no arguing with em.
The trip alone is a special kind of hell for me. I'm six foot three inches tall and it was a tiny little car. The front seat was offered to me, but I wasn't about to make em talk / shout back and forth over the seat for the hour plus trip, so I took the back and my knees were screaming bloody murder by the time I got out of the car. Then there is the entire discussion between grandmothers planning their shopping excursion: what store to hit, will there be a break for lunch, baby talk, shopping talk, me trying very hard to read and go to my happy place, but they are much to loud and even with sunglasses it is too much light shining on the page. I sit in the back and point out every sign for a strip club or adult bookstore as we pass, suggesting possible lunch solutions. I want boobs and steak! They ignore me.
After two stores I'm dead set to be miserable. I've got a bag full of breakables and have endured a store full of middle aged women dragging vacant eyed men about, taking things off racks and asking men questions about what they think about each particular piece as the men try to grunt out support without actually voicing an opinion (and thus loosing a portion of their masculinity). They too were in my hell, but many at least had the hope of sex when all was said and done. They weren't going to get sex, but they at least had hope of sex. I did not have this hope.
After a trip to the car to unload the first supply of goodies I'm about ready to start in with the snide comments and show just how unhappy I am to be on this trip. Then we go into London Fog (whose website is just some weird flash thing for some reason or would have linked it). Here too I am bored as the mother tries on a succession of coats and finally settles on a nice wool coat and scarf. I refrain from being a total grumpy bastard or from making to many comments about the third world nations these goods are being produced in. Then we walk over to the hats. My mother tries on a few and I look up from the floor to see a humungous selection of wool felt fedoras. I try to keep my excitement in abeyance, after all it is a rare thing to actually find a hat that actually fits my head. Just go look at the hats and take in their sheer coolness. The first couple ones I pick up are much too small. This is too bad as they are a nice grey wool that I would have liked very much. Next are the green. Low and behold an extra large fedora! It fits. It Fits! Joyous day. Just for (explicative deleted) sake I try the stack of black fedoras noticing one seems larger than the others. It fits as well!
The mother seeing just how Happy I am with the hats, buys both of them for me. She doesn't even take the fifty the old man bribed me to make the trip.
After this the mother can do on wrong. I gleefully join her for a tour of the china shop. I am happy to look through the stack and stack of baby clothes to find jus the right size outfit for my niece now and the perhaps the fleece one sized to fit her for 12 months. Whatever you want mother. I have hats. Cool hats! Fall Winter and spring I can cover my bald spot with a fedora instead of a ball cap. I'm the man.
Then it gets better. On the way out of the mall we stop at a butcher shop that specializes in jerky. I get a pound of beef surloin jerky that has been cooked in a red wine (a little spicy but delicious) and a bound of this ham jerky that is just out of this world. By the time we hit the restaurant (not the strip club I had suggested, but such is life) I am almost full from the samples the butcher kept pressing on me.
In summary: I failed to plan ahead and got shanghaied by the golden girls. I could have been a miserable bastard. Instead I got hats and Jerky. I'd rather have hats and jerky over a cheap motel any day. (And the hats are made in the USA so I don't even have to feel guilty about poor third world people being paid pennies to make my cool hat!)
More Laters
posted by Rich Rosenthal II at 9:37 PM
4 Comments:
Congrats on your Fedoras! I'd love to get one soon. Although, in the meantime, I'll put some good milage on the red velvet Fez that some buddies gave me for my birthday. It is, without a doubt, one of the coolest gifts I have ever recieved!
i think we need a new pic including these hats.
Today or tomorrow I'll see if I the old man's digital camera will hook up to my machine of parts. Upon successful conclusion I'll see if I can get the hello blogger photo loading tool working and the maybe I can bring everyday absurd out of hybernation.
if you need somewhere to host pics, i can put it on my wiu account. i have no idea how long i will get to keep that, but i'm guessing a while.
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