June 13
Once again, you can't tell, but Wayne went nuts with makeup on me, so I'm all made up like a champ. Trust me, I look like a sex pot. A sex pot who's incredibly grateful and honored that she's getting pledges in the mail, but a sexpot none the less. A humble sex pot.
So last night I went out to my normal haunt of cheap ass clothing stores (Marshall's, TJ Maxx). In each cheap ass place, I have a ritual. I must, must go through the stuff in the same order every time. If I differ from my set way of doing stuff, well, I don't know what happens because it doesn't usually occur. This little Rain Man quality to my personality comes shining through at TJ Maxx more than anyplace else. I'm embarrassed to admit I even have different rituals for different store locations. Anyhow, I mention this because there's always supercool clearance stuff at TJ Maxx.
The clearance clothes are to be avoided. These are the clothes people have rubbed their dirty hands on for months. These are the shoes with athlete's foot insoles. These are the shirts with the frightening blood stains from body parts a turtleneck should never know about. These are the sad little leftover jeans with the shiny green stitching up the leg and the "Born to Play Bingo" appliqué over the butt pocket. These are clearance clothes for a reason. Avoid them.
What I'm speaking of are the clearance ITEMS. Your off season Christmas crap. Your Easter cookie presses. Your smashed up cookies. Within the nasty food stuff (to be avoided, no matter what, but I shouldn't need to tell you all that. If you don't know that, well, you know what, you get what you deserve. Bon appetit!) and the broken picture frames you are sometimes able to find some really cool shit. About 6 months ago, my mom found this awesome coat hanging doober. It was elephants, ELEPHANTS! You'd hang your stuff off their trunks and they, being used to hard work and uncomplaining servitude, would just let you do it. It was the coolest thing ever. All that joy, TWO DOLLARS. Two. The tragedy in my mother's elephant coat hanging doober lay in the fact that she didn't ever use it. It was more the thrill of finding such a cool thing for two dollars than the actual need for an elephant nose coat hanger.
Last night, as I was rifling through the clearance shelves (instead of any number of things I should have been doing like, I donno, being at the gym or riding my bike, maybe) I came across a bowl. It was shaped like a leaf. Normally, I am not a sucker for stuff like that, but when I picked it up and turned the thing over, I noted the price: 70 cents. SEVENTY CENTS. If you show me something that costs 70 cents, and that something is not a candy bar, I lose my mind. Seventy cents. That's almost free! I grabbed it and hung on like the leaf bowl was the most precious and amazing piece of art ever created.
I walked through the store congratulating myself on my astute shopping powers. "It's a GREAT BOWL!" "I just love the leafy shape and the cool green color!" "Next time I have chips and dip, I'm gonna use THIS BOWL!" I'd pick up other stuff and put it down. "Three dollars! Pffttt! This bowl is really only minorly flawed and it's SEVENTY CENTS! Look at that stupid woman! Her bowl's shaped like fat people in a swimming pool! That's very clever and all* but I'll bet it costs about seven fifty! Not this bowl, no sirree!" "Nick and I should have a party so I can use this bowl. I'll be able to tell everyone that it only cost 70 cents. They won't believe me!"
Along with the amazing cheap bowl, I bought two shirts. Ahhh..TJ Maxx. Time much better spent than at the gym. I see it like this. I had to walk from my house to the car. That meant going down a few steps. I parked in the middle of the parking lot so I'd have to walk a little to get to the store. I walked around the store (both Marshall's, where I almost bought a shirt but bailed at the last minute, reasoning "I would love this for 40 dollars. For 80 dollars, I only like it a little" and TJ Maxx.) I walked around each store for at least 30 minutes. Okay, so it wasn't really an intense aerobic workout. It didn't have much to do with getting me ready to bike all those miles. I'm sure I didn't lose any weight (heh, especially considering what I ate for dinner afterwards: a peanut butter and jelly sammich and oatmeal cookies, washed down with Italian sausage and diet coke! Yum, yum. That's athlete food!) but I certainly didn't strain myself. My training is all about moderation, you see.
(* I fucking hate cute little crap like that. Stuff with people on it. I especially, particularly hate things with faces, like creepy masks and moons and stars. I loathe cute things, which is funny considering how very many cute little monkeys I have. But they don't have creepy little faces, staring at me at night, hovering down from the walls, trying to eat me. They're not malevolent forces of evil, wanting to steal my soul. Yes, I have issues, but cute shit really, really gets me angry. "Ooh, Mildred, look, you dip your chip in the swimming pool! It's as though the SALSA is the WATER! oh, HO HO! How CLEVER!" MAN, I hate stuff like that. I hate figurines of all kinds. They come alive at night and do bad shit. I've seen the movies, I know these things.)
So Goodbye....<Your Name Here>:
I'm trying to think of a normal way to talk about this, but I can't. I mean, I'm sure you all wonder "What is it that Rob and Dana talk about when they go out to lunch?" or "What makes someone as classy as Dana laugh?" and "When Dana has 5 dollars to spare, what would she spend it on?". If you don't think these .wav files are the funniest thing ever, you seriously wouldn't want to hang with me. No, really. They're hilarious. We sat in the car literally screaming with laughter.
I just can't add another thing to this, I really can't. Thinking about all of you listening to these files fills me with joy I can't even express in words. Shivers of happiness would not be an overstatement. Welcome to what it's like in my head, all the time.
Note: I haven't actually been able to listen to these .wav files. Proceed at your own risk...
