Things to do when you’ve a full tank o/gas & nowhere to be, now with pictures!

Last night I was supposed to meet up w/the Wingmen (the catch-all term I mentally use when referring to anyone who makes it out to Reston on Thurs.nights), but ended up staying @ my folks’ house much later than I planned & missing it. Ran an errand or two instead, then came back to the apt.& promptly crashed the Hell out as, for some reason, the minute I walked through the door I was hit w/a wave o/exhaustion.

As tends to be normal regarding my lack of sleep schedule, I was wide awake just a few hours later @ 4a, unable to go back to bed. After tossing & turning a bit I gave up, donned some pants, and decided to do a few chores around the apt. - dishes, trash, gathering laundry for the wash, etc. Could only stretch that out for about an hour and 1/2 before I was left with nothing further to do for the time being. Didn’t want to sit still & didn’t feel like reading, so I decided I would: 1) go get coffee, and; 2) take my camera phone with me in case I wanted to hit the internet with a barrage of superfluous pictures later. I absolutely adore cold weather, and get positively giddy when it’s both cold AND rainy, so this was a good plan. Put on scrubby clothes, grabbed my phone, hoodie, hat, cigarettes & keys, & headed to the car.

Following are a bunch of pictures you may or may not care about. Click on any one of them to see the actual, larger image. :)

Just before I walked to the driver’s side, I looked down on the miniscule length o/grass paralleling the road & realized the first, bright fall leaves I’d noticed this season were laying at my feet. I thought the colors were pretty, so I took a couple quick pictures, then got in the car.



Drove to the grocery store, picked up my coffee, then spent a few minutes over in the bakery, basking in the scent of freshly baked pastries (that smell, first thing in the morning, makes me all warm inside). Then I headed for the exit when I stopped abruptly just before the door, backed up a few steps, and stared. In front of me, for the first time ever, I saw what is apparently called a “TV Kart”. (Yeah, check out the creepy, animated picture behind *that* link.)


I did not know what the Hell this was & had never seen it before, (Has anyone else? Am I alone here?), so I took a couple close pictures & decided to look it up when I got home.



I kind of figured it had to be *something* child-oriented from the Playskool color scheme & rounded, plastic edges here & there, but after a little research once I got home, I found out that you apparently toss $1 in the machine, and if you’ve a kid w/you, they can watch a video of one of their favorite characters while you’re picking things up.

o_O - Okay, seriously? Maybe it’s just me thinking that’s *way* over the top, but whatever happened that classic child-in-grocery-store scenario? No, not the one where they scream. I’m talking about that game the weeyun gets to play while they sit in the front seat of the shopping cart (y’know, the one you use to hold your bag &/all your small things if you don’t have children), legs dangling out of the plastic kid holes, pointing & asking for all the sugary crap Mom & Dad won’t buy for them, and making weird faces @ all the surrounding shoppers. When you have children with you, how long are you *possibly* thinking of spending in that grocery store? I mean, do you *really* need to put on Bob the Builder while you’re getting milk & hamburger? Just seems silly to me. ::shrugs::

Left there, then drove around for a bit when I saw this:


...over by Best Buy. The place was completely barren, with the exception of this one, car-shaped cart. I thought it was cute that something not actually an automobile was parked in a space, very neatly, way out in the middle of the empty parking lot. I like to imagine there was an inebriated toddler roaming about last night, getting rowdy with some friends, who had to leave his cart in the lot & catch a ride home because he couldn’t drive.

Headed over to Wal-Mart to grab a shirt & something else when I passed this in the aisle:


Was anyone else aware that someone out there is now making “gourmet” spray cheese? I...I don’t know what to say about that, really. I am both disgusted & oddly tempted to try it, though not enough to spend my own money on it. ::shudders:: Oh, America! ::shakes head::

Finished up & headed back to the car. The car to my left was just pulling out of their spot when I heard a crunch on the ground before they drove away. I looked down as they pulled off and saw...


...a now broken, mutilated, Lego Batmobile. Its driver was nowhere to be found. Poor Lego Batman. You could not combat the might burgundy Corolla. We can only hope it was a quick death & construct a 586-piece monument on your behalf (now on sale @ Wal-Mart, 50% off, complete with working gears).

On the way out of the lot I remembered the circus was in town (no, really), and decided to try & find the grounds to see if anyone was roaming about. I did, there wasn’t, so I took pictures anyway. I’ve never been to a circus (seriously), so I looked around the outside. This is not a real circus, mind you, it’s just a parking lot circus. Still & all, it was there, so I checked it out.

I didn’t realize it ‘til I reviewed the pictures later, but with no one around, against the grey background & half-light of the early morning, my pictures of the circus look a little daunting.

Dun dun DUN!


I mean really, does this look like a picture you would use to advertise a place to voluntarily bring children? Doesn’t it look like something from the cover of a B-grade horror flick?


Even *this* picture was a little off-putting.


Oh, and in case THAT wasn’t bad enough, check out their idea of “cheerful advertisement” (Linda & anyone else bothered by clowns DO NOT look @ this):


!!! Really?! Now obviously it’s a terribly creepy sign. What is WORSE is that I took this picture on the edge o/the grounds, in the middle of the drizzle. That rain has accumulated on the sign and it looks like horrifying Grampa clown IS SWEATING. Dude, I’m not even bothered by clowns & *I* thought that was terrible.

After that, I left & headed to the dollar store, remembering I came across something previously that I should’ve posted a pic o/then, which cracks me up:


This is the Dollar Store’s “AXE” knock-off. I love the fact that it’s completely blunt w/the name. “Use this and you shall reach an important base!” It *claims* to be the scent of “Cool Excitement”, which brings to mind...well, never mind, that’s just silly. What it ACTUALLY smells like is Irish Spring ground into burnt carpet. It’s kinda terrible, but then again it’s the dollar store.

After this I left & headed home to actually *do* my laundry when I remembered something else I needed to show you guys. See, this apt.complex is a classy joint. Know how I know this? Art in the laundry room. By laundry room I mean single-washer-&-dryer-on-ea.level-stuffed-in-a-barely-closet-sized-room. By artwork I mean...well...


(ahem)


That’s right, inside the laundry closet, over the pay washing machine, mounted haphazardly lovingly on the cinder block wall, just to the right o/the pipe work there hangs a faux gilt-framed painting of a freaking.FOX.HUNT...because we are full of class...and also apparently on a country estate. ::shakes head:: I had to share, it was just too fucking funny.

All righty, I’m off to handle a couple more things. If I were Jon Stewart, I would now sign off by prepping an image (say, like Zena Saunders’ painting, “Playing House”) and saying, “And now, your moment of Zen.”


:)

More later.

~E.