Leaving Walgreens

I was on the schedule till 5PM, but at 4:45 I realized there was nothing more I could do, so I went to the back to clock out. The back room is big, brown, linoleum floored opening with a breakroom, bathroom, and office on the left and the floor door and truck door on the right. The punch clock is right near the floor door. Sarah was throwing boxes to the compacter or something like that, walking in and out of the truck door. For some reason I hoped she didn't see me. I clocked out and then went up to the front to find Dominic, who was talking to Katie. I forget what we talked about, but Dennis came up to us and saw that I was distracting them. I told him that I was off the clock, and he encouraged the others to not be so distracted by me. At some point after he gave Dominic some Starbucks drinks for the coolers, we noticed that the mylars say "HHHYPOINT" instead of "HYPOINT." Dominic said the owners of Hypoint go to his country club.

After that I went to the back again to grab all my things. I didn't have a lot of time that morning, so I had brought peanut butter and a butterknife to work. I grabbed them, and the water bottle I had been bringing recently since we ran out of paper cups to drink from, and the gallon of water I bought for Gauss, my fish. I was walking away when I realized I had forgotten my math book, so I put my things down and picked up The Art of Problem Solving 2, which had gone to the bottom of the pile after Sheri cleaned the break"room" desk.

I said bye to Dom as I walked out, but I figured I'd see him that night. Sid, the soft-spoken Indian cashier with two academic degrees who works 9-5 M-F, was up front still, and I didn't think I would see him again so I stopped to say goodbye. He's such a nice kid. Dede told me he was Autistic but I never checked with him. I remembered that I'd be coming back for my paycheck so I thought I'd see him again, but then recalled he'd be on vacation in Arizona to see his uncle, so I said goodbye for good. I didn't have a free hand, but I put out my hand holding my water bottle to shake his and he held on for a second and let go. I think it was the only time I've ever touched him. I said bye to him, bye to Dominic, and walked out.

Peace out.

Customers 3

A week or two ago, three teenage girls came into the store. One of them was wearing a sort of showy blue top and short jean skirt. She was probably like fifteen, but maybe a bit older. She asked for gum, and for some reason I thought there was something a little bit strange about her. I suppose it was the ukelele that she brought into the store.

She and her friends ended up just getting some stuff for the movies. As I was ringing her up, I asked her, "Are you taking that ukelele to the movie theater?" And in a sort of airy and detached voice, she answered, "Yeah, I take it everywhere I go...!" I didn't really know what to make of the response. I really was curious if she was taking that ukelele to the movie theater and why, but I didn't feel like pushing to find out. She also thanked for me for noticing that it was a ukelele and not a miniature guitar, which apparently is a common mistake.

I suppose I was just a little thrown off by the whole thing. I mean, come on. A ukelele.

//

Just about at close last night, the door opened and I heard some barely pubescent girls screaming "HAHA I LOVE YOU" to someone outside. They walked up to the counter and basically accosted me right away, which is really annoying. I forget what things they asked me, but one of them said, "You're kinda cute," to which I didn't respond, beacuse they were scabby teen hos [ouch] and probably the age of like, Abby's sister. And dressed really skanky. And just overall very obnoxious and sort of skeeving me out. Then they loudly joked, "LET'S GO GET SOME CONDAMS." I think they asked me if we sold condams, so I pointed them in the direction of them. I didn't think they would get them since they were like, 13.

A couple minutes later they came back. Three of them were holding a Durex Pleasure Pack in their hands, and they bought them and asked me to keep the receipts. "No receipts, please," one said. They asked me if I smoked because I was trying to remove the safety from one of the lighters, but I said no. They asked me if I would serve them, and I said no. To be honest, I might have if they weren't obnoxious scabby teen hos, but as it were, they were obnoxious scabby teen hos, and I'm not bending the rules for you if I don't like you.

They proceeded to sit outside and accost passerbys for a while. I heard someone shout at them later, "GO BACK TO HIGH SCHOOL." I'm pretty sure they were in middle school, so that must have been a huge boost for their ego. Oh well. At least they're having safe sex.

//

A man came in with two rolls of 24 exposure 35mm film. Every one of the 48 pictures was the same birdhouse and a few birds. He said he and his wife sat there for hours taking pictures of it.

//

Around close last night, a guy and a girl came in and looked around. A minute later another guy, wearing a white shirt and jeans, asked me where the pregnancy tests were, assuring me "It's not for me." It turned out he was with the guy and girl that had come in before... they might have come together but I missed that. He had blonde hair and the other two had dark hair, all probably about 23 years old.

A minute or two later they came back with a pregnancy test and bought it. They were joking that it "Wasn't for them," or something like that. I swept it under the desk to deactive any security devices that might be on it, since things like that are often stolen. I told them why I was doing that and they were like, "People steal these?" So I said, "Yeah, basically anything to do with sex.... so like, pregnancy tests, condoms, lubricant..." They all thought that was pretty funny, and I added, "Yeah, and the yeast infection stuff... basically anything with those three letters." To which the black haired guy added, "Haha, V-A-G."

After they paid, they asked, "Do you have a bathroom?" ((o_O)) Yes, we do. So I asked Dave to take them to the bathroom, and he came back a couple minutes later.

"Dude, Sarah is so skeeved out. The girl was like 'Man, this is really dirty,' but then all three of them went into the bathroom to use the test. Why do you need to do that?"

I thought it was hilarious, that they would go into the bathroom with her as she peed on a stick. They came out a couple minutes later, all very exited, and somehow they told us that she was negative. As they walked out, very excited, she said to Dave, "Have a nice night!" And then she said to me, "And you! WRAP IT UP!! Don't get the HIV!"

Peace out.

Five Dollars

When I was in first grade I wore sweatpants basically every day. I remember one time in 5th grade I bought two pairs of khaki pants and Shawn Hagerty said to me in the hallway, "God, you finally got some real pants." I didn't even know he knew who I was, let alone that he noticed my legwear habits.

Anyway. One day in first grade, wearing my sweatpants (the black ones, in my memory), I reached into my pocket on the playground at recess and pulled out a $5 bill. I remember it was a sunny day, and I remember being near the bench where the adults would always sit - if you looked at the school from the playground, it'd be the closest and leftmost corner. I had no idea where the money came from - I never brought money to school - and I said, "Wow! Look, I found $5 in my pocket!"

I don't know who I was standing with or why, but one of the kids was Justin Reader. He said, "Did you say $5? I think I lost $5 earlier in the cafeteria." I didn't think it was really possible that it would end up in my pocket if he lost it - I never picked up money that I saw lying around - but he insisted. "No, I lost $5 in the cafeteria today, that's mine." He was bigger than me and to be honest I was a little bit scared of him, so I said okay and gave him the money.

I went home that day and somehow I ended up telling my parents about it. I don't think I was that upset about it, but apparently one of my parents thought that it needed to be dealt with. They called the Reader family and told them what happened.

That night, sometime when it was dark, our doorbell rang. I remember opening the door and it being very dark behind the two people there, Mr. Reader and his son. Crying quite a bit, Justin handed me an envelop with $5 in it and, I believe, a written apology, and managed to say "I'm sorry" to me while he was there.

I remember not feeling particularly good about this episode. For one thing, I was afraid of Justin and seeing him crying was extremely unsettling to me. Furthermore, I didn't really care about the $5 from what I remember. In retrospect, it definitely wasn't worth the $5 to make that kid feel that bad, or to teach him whatever lesson he might have learned if he didn't know it already.

His dad died of pancreatic cancer years later. I don't know how my parents always knew about his condition, but I remember hearing about it for a long time before his death. For people unfamiliar, pancreatic cancer is basically a death sentence with a mysterious time frame and a swift, painful end. When I heard about his passing all I could think about was Justin crying at my door that one night with his dad, whose face I can't even remember looking up to see.

Peace out.

Hockey Fight

There was a fight at hockey this Sunday.

My team is the Chargers, and one of the best players on our team is a 6'2" jovial guy named Nick. He's a joker but also a good leader, plays clean most of the time but can dish out trash talk when he needs to. We also have a guy on our team named Dan who's a bit older, a bit bigger, and often complains of back problems.

We were playing a team called Orange Slice. We were destroying them so badly that their best player quit, leading us to destroy them even more badly - something like 7-1 with a few minutes left. They got a bit of relief when one of their players slapped the puck into the net from the top of the circle, making it 7-2. The very next drop of the puck, though, Nick drove up through two of their players - who were playing very dirty defense - right up to the net, passed it off, and let the other winger score. On the way back, the defenders tried to tell Nick that he was playing dirty and he just smiled and laughed and said, "Yeah man, I'm garbage, absolutely."

I guess their team was getting frustrated by the crushing score. Their center, who I call Short Fat Angry Italian Man (SFAIM), got very upset in particular. He came up to the drop with me and shouted, "IS THERE ANYONE ON YOUR TEAM THAT ISN'T MENTALLY RETARDED?" I thought about telling him where I went to school this fall but decided not to. He slashed very roughly when the puck was dropped.

It went back into our zone after that drop with about 40 second left on the clock. Nick was defending the guy with the puck and skating along with him behind the net. I guess Nick was a little feisty right then, so he just railed the guy into the boards. Once he was on the ground, he started pummeling him, and the guy started pummeling back.

At the same time, inside the circle on our goalie's left, SFAIM slashed Dan in the back of the knee, taking Dan to the ground, but Dan took SFAIM to the ground with him. I believe Dan just pulled the guy's shirt over his head, removing his helmet, as the guy removed his gloves, but they didn't fight. There were two referees, and one of them dealt with each of the brewing fights.

Nick and his guy had actually punched each other, but SFAIM and Dan had not. Once the refs separated them, though, SFAIM didn't calm down. His faced turned red and he strained and shouted at Dan: "YOU P***Y! YEAH YOU LEAVE YOUR F***ING HELMET ON P***Y! YOU JUST ENDED YOUR F***ING LIFE MAN I'LL F***ING KILL YOU IN THE PARKING LOT."

The game ended before we were allowed to play anymore. We went to our bench to get changed, and got word that Nick might be suspended for the next game because he and his guy had actually thrown punches. Dan appeared safe for the moment. We talked about how funny it was that SFAIM was getting so upset over recreation Men 25+ roller hockey. Nick said, "Yeah I mean, I might get a little pissed off for those thirty seconds and throw my body around but once the game's over what the hell do I care? I'm over it!" We all agreed. He said he used to get really upset when he was twelve and he played in tournaments that "actually mattered," but not for things like this.

As we were changing and talking, SFAIM man started walking to our bench and accosting Dan, asking if he was too p***y to come out to the parking lot and fight him. The thin ref got in his way and told him to leave, and one of our team members and two guys from the Vipers (playing after us) told him to quit the league and go home.

We weren't going to let Dan walk out alone, so I walked out with him and JT (who is very muscular). When we got out there, SFAIM was actually waiting around on his little blue car with three of his friends and approached us: "Oh, so there you are you f***ing p***y." Dan just kept walking straight and the guy came up to him and lined up to throw at him what he had in his hand - an empty Dasani water bottle. I wanted to laugh, but I suppose it would have been a bad time. I know how much water bottles hurt... and it's not much.

Anyway, in retaliation, JT wound up to punch the guy, and SFAIM flinched big time, but Dan told JT to stop. JT could have pounded the crap out of the guy, but there were four fighters for them and basically JT for us. The fat ref came out and told us to stop and go to our cars, so we went home.

I don't know if SFAIM is actually Italian. He could very well have been Eastern European, or basically any other European descent.

Peace out.

Jury Duty

About a month ago I got a summons in the mail for jury duty. There were two pieces of paper you had to fill out. They asked you to fill out your name and address and race, etc., and then another one asked you if you or anyone you know is a lawyer, if you've ever been convicted of a crime, etc etc. So I filled them both out and my dad forgot to send one. Fortunately I didn't get in trouble. The piece of paper, from what I thought, said to call on July 23rd to see if you'd need to come the next day. On the 22nd, my dad came up to me and asked me if I had called. I told him that no, I hadn't, I needed to call the next day. He asked if I was positive, and I said I'd bet my life on it. "I wouldn't do that again, " he said, and then showed me the paper which said I needed to call on the 22nd.

So I called the number and a recording of a girl's voice said that jurors of all type needed to come in that day (I was a "Standby" juror).

The next day I was going to wake up at 8AM so I could drive to Media in time, but my dad woke me up at 7:55 somewhat hurriedly asking, "Are you getting up now? You have to go to Media." And I said, I know, I was going to wake up at eight. But he said that I had to take a shower and shave. It made me sad when he said I had to shave because I had a lot of facial hair at that point and I HATE shaving and it takes a long time, but he said, "Look, I know everyone there and they know who I am and I can't have my son walking around that building with a tshirt and scruffy." I got up then and ate my cereal (Cinnamon Life, which my mom accidentally bought instead of regular Life) and while I was eating it, my alarm started going off. I thought about going upstairs to turn it off, but I just let it ring figuring I'd turn it off when I went back upstairs for the bathroom. No one even said anything about it, so I think I was the only one that noticed.

I took a shower and shaved (shove? ...). As usual I cut myself and didn't do a very good job. My hair is white in some parts and you can't see it at all when it's wet, so I never find out how terrible a job I did until it dries. Some of my hair goes up and basically over/around my cheek bones. It makes me look like a caveman and I forgot to get some of that. So I had to go to court as dad's caveman son.

It was really easy to drive there. I thought about The Morning Commute while I was driving and concluded that the drive from here to Media isn't that bad. It was about 25 minutes, which is a great amount of NPR's Morning Edition to listen to. Hopefully my commute will be something like that long, if I have to commute. When I got there, a cop was standing on the street and I showed him my jury summons and he let me into the parking lot for free.

For some reason I parked on the top level of the lot even though I think there were spots open in the bottom level. I walked down and walked over to the front steps of the courthouse. The courthouse was way bigger and more grandiose-looking than I remembered/expected. Big pillars and columns and everything. I walked in and there were two lines for security, so I put my stuff through and saw a woman with a red pin that said "JUROR" in white and thought, Wow, this woman is really into being a juror. After I got my stuff back I asked a cop where the jurors were supposed to go and he pointed me to the jury lounge, which was down the hall and to the left. There were two signs for it (oops). When I walked in the first thing they did was give me a red button that said JUROR in white, and then I felt stupid for thinking that other woman was a loser. They also gave me a clipboard with a lot of papers on it and told me to NOT fill out the survey until we watched an instructional video on how to fill it out.

The jury lounge was pretty big. When you walked in there was an "office" for the selection workers, and then it opened up to a large floor of chairs. It probably went back 20 rows and was about 15 wide, with aisles on the right side and in the middle toward the left. The chairs were red with gold buttons on it or whatever you call them and were all free-standing so you could move it if you wanted to bad enough, but they were very organized in rows and columns so no one would think to do that. The chairs had a rounded back and a sort of puffy bottom and were made of either leather or pleather. I picked a chair that was next to a seat where the person had gotten up to go to the bathroom, figuring it was much less awkward than taking the seat beside her when she was actually there. When she got back she took her coffee and moved it over, taking the seat two away from me instead of the one right next to me.

The seats were very, very uncomfortable. I tried to read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, an Indian history of the United States, but finding a comfortable position in which to read was so difficult that I couldn't read the book for nearly as long as I wanted to be able to. I think it was the rounded back that made it so terrible. It was very rounded. I tried hunching over away from the back, and leaning to the sides, and putting my foot up, and putting my foot under me, but in all cases my back started to hurt/get really uncomfortable, so after a while I'd have to stand up or something like that to make it hurt less. All in all, though, I did get about 70 pages into the book.

When we first got there, a younger, heavy blonde woman moved a podium with a microphone to the front of the room and started talking to us all. I forget what she said, but she read from a script and didn't seem to be enjoying it at all. It was just some welcome speech. After she finished the script she just started talking and seemed a lot more natural, but still like she hated her job. After that she introduced a judge who came to speak to us and remind us that what we were doing was very fulfilling and our duty and necessary and gratifying and important and things like that. After that I think we took a break because we were all exhausted.

They told us to take the elevator downstairs, but I didn't want to wait for 30 elevator loads so I started looking for stairs. After looking over the entire floor, I found no stairs that I could access, so I had to go to the elevator. We were headed to the cafeteria, which I then found, but all the dougnuts had been eaten. So I got some Tastykake doughnuts which I suppose were just as good.

When we went back up we watched the instructional video on filling out that survey. It asked, again, if you were an eyewitness to a crime, if you committed a crime, if you or someone in your family was a lawyer, etc. The video was about 30 minutes long, which I think was a little overkill for 16 yes or no questions.

We were all probably hoping that a judge would come early in the morning to strike a jury so that we could get out of there - there were only two judges waiting so if it happened quickly for both of them, we'd be done in an hour - but none came. At 11:35, the blonde lady said we were on lunch until 2. TWO AND A HALF HOUR LUNCH BREAK. Seriously? Do all judges get 2.5 hour lunches? As I was walking out of the building with everyone else, I heard a lot of them talking on their cell phones saying "I'm just going to go home!" One teenage girl wearing a gray shirt that said "FITCH" on it was talking to her dad on her cell phone and I heard: "What happens if you just don't come back? .... I'd rather just be arrested." I called dad and asked him if it was generally understood this meant you could leave, but he said no, but that I could talk to Mr. Montella and maybe he could tell me what he thought or get me off the list for the rest of the day. I went to look for him, but he was also on a 2.5 hour lunch break.

I sat outside eating my peanut butter sandwich and apple that I brought. I sat on a hard cement bench, but at one point moved to a round thing so I could lean back. I remember three black kids walked by me while I was sitting there eating. When I was done I wanted to walk around Media. I called Jenn to see if she was in Media by any chance, but she was still asleep. So I just walked around. I walked to the right first and saw the Coffee Club where I used to play, but the Planned Parenthood next to it appeared closed. I don't really remember any of the other stores down on the right, and so I turned back to go left. There were a LOT of restaurants. I passed the ice cream store I went to last summer with Chaz and Sarah with the big staircase in the front, and passed Cold Stone and thought that I saw Mr. and Mrs. Bank talking with potential buyers behind the counters.

There were also a lot of banks. There was a Trader Joe's in an old church it seemed, though maybe a barrack. There was a nice restaurant called Under the Stars. I saw the Towne Hall or whatever it was where we often have Christmas dinner, and I saw the Iron Hill Brewery where I think we went for dad's birthday this year. When I was walking I saw a store called "Deals," so I went inside. There was a woman talking to the owner, but I just looked around at the prices. Everything seemed ridiculously expensive. 4 AA batteries was 11.99, but they claimed the original price was 16.29. As a Walgreen's employee, I can tell you that is not the truth. That is not a deal at all.

There was another Deals store I went to further down. The first one was gray and white, but this one was large and open and brown and dark. I walked up and down all the aisles, and at one point had to walk through three older women talking. One of them had just had a stroke two weeks ago, and made a comment about quitting smoking. One of the women looked at me and said, "Hear that young man? Quit smoking!" I said, "I don't smoke, but thanks," and kept going. They were weird. The deals in this store were actually sort of deals, but they didn't have a lot. Specifically no back to school stuff. So I kept going.

After that I walked back, checked out a toy store real quick, and went back to lay on the grass in my nice collared shirt and call Gina. After a while of that I decided I was just going to go to my car and listen to NPR.

On my way over I saw a black pick-up truck parked on the sidewalk with cages in the back, and I heard a cooing/chirping noise. So I looked and I saw animals in the cages. There was a raccoon keeping himself very low and almost lunging forward. There was also a badger, I think, in a cage to his left. There was food in his cage. He was making the sad sounds. It was very very hot outside and these animals had a lot of hair and were sitting in direct sun. The badger was leaning on the side of the cage and looked very tired. There was food in his cage but I don't think he was interested. I took some pictures of them on my cell phone. When I went to the other side of the truck, I saw that there was another raccoon below the badger. At least he was in the shade...

So I moved my car to a spot on the first floor for shade, realized it was reserved, and moved it again. It was really hot (I wouldn't leave the car running with air conditioning!), so I opened the windows. Still too hot, so I unbuttoned my shirt. Still too hot, so I just took my shirt off and leaned forward. So for me, jury duty included about forty minutes of sitting in my car with my shirt off listening to economic news on NPR. Do you know what the Ted Spread is? I do. And it's very important in economics. It's basically a measure of fear regarding the economy and is usually at 50 points and hasn't gone far from that in a century. Now it's at 150.

After that I went back and tried to find Mr. Montella again, but he was still at lunch by 1:40. So I went back inside. I kept doing the security thing wrong, and the police man there said, "Dude, I don't need to x-ray your phone!" At one point he did look at my white flash drive to see what it was though. I went back and read, and at about 2:30 they said they were going to strike a jury for a criminal case, so they'd be calling 50 people I think.

They started calling in groups of five. She'd say 1, a name, 2, a name, 3, etc. She got to 45 and I still wasn't picked. 5 people left, I looked around the room, must have been like 75 people in there. So she got down to 50 and I still wasn't picked, and I thought, Whew! I could be done right now! But then she said 51, a name... and I thought, WHAT. God. 4 names left and 69 people so my chances are still like 1 in 17. Got down to two people left. 2 names and 67 people. 1 in 33 chance. 54, me. I was number 54 out of 55. Everyone gave all the terrible glory to #55 though. I think at least three people commented to him. He commented to me, "We almost made it!" He was a middle aged white guy with short blonde/brown hair and seemed nice. I saw that the man in front of me was a chemist/engineer on the survey we had to fill out earlier.

We went upstairs. The judge introduced himself and then asked us a bunch of questions after a while, which was basically the survey all over again. Only a few people stood for any of the questions, including the guy next to me who said that he might not be able to be a fair and impartial juror in this case (#55, that is). After they did the full survey, they started calling up individual jurors to the sidebar. They put on static noise throughout the court so we couldn't hear what they were saying. They started with 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and we though it would take forever, but then they jumped to 9, 13, 25, 28, and then I think they were finished. A court clerk then took a paper multiple times between the defense and prosecution's attorneys, agreeing on who to pick.

The first time I saw the guy accused was when I walked into the courtroom. He was standing there with his attorney, who was young, heavy, white, and red-haired, and looked sort of dejected. He was Latino. His last name was Martinez, I think. He wore very large and very thick glasses, had short brown hair, a mustache and almost a unibrow. He was wearing a yellow shirt with some green writing near the breast pocket, probably for some club he belonged to, and khaki shorts or pants. He was accused of driving under the influence. Apparently on December 24th, 2007, there was an accident that he was involved in and the police said they smelled alcohol and arrested him for driving under the influence at 2:13PM. That was a pretty bad time to get caught for that, I suppose.

Anyway, they called the 14 jurors and I was not one of them. I had talked to the people to my right a little bit, including a very talkative black woman and a much quieter older white guy (the engineer). She was a student and adjunct professor of English at Temple, he was retired. It was nice talking to them - we talked mostly about school and the kids that she had as her interns. He spelled "crooked" as "crookted." He was an athlete, she said.

We went back down to the jury lounge, and everyone else had gone. We wondered when they had left and felt jealous. Everyone turned in their juror number which we had clipped to ourselves in the top right part of our shirts and their red juror badges, except for me because I lost mine sometime around when I took my shirt off I suppose. I'll have to look for it in my car.

Peace out.

Exciting Things

I finished a song the other day. It's called Miracle and it's on my MySpace and you should listen to it. You can also get to my MySpace by clicking on the two lines of dots right above this post. So you know.

In other piano related news, I've realized that the only things that make me want to go back to Brown/miss Brown at all are things related to the piano. The songs I heard and played there and wrote there and things like that.

In other news, I joined a hockey league. My first game is today (Monday) at 7:30 PM. I'm excited and a little scared.

Peace out!

Peckermints

So Nicki had her Rocky Horror Picture Show party on Friday night. I wasn't doing anything that day, and sometime around 1PM I got a text message from Nicki saying, "Are you busy at 2:20/do you want to be my best friend ever?" I wasn't busy, and of course I want to be Nicki's best friend forever, so after a couple of texts we got it sorted out that I would go to Granite Run and meet her around 2:20. She said that I had to buy her something but wouldn't tell me what, but that she needed someone older than 18 to buy it for her. I thought she was working at Granite Run for some reason, forgetting that she worked with Joe Sestak in Media.

So I drove very fuel efficiently to Granite Run at 2:20. I called her from the parking lot while I was coasting to save some gas to find out where she was. She said Entrance 2, but I had no idea where that was, but when she said near Ruby Tuesday's I knew where to go. I parked in a pull through like I always try to now, and found her waiting near her new car, which was something of a surprise because I thought she was already in the mall. She was dressed up really nicely because she was just handling the phone at the Congressman's office.

So once we got there I asked her what the deal was, and she told me that I had to buy some things for her at Spencer's Gifts that were going to be prizes for the winner's of the virgin ritual at RHPS. She told me that we were going to go in and find them, then she'd give me the money, walk out, I'd buy them, and that'd be it. So we looked around the store - she called Kacey - trying to find a phallic lollipop. After a few minutes of looking, she found them next to breath mints called Peckermints (guess why!) and decided she wanted those too.

We had to go to the ATM, and I think it was while we were looking for this that Nicki told me the story about her day. She was working on the phone and some woman called and started to complain. They get out a complaint sheet to take the name/number/location of the caller and write down what they wanted to complain about. So Nicki gets one out and starts writing, but the woman goes on for like half an hour. About things that Sestak can't even control, although I forget the specific example she gave. So at the end Nicki asks for name and number and location and the woman says, "I'm not giving that to you!" So she tells her it's just so they know where the complaint is coming from and finally manages to get the woman to tell her what city she's from and she says, "Pittsburgh." Nicki responded, "Um, are you aware that Sestak doesn't have any control over what happens in Pittsburgh?" and she said back, "Yes, I just call everyone in the state."

So we got the money from the ATM after waiting behind a guy for a minute and went back to the store. I looked for a little and finally found the light-up lollipop and the Peckermints and took them to check out. When I got there - holding Nicki's $20 in my hand - there was a woman in front of me wearing a huge dark cloak, a far-too-large wooden cross, grey and black long dreads, a painted white face, I think vampire fangs and probably many more things I didn't even have the time to notice. Immediately when I come up behind her she turns to me and gasps/moans, "Fiiive?"

Huh?

"Can you spare fiive?"

[[ Far too conspicuous about the $20 in my hand ]] No, sorry, this is the only money I have on me (LIE) and it's my friend's, so it's not really my decision

"Can you spare fifty six ceeents...?"

No, sorry, I only have my friend's money...

So after she sorted out something with the cashier, I threw my stuff on the counter and ironically exclaimed, "Well that was weird!" I don't think anyone appreciated my utter genius but oh well.

As the cashier was ringing me up, she asked if I had an e-mail and I said "Yeeeeaahhh.. buuut not one I want to give to Spencer's." She asked why not - "Because I don't want to get vibrator emails all the time?" There was another girl working at the front - both of these girls were about 18 probably - and she said "They're just coupons." Yeah, vibrator coupons, okay, for vibrators I'm not really interested in. Then she said, "What, are you embarassed of what you're buying?"

ME?! Am I embarassed?! You're the one that works at the penis store! Not me!

I didn't say that but I should have.

Peace out.

Customers 2

There was an older woman who came in today. My guess is that she was not quite 60, with short black hair that she said her husband liked and black eyeliner and blue or green eyes. She only bought one thing but I forget what it was.

After we finished the transaction she headed for the exit, but she ran into someone that she knew on the way. Turns out they were old friends, I suppose from working with each other sometime around 1970 in a department store. I think they said that at first it was Strawbridge & Clothier, then it was taken over by Federation (or something like that, the woman that I rang up first said), and then by Macy's. They both seemed to agree that Macy's was a terrible place to work and they both seemed happy to be out of there when they could retire. They talked about their pensions a little bit - one of them would have gotten some more if they had stayed for another six months or something I think they said, but didn't want to stay around for another Christmas. I guess Christmas is a terrible time to work for department store employees. I never really thought of that.

At one point they started talking about their personal lives just a little bit. The woman I rang up is with a guy named Ray, to whom I believe she is married. It turned out that her husband died about eight years ago, I think she said. She met Ray sometime after that, and said that they met by talking about lung cancer and that his wife had died of lung cancer too. The woman lived in Fox Hill Farms, which she thought too small, and Ray was living in the same house that his wife had died in and didn't want to live with this woman in that house, so they decided to start anew. I think the second woman was married a second time as well, after her first husband died.

What really struck me and the reason I remember this is because of how cavalier they were when they were talking about their deceased spouses. I suppose that after eight years or so you might be able to talk about it passingly when catching up with an old friend, but it was still surprising how they mentioned "Oh, the man I loved and married died eight years ago" literally seconds before talking about how they hated taking care of their feet in basically identical tones.

The second woman came up to the register afterward and addressed that I probably heard their conversation and laughed because she figured I just latched on to the funny parts, but I was actually kind of disturbed. I don't know, though. I've never had a spouse die, or had a spouse.

//

A man came in today and asked for Marlboro Menthols. He had short hair and a bit of stubble and looked very young, so I asked him for ID. He said "Aww CRAP, man. Come on! I'm drinking over there!" I could kind of smell the alcohol on his breath so I was inclined to believe him but he looked under 40 and there wasn't really anything I can do. I actually thought he might be about 18 so I definitely needed to card him. I told him, "I'm sorry, but the law won't allow me to sell these to you without ID." He got a little bit angry and said he'd go to his car to get his ID.

He came back a few minutes later and showed me his ID. He was 23. The first words he said when he came in were, "Man, I am PISSED." I just said that I was sorry and there was nothing I could do. Then he lifted up his arms - he was wearing a beater - and said, "Look at these man. You know what these mean? I'm 18." And I said, "Not if you used a fake for those." I wasn't being rude, I was trying to politely justify what I was doing. I don't think he heard me in either case. Then he said, "There you go. There's my ID. Tells you I'm 23. I've been in Iraq for three and a half years." I just said I was sorry and I did what I had to do.

If I had known he was a soldier I would have given him military discount. Oh well.

There was another couple that came in the store before him that I carded. I thought the guy was about 20, but after I saw him more closely, I saw he was probably closer to 30. His girlfriend came up to join him and was going to buy her own cigarettes and excitedly said, "That means you have to card me too!" and happily put her ID on the counter. She very eagerly asked me how old I thought he was and why I carded him after he left the store. I guess it was her boyfriend and it was sort of flattering for both of them.

Peace out.

First Friday

It was a year ago today, on Sara's birthday, that my mom didn't let me go to First Friday with her, Chaz, and Kim and I believe Nupur. She said I would have lots more First Fridays that I could go to with them. It's been a year and we have one remaining First Friday; we haven't been to one yet. Chaz and Nupur are both in Providence for the next First.

This is a note to myself that when my hypothetical kids ask to do something reasonable that they can do later... let them do it now.

Peace out.

Winchester

The intercoastal waterway is the system of little river-ettes and whatnot that goes up and down the entire east coast of the US. Our beach house is right on it (as are, basically, all eastern beach houses) and if you go out from our "alley" into the bay, at low tide, you'll be able to get to Peanut Island. It's not really an island. It's really just a sandy and shallow part of the bay that looks something like a beach, with water on one side and the dunes and marshes behind it. The sand is very hard in some places and very soft in other places, with just about no inbetween and no way to tell. It's very staunchly ridged in either case, and hurts your feet a little bit to walk on. A tiny "river" cuts through one part of the island and goes back into the marshes - we tried to explore it but there were too many flies today because it was extremely windy.

As we were walking back from that river, we walked by four chairs inhabited by what was presumably two husband and wife couples. As Sam was passing them, suddenly, a small little Dachsund jumped out and started yipping at him. He said he loved Dachsunds so he didn't really mind, but as he did the owners kept calling him - Winchester - to come back.

There was a boat that was beached on Peanut Island just beyond where Winchester was sitting from where we set up. It was clearly just there that day and the person would be fine when the tide came in a little bit. At one point we actually saw the guy and his two young daughters - maybe 8 and 10 years old - running back to the boat. He was wearing a dark blue swim suit and no shirt with a very tan back, and his girls were paler with shortish curly hair and wearing light blue and pink swimsuits, I think. As he ran by, I believe Winchester came to attack him. Of course his daughters were trailing behind him, and Winchester came after them too. I believe one of them safely escaped his yipping, but the other ran in a circle. From where we were observing, it looked like Winchester had taken her over a small hill and tackled her on the ground to consume her. Which was pretty funny considering the dog was about 7 pounds max.

Turns out she was fine, of course.

Peace out!

Whistling

I play hockey some Sunday mornings with a group of adult guys from Delaware. They talk about divorces and their wives and kids and real jobs and being old and things like that. It's an interesting change. One of the guys is a heart surgeon I believe.

On the way back, when I was making a left turn onto (I think) Barley Mill Road and I had to stop at a red light. I don't know why but I looked into the car to the left of me in the other turn lane, and the people caught my attention. It was a dad, I think dressed in a collared shirt, and his daughter, maybe twelve years old or so, looking like she about to go to a pool party. He was teaching her how to whistle by putting your fingers into your mouth. I suppose he knew how to do it pretty well. I didn't look too much because I didn't want to be a creeper but she looked like she was having some trouble. I think I remember seeing her one time try and then just give up laughing very hard, her dad doing exactly the same. I don't know if she learned it in the time that I was there or not - it seemed like a very long light - but I remember catching them again when the light turned green and she wasn't trying to whistle anymore, they were just talking.

Peace out.

Customers

One day about a week ago when I was working, a customer came up to the register as I was signing on with four two liter bottles of Diet Coke. As he was walking I said, "Oh, the four for five dollar deal, yeah?" And I think he nodded or said yes or something like that, and I rang him up and it came to five dollars. We did the cash exchange thing and as he was putting his change away I started putting them in a bag. The bags we have are surprisingly strong, so I tried to put them all in one bag at first, but clearly they weren't that strong, so I put two in each of two bags. Then he said passingly, "Can I have two bags on each, please?" So I asked, passingly, "Two bags on each?" as if to say "If that's not what you asked for, here's your chance to tell me something else," and then went to get the extra bags. Then he snapped at me and said very angrily, "Yeah, look, I know it's a revolutionary idea but I don't want these to fall on the ground, okay?"

I forget what I did, but I should have called him an asshole and refused to give him any bags.

Yesterday a woman came in and asked me to help her find a certain type of battery, so I lead her to the watch batteries she was looking for and started looking, when I was called to photo. The woman looking for the batteries was right beside the photo center, and as I was called to help the other woman, the one looking for the batteries called my attention and said, "Oh, I found them! Hmm... do you know if they have an expiration date?" So I was telling her that yes, they do expire but probably in 2012, just look around the package and I'm sure you'll find it, when the woman at photo threw her bag of film onto the desk and muttered "I'm in a rush, okay, I don't have time to wait around for you to talk to people."

I apologized to her a lot, although I wasn't sorry. Other customers have needs and the battery customer was there first. I thought about doing a lot of things to her photo order, but didn't do any of them. I probably could have gotten away with them, too, but oh well.

My old hockey coach came in the other day and got some cigarettes. You could never mistake his face for anyone, and to top it off he's missing part of his left arm. I don't think he recognized me - or if he did he didn't say anything - but on his way out he called me "pup" which is what he always called his hockey players. I don't know if it was habit or he knew.

Peace out.

Embers

The summer before my senior year, Viv hosted a bonfire at her house during band camp and invited all the pit kids and battery kids that would generally come to such things. I remember showing up that night when it was still sunny and going, I think, though Viv's house and then out the back door and seeing Chloe playing with a stick on a rock, like trying to draw on the rock or something. I think this may also have been the night that Viv's parents weren't home, and I went into the house at some point and someone rang the doorbell so I answered it. It was Chloe's mom, and she asked if Chloe was there and I said yes and started to close the door but then she started to walk in the door and I knew that if she did she'd find out there weren't any parents home. So I blocked the door and told her to go around out back because that's where everyone was. Crisis averted.

Anyway. We were making smores at the fire that night. Of course, some kids like to set their marshmallows on fire. And some kids set their marshmallows on fire even if they don't like setting them on fire. In either case, Trisha was roasting a marshmallon at the end of a long stick and it caught on fire. I forget exactly where she was sitting, but I think it was with her back to the house. I would be sitting on her right, then, with my back facing the Bohr's house. When it caught on fire, instead of bringing it to her mouth calmly to blow it out, she started flailing it around in the air at the end of the stick. Which is great, because exposing things to oxygenated air is a surefire way to put fires out. Anyway, a bit of flaming marshmallow came off of the end of her stick and managed to land at the inside base of my left middle finger (between my knuckle and the lowest joint in the finger). It wasn't too much, like maybe a square centimeter. When it landed there I remember just being like "!!!!!!!!!!!" in my head, and I think I said "Oh, f**k!" I know that I definitely recoiled a good bit and ended up leaning backward till I could touch the ground (I was sitting on a bench).

When I sat back up I thought everything was pretty much okay. I looked around my hand and saw a couple little spots of black/brown stuff and started to pull it off slowly, but it was really hard to pull off. Viv asked me if I was okay and I said yeah, it didn't really hurt too badly at that point. I kept trying to pull it off and then about two minutes later the pain really kicked in. I had been caring for my finger more than talking for those minutes and then I remember loudly interrupting and begging for water or something to make it stop hurting so much. It really was fairly intense pain at that point (thank god it wasn't much area). I went up with Viv to get some ice and water on my hand as soon as possible. We got a big pitcher full of ice water for me to stick my hand in and brought it back down to the fire, telling people not to flail flaming marshmallows through the air anymore. Numbing my hand was also painful, so I would alternate between leaving my hand sitting out and numbing it to try to hit a middle ground that still cancelled out pain, which mostly worked.

At some point I remember Viv and maybe a few other people came inside and went on the computer with us to see what we should do about treating burns. I don't think it said much, and I don't think we found out later that ice wasn't a very good idea (although water is recommended).

I drove home - I forget if I brought ice or if I just tried to deal with it - and asked my mom (a nurse) what the hell I should do, and she basically just told me to numb it. I forget how late I stayed up that night but I had a pack of ice with me the entire time. I got myself a new pack of ice for when I went to bed and kept my left middle finger in it while I slept. I remember waking up with my finger resting on a ziplock bag of warm water under my pillow, which for some reason surprised me, but really isn't all that surprising I suppose.

I think we might have wrapped my finger the night before, and I remember when we looked at it in the morning my skin was raised about a half a centimeter over that entire area and filled with fluid. It looked like if you breated on it funny it would pop. I'm the type to pick at scabs and scars, but I was so afraid of what would happen if I picked this I actually managed not to touch it. We wrapped it and put ointment on it and I did my best not to aggrivate it.

I would like to thank Trisha right now for deactivating my left middle finger through band camp my senior year. Great time to lose it.

In about a week it was probably 95% healed and the swelling had gone down. It was very pink for about a year, though. Now I can see a slight outline of where it was, although no one would ever see my hand and realize that I had second degree burns there.

When I was wincing in pain and numbing my finger, instead of saying "Sorry," Trisha said, "You deserved it."

//

Pit kids really like bonfires. The January of my senior year we had a bonfire at Viv's house while it was snowing. I think there was even like an inch of snow on the ground prior to the snow that was coming down that night, but we decided to have a bonfire anyway. We were all outside and sitting around the fire, some strange combination of burning and freezing, and somehow my socks got wet. I hate it when my socks get wet, plus I know it's terrible for your body heat and whatnot, so I took my socks and shoes off and laid them near the fire where it was dry. It was my first pair of Asics that I had bought, the orange running shoes that I bought after Alex Laun said that they were The Only Serious Choice. Someone else also put their shoes by the fire but I forget who, although I think it was a guy.

We were all talking and having a good time - the temperature and winds weren't so bad - when someone said "Jeff, your shoes are on fire." I said, "No, it's okay, I wanted them to get warm," not really understanding what they said. Again they said, "No, Jeff, your shoes are ON. FIRE." So I looked at my shoes and, of course, they were on fire. I think it was the right shoe's right lining that was actually melting away when I looked down, and I screamed and picked it up and started grounding it into the snow until it went out. Fortunately the shoe was still wearable. Come to think of it, I think it burned some of the heel as well.

I never really did anything to hide my shoes but my parents didn't notice for months. One time my mom asked me what happened to my shoes and I said, "Uh, it caught on fire." Sometimes other people would notice and I would give the same answer.

//

Nicki's next door neighbor is her uncle and he has a nice patio in the back with a firepit that we often use when we go to Nicki's house. Her dad told us it was a really nice night around the time we were finishing up Juno, so we went over to his house and started a fire. As Nicki was going inside to get s'mores materials, her uncle came out was like, "So uh, who are you guys?" And we told him that we were Nicki's friends so it was okay. He got us mechanical marshmallow roasting sticks that rotated the marshmallow for you. We made them climb around the logs.

Anyway, it was a pretty big fire for that fire pit. Every now and then an air pocket would burst inside a log and send embers flying through the air. I think both times that it happened it went away from the house. The second time that it happened I remember Gina kicked one away from herself and it ended up going right beneath my feet, but thankfully I avoided it. Soon after that I realized it was time to go home though - 10:54 - and got up to go around and give people hugs. As I was walking around the fire - further away from the house rather than towards it - to give Hetty and Abby a hug, I stepped on an ember. I didn't notice it at first, but after maybe a step and a half I started to feel a burning in my foot, which quickly got a lot more intense, and of course was followed by me hopping around and shouting and trying to clear it off of my foot. Everybody laughed at me, knowing it was my third such incident.

I could actually feel a hole in the outside sole of my right foot when I was walking back to Nicki's house to get my things. I could feel it during the drive home, and I could feel it on my sandals when I came back to the house to watch The Daily Show and have a bowl of Life.

I thought I was going to have second degree burns again but it turns out it wasn't so bad.

Peace out.

Beth's Last Day

Today is the day that Beth moves, at 10AM. I saw her yesterday (Saturday night). I drove over to her house at about 8:30 after dinner and after plans fell through. It wasn't raining much anymore but there was still lightning. There was a very intense strike of almost red lightning as I was heading up Temple Road, just before the left turn. It was one of the only time lightning actually made me feel a little uneasy - my heartbeat quickened for a few seconds.

We went to Target to buy face wash and hair dye because it was easier than Beth buying it in D.C. Tina was there and she had her tonsils out on Monday; Beth said that she sounded like herself but like maybe she was a little deaf. Jen and Sumi were also there. We talked about The Happening and Lindt and an old employee that was a liability and how Beth loves books more than people and being a cashier. She had a copy of Perks of Being a Wallflower and we felt sorry for her. She had a copy of Siddhartha, I don't know if she wanted to keep it or not. She gave her red squarish CD racks on the wall to Jen, as well as the cubes that she put in the corners of her room and the Asian lanterns hanging in the corner, red and white. We ate some Ben & Jerry's Caramel Sutra ice cream, for Tina's tonsils. She had to leave early because she wanted to rest. We talked about how we don't understand how some people can be late all the time, and how Beth walks fast, and whether or not the girl on the Garnier box was black. Tina was going to leave if Beth ran out of stories so I filled the silence so Tina would stay by talking about my day, like Sam's comments about Fat Arts Repetory Teaching School and Malcolm XL. Beth put her legs over Tina's legs to keep her in place. Tina said it was too warm but Beth said she was fine. Eventually it got way too warm in the room and Jen and Beth talked about sweating. Tina found pockets in Beth's shirt. Beth said that Ben Kweller was totally impressed when she brought up the movie where he got the line "Sex reminds her of eating spaghetti." She only got two hours of sleep last night because her flight was cancelled and in between she went to see David Sedaris with her friend Jenna.

A little bit before 11, she said that she wanted to go to bed, so Jen and Sumi stood up to go. I was a little hungry at that point so I stayed sitting for a second, and then I just realized that it would be the last time I was in that room, the last time I was at Beth's house, and the last time I drove home. And I thought of all the wonderful times we all had there. And I was incredibly sad that this was the last time. I hugged Beth when we were outside and told her that I would miss her, and she told me that she knew I would come see her and that I'm reliable, and I said Yes, I'm good about stuff like that.

Peace out.

Driving Chills Part 2

Apparently my driving chills are actually a somewhat common happening that has created a style of driving called hypermiling. There's a name for the obsession - nempimania - which I don't believe I have. One guy called "Lightfoot" got 100MPG in his hybrid. There are lots of methods that are really interesting for increasing efficiency.

Some of the methods are illegal.

Stop signs are the enemy.

Peace out.

CMPSC 201C Part 2

I checked the schedule of courses today when I was figuring out which general education requirements I had fulfilled and which I had left to complete. Suzi Q is the *ONLY* teacher available for CMPSC 201C this semester. I cried [laughed] a little bit when I saw that.

Peace out.

EDPSY 010

My Tuesday/Thursday 8am-9:15am class this semester was Educational Psychology 010. I forget what the actual title of the course it but the description was something along the lines of child development in relation to education and pedagogy with emphasis on individual differences, which sounded pretty sweet to me as a possible future math teacher.

It was the classroom in the southeast corner of Willard on the first floor. The teacher was J Foor, a 29-year-old doctoral student in the department who had grown up in the State College area and gone to Penn State for undergrad as well. He often told us about how the admission standards for PSU are tougher now than they were when he got in and that he didn't think he could get in these days; I don't know if it was in his best interest for him to tell us that.

He mentioned that he had early-onset arthritis a few times. Every time he did it made me feel really bad for him because it seemed totally unfair. Later he mentioned that it was really only in his hands, which made me feel not quite so terrible, but then I thought about how for me that would mean inability to play piano, which would basically ruin my life, and it made me feel bad for him again. I wonder if he would like to play piano or guitar.

[[Did I ever mention that the most terrifying semi-probably fear that I have is losing perfect use of my hands in any interpretation of "perfect use"? I don't know if I could live. When I was in 8th grade, Bobby Dingle and I would try to get through lunch without using our thumbs sometimes just to see if we could do it. Opening a milk carton without your thumbs is a nightmare. We sat with Kyle M and Dave B and Danny B that year. It was before Joey split the table and ruined everything good at lunch. Kyle and I would compete to see who could make Bobby spit out his drink laughing the most times throughout the year; at one point I was winning but I don't know who won at the end. We would save the good jokes for after a nice big sip.]]

He did seem to be very happy with his family. He talked about his wife fairly often and his kid in probably every lecture I went to and he would always smile a little bit when he told us the stories. He was a very low-key guy, so even a little smile from him showed you that he was actually quite happy to be thinking of a given topic.

In retrospect I feel like I kind of let the guy down and I feel somewhat guilty about that. In the first couple lectures I sat in the front and right of the room, probably second row and second seat in, close to where he would stand when giving lectures (PowerPoint, like most lecturers used; class of about 60). I didn't want to answer every question because I didn't want to be That Kid but when he was really hurting for someone to raise their hand or shout out an answer, I would do it. After the first or second test, I kind of lost faith in the class. I knew that I could get by with minimal effort and so I just stopped trying. I started to sit in the back left of the class, as far away from him as possible, and would find other things to do like math or a paper or homework or thinking or anything. The only reason I would ever go was because we had attendance assignments, basically. Once I finished the 9 of them we were required to do over the semester, I didn't go to class anymore - so basically I didn't go to class in April. In March, I left class the second the assignment was handed in. I never raised my hand or answered questions, and often neither did anybody else. I think a lot of people could have answered the questions so I guess it was all of us, but I feel bad knowing that I could have participated but chose not to.

He wrote on the blackboard one time. He was demonstrating the use of networks of neurons and categorization as a learning strategy over rote memorization.

Salls was in my class. We talked about hockey, how useless the book was, and his crazy sleep schedule. He sat behind me when I moved to the back left corner of the class, and one girl I think named Rachel usually sat in front of me. One time she turned around and asked me if you could get walk-in appointments at Ritenour, the campus medical center. I guess she thought I looked like a sophomore or junior and not someone who had transferred weeks earlier. I had been there once at that point for the flu and it seemed to me that you could walk-in if you had your student ID, so I told her yes. I never confirmed; I'm not sure if I ever said anything to her again actually. I wonder if I was wrong?

There was a guy who wore long white t-shirts in the class who was a Kinesiology major that Salls knew who spoke a lot during class discussions. There was a guy who looked like a street-vet version of Morgan Spurlock who I saw in the gym the couple times that I went. Most of our class was white. I think we had one Indian girl and one black girl.

I checked the gradebook online one time for the classroom activities we had to do. I don't believe anyone who turned one in ever got anything less than 100.

We had to make a 'brochure' about child development at one point in the class. I lost 20% because I somehow did it on the wrong chapter. The wording was a tiny bit ambiguous but I suppose I should have asked. I didn't care. It looked new-agey and clean and I liked it.

The only other grades we got were tests. He gave us outlines of what was on the test about a week before. On the last test, after having not gone to class for a month, I looked at the outline and found the relevant sections in the book and the chapter outlines and just read that. I think I studied for about two hours maximum. I don't like to talk about grades but I guess I could say it would convince you the class time was useless.

In one of the first days of class, the professor was talking about different personality types and how people can be introverted or extroverted. Someone raised their hand and asked "Sorry, but what exactly are you referring to when you say 'introverted' or 'extroverted?' " I remember thinking the response wasn't sufficiently clarifying, but I suppose that question threw him a bit.

[[I reread this post after I hit the publish button and realized that I didn't mention once the material that we were supposed to learn in this course. I think that means I'm supposed to leave it like this though]]

Peace out.

The Definition of "Cone"

One of the locker areas at Post Prom this year was a game kind of like Plink-o, except you always got three chips, there were only four slots, and there was no way you could lose. One of the prizes was a $5 Wawa gift card, which I really wanted. I had a 75% chance of getting it, which I considered a lock, so I went to play it and I ended up getting a chip into every hole except for that one. Of the remaining options, I decided to go for the Bruster's ice cream cone because I thought Gina would like it and I could take her for ice cream sometime.

So on Sunday, after hockey, we were both free and decided to go out for ice cream. I told her as we were driving there that I wasn't sure of exactly what the coupon meant. "So uh... this coupon doesn't actually say that you get free ice cream. It actually says that you get a free ice cream cone. I'm not really sure if we're going to get ice cream, so yeah, we might come back just with an actual cone and nothing else."

To which she said, "Let me see that!" So I gave it to her and I remember her specifically reading, "...Sugar or cake cone..." but not really anything else. We talked about it for a while. Why would they give away a cone for free but not the ice cream? Did they really think people would use a gift card worth like $.59? Was it a trick? Would they spring the ice cream on you at the end? We talked about it. I assumed that since it was offered alongside free bowling games and $5 at Wawa, it was probably worth about as much, so probably it meant the ice cream too.

So we got there and got to the window. I went up to the kid at the window and said, "Okay, so, I have this coupon. It says free ice cream cone. Now does that include the ice cream in the cone, or only the cone?" He took the coupon and said, "Uhhh... yeah, a free cone." THAT DOES NOT ANSWER ANYTHING. Kim Lock happened to be in the background so I made her answer the question.

Somehow we decided that we got the ice cream for free. Fudge Ripple. We ate it in my car listening to Hannah Montana, if I remember correctly. By choice of Gina, of course. It was good.

Peace out.

Driving Chills

My car - I think a 2006 Impala - has a monitor at the base of the dashboard that can tell you a bunch of stuff about the car - tire pressure, miles traveled, average fuel economy, oil life, etc. I always keep it on "instantaneous fuel economy" so I can see how many MPG I'm getting at any moment. Alternatively, I can put it into metric mode and see how many liters per 100 kilometers I need.

Whenever you accelerate, your fuel efficiency becomes extremely low - like 2-6MPG - and so every time I accelerate I see that come up on my dashboard. And at the same time you can sort of feel the gas rushing through the car and the engine revving and the RPM meter goes up to 3000, and this weird thing has started happening. I sort of get a chill up my spine every time I accelerate. I can't really help it, and it really does happen a lot, especially if I accelerate from stop up a hill or something like that. I don't know, I guess it's a good thing - it's a strange and visceral reminder of how terrible I am being to the environment and it really does make me want to change how I affect it.

I do try to drive as efficiently as possible (although I know that that's not enough). I do what truck drivers do and slow down long before red lights so that you don't have to accelerate from stop - if you're lucky you can accelerate from like 35mph, which saves you a ton of energy - and I try to be a little better about following distances so that I don't have to brake as much, since that kills energy. Coasting is also a good way to go - for the last mile basically of my ride home, I use essentially zero gas. I have to be really aware when I'm going around turns since I sometimes have to take them a little wide to not brake and not use gas, but it helps a little bit.

Sigh. But yeah. So whenever you drive with me and I accelerate you'll probably see me cringe a little bit and shake my head. I need to do more. Workin on it.

Peace out.

"Fade Away"

So sometime when I was in high school - I'm pretty sure 9th or 10th grade - I started looking for Ben Folds sheet music and I came across this site, geocities.com/benfolds75, which had a whole ton of sheets/chords that were really helpful. I think at one point I was looking for actual sheet music for Smoke or Summer B or something like that and I went to the message boards there and started poking around, and there was a section for people that wrote their own music, so I checked some of it out. Most of it wasn't very good, but there was this one song I found called "Fade Away" that I really really liked. I always just listened to it from the internet by having Windows Media Player open the link. I know that the site was something like "annanddalenordic.com" or something along those lines, but that's about as specific as I can get. I'm pretty sure the song was in E minor, and that the chords were Em C G D in the interludes, but I could be wrong about that.

At some point the link stopped working, and since it was the only song I had ever listened to through its link, it had been a WHILE since I actually clicked on the link on the website. So I went to look for it and I couldn't find it anymore. I had never saved it to my computer. So all of a sudden this song was just gone and I couldn't listen to it anymore. I've been searching for it for a while, every now and then I'll make another attempt, but so far nothing's turned up.

If you ever find it, let me know, I guess.

Peace out.