9/19

Where were we yesterday? Ah, yes.
As I feared after Fri night--the Carnival of Souls up the road crushed us with business. In the last hour, maybe 1 out of 20 faces was 1 I knew. But I did know 1...
It was the same loser who tried to buy for minors the night before. I walked up to him before he picked anything up & said, "You aren't buying for anybody underage, are you? If I see you giving a bunch of kids in the parking lot anything, I'm legally required to call the cops." (Well...it's prly legally required SOMEWHERE, but I'd do it on principle) "The LAST thing I'd ever do is buy for kids!" he declaimed. Uh HUH. "That kid last night was my SON!" WHOA! Rudy & I trip over each other to point out that Fri night, he said his "son" was a TOTAL STRANGER. "That kid in my car is my son's best friend!" he sez apropos no question that'd been asked. He was getting a 12-pack, so we didn't press the issue. But I did watch him go to the car. It took him a loooong time to get in. No doubt, he bought a 12 cuz he knew we were on to him, & was asking to be let in the car by the brats who bribed him to buy for him as a cover. They left the parking lot via the long way out, so I couldn't get a glimpse of their license plate. Ah, well. They got less booze then they wanted, & got a smelly crazy man in their car to boot. I count it as a win.

In retrospect, I'll prly regret not snapping a photo of the 10-foot fiberglass carpenter ant with a "GO! Pomfret Cowboys!" banner on it. Objects don't get much more inexplicable than that.
It was spotted on my trip to the antique area of Putnam. Living in the midst of suburban sprawl, it's hard to remember at times that I can drive a couple minutes up the highway, then take an exit straight into Mayberry RFD, driving on a route with dirt roads directly off it. There's a place that actually calls itself a general store. Outside of the occassional Citgo, the business signs are free of antiseptic corporate logos & chain store conformity; everything, from the Grange to the Church bingo parlor to the Hungarian Social Club to the town offices, has ineptly hand-lettered signs. If there was 1 more font change in "Jones Auto," it would've looked like a ransom note. The corporate presence in Putnam itself was a Brooks pharmacy & a Coke sign painted--gourd knows how long ago--on the side of a brick building. 5 cents a bottle. It's enough of a throwback town that 1 store I went into had no one in it. Including anyone WORKING there. I could've walked out with whatever I wanted, assuming I was a thieving scumbag.
I love antiquing; this place is less than an hour away--why don't I do this all the time? If I had unlimited spending money instead of Scottish heritage, I would've left with a tractor trailer's worth of STUFF. But...Sorry, Kitty, the nun doll was $45. I also passed on a 1948 storybook featuring "The Big, Big Turnip" (sorry again, Kits), & a velvet Jesus painting done in a style I can't even describe--Deco-stylized version of Sailor Moon, maybe. Plus a cookbook "Healthy Eating for Victory." Gee, think it was from WWII? It had a pic of a kid who looked about 8 on the cover--exactly why fattening him up would beat the Hun Hordes is a mystery. It was themed on the 7 basic food groups (Group 7: Butter & margarine. Group 3: Tomatoes, oranges, grapefruit & "uncooked cabbage." Cooked cabbage was a different food group). I did buy someone's birthday present & some other cookbooks. The Ground Meat Cookbook has goofy 1954 line drawings throughout (I don't buy cookbooks in order to cook with them), & was sold the second I saw some hungry, lip-licking kiddies awaiting the morsels listed in a section titled "Burgers & Balls." Uhh...Pass on the balls, thanks. An early page features an aproned pig mixing ground meat under the watchful eyes of aproned chickens while aided by a smug aproned...I dunno what. It looks like a pancreas. Oh, and just look at the chorus line of dancing liver dumplings! These cookbooks love to have pics of the future ingredients cannabalistically joyous over their departed siblings, but what's up with this drawing of a "What smells so good" trio sniffing the air--a pig, a cow, & a HORSE? My Fried Flicka. Another book is "Knox On-Camera Recipes." Evidentally, filming a recipe on TV ensures extra goodocity. Knox is gelatin, of course, but I didn't know that it's 1960 box showed an actual baby calf on it. Prly the same pic they used on their veal. I opened this 1 up to a shot of a mix of Jello, corned beef, & cole slaw. I thought this was about as repellent a gelatin recipe I could find, till I went into another store & bought 1948's 253 Food Ideas by Hormel. Yep, Hormel, so you just KNOW there'll be at least 100 recipes involving Spam. I opened this 1 up to "Hormel Tongue Mold." A Jello mold with FREAKIN' TONGUES FLOATING ON TOP!!!! Tongues, tongues, TONGUES!!!! AHH, MOMMY, WHY? WHY MOMMY, WHYYYYY??? Ah, Spam Skillet Pie. "Here's 1 you have to eat to appreciate." Uhh, no doubt. Titled "Lunch for the Bride" is "Hormel Ham Creamed in Buttercups," which sounds like a line from a dirty limerick. "Don't wait for a wedding to serve this 1." It's creamed ham & peas on bread! What the fuck kinda wedding is THIS?! Oh gourd, a 2 page spread on what to do with Spam, without DON'T EAT IT mentioned even once. A Spammich made with English muffins, chili sauce, & baked beans. "Serve Spam on toast with rabbit poured over"--Sorry, that sentence fails the Turing Test big time. I have difficulty believing the existence of this canape of Spam-stuffed broiled prunes...but at least it gets the Spam out yer bod faster. Of course, there's half a page dedicated to "Things you can do with Hormel Tongue," 1 of which is named "Luscious." The tongue's opinion of what itself tastes like? The cookbook ends with sausages, & Huh!--in 1948 you actually had to EXPLAIN to people what pepperoni was! It must've been hard back then to get people to top their exotic new "pizzas" with anything but Spam & tongue.

9/21

Absolutely NOTHING of even the tiniest import occured during the drabbest & dullest day in recent memory. Here's a couple of things that I saw Sun that I forgot to mention.
I hadn't been to Putnam since Nov, & I was amused to find 1 thing I remembered from the last visit still in the same spot! A circa 1915 book with the eye-catching title The Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island. They chose for the cover illustration what I can only assume was the most exciting scene in the book. A kid frying eggs. A real page-turner, no doubt. Will the eggs get burnt? Will Lil Timmy use just salt, or PEPPER TOO?! Will he be forced to go on a low-cholestorol diet 50 years in the future?
Business sign on the roadside: Survival Taxidermy. Actually--no, they usually don't.

9/22

One of those days...
I awaken to the sight of a house plant I've had for 10 FREAKIN YEARS weed-whacked into death by Kill Kill. So the name DOES fit her. I gave her a "NO! Bad Cat!" scolding, which I'm like so sure did nothing to steer her onto the path of righteousness. *sigh* Kittens.
Then, I drive through a 3-way stop & see someone barreling THROUGH the sign towards me...There's nothing I can do but stop & hope that she can stop before slamming into me. If it wasn't raining, maybe she could've. But it was...THUMP. She was only doing 5 or 10 at that point, so the damage was cosmetic, but still...MY CAR!! This always happens to me--every 2 years or so some BIG FUCKIN TARD does something that only a TARD/class: FUCKIN/subclass: BIG would do & slams me. Runs a stop sign that she "didn't see," this time (my fender). Takes a left without looking (front end). Changes lanes without looking (totals car). Stomps on the gas while in park at the Emissions Testing Station line, then shifts (trunk crushed)...I've become the most paranoid driver imaginable, but it's like looking out for meteors at this point. If it's got my number on it, I'm gonna get slammed.
So I call my insurance company. Get put on hold for 20 minutes, so that they can tell me "Call this OTHER number." That number asks for the particulars, including the name of the idjit's insurance company.
ME: Peerless. OPERATOR: Careless?!
No...but it prly SHOULD be called that, given who they insure.
"Hello, Big Fuckin Tard Insurance Company, what did 1 of our clients do NOW?"

9/23

After a long absence, the Pig Family returned. I can't say I missed them.
Well, I should say that they've never been rude. Just stupid, ugly, fat, dirty, smelly & white trashy. Like something William Faulkner would've left out of a Yoknapatawpha County novel because they weren't classy enough (sorry if you missed that ref, but I need to get SOME use from that English major). A chain-smoking grandma & her 2 grandsons, on the cusp of morbidly obese & always with dirt & food smeared on their faces. They were prly 5 & 8, but were practically pre-verbal. I'd have to get her empties out of her rusty & battered car with the duct-taped vinyl top & place 2 cases of Bud in the filthy back seat on top of empty bags of chips, getting a nice wiff of the combined stenches of grandma's Marlboros & the spawns' urine.
Let this be a warning to ya, kids: DON'T pursue an English major.
But grandpa "can't" drink anymore (I have no further details & I'm DAMN GLAD OF THAT), so she dropped off the last 4 cases of empties. They'd been gone a lot longer than I thought--the beer had "born-on" dates of last December. Well, you know the saying: Time Flies when you're not smelling someone's urine.

I would pretty much assume that anyone who reads the SHAWT would read something much better, like the Onion, but here's something to read that sums it all up. And mentions Iron Giant!

9/24

Hey, I got home after filling my car with the cheapest gas you can get in CT ($1.35/gallon), & in my mail was a tax rebate check from our (Republican) governor! $50! It only cost me $15.75 to fill my tank! I got me 3 free tanks of gas! And the guv only had to cut some education funding to try to buy my vote! SWEET!
He wasted $50. I ain't voting for that bastard.

Some people never learn. I'm heading to the beer cooler & see a pair of bare feet, which I find to be attached to that same bum who tried to buy for kids last week. I check the parking lot, &, yes, a van & a car with people waiting in them. He gets 2 30s of Bud, a Fosters "oil can," a 6 of Long Trail. Alllll for him, of course ("This guy's no Long Trail drinker!" says Rudy. "He's a Bukoff kind of guy!"). "I'll come back for the rest" he says, hefting the 30s. "I'LL help you out with them," I say. Most people respond, "Hey, thanks!" He says nothing... Straight to the van, with kids that looked barely old enough to drive. "You guys got ID?" I demand. Doogie Howser snorts "Fuck no!" OOH, what a GREAT PLAN B! You guys covered all the bases. The slob says "They just gave me a ride here from Rockville!" Rockville is about 12 MILES from here. CT state law insists that liquor stores must be at least 1,000 feet apart, & in this part of the retail sprawl they ARE. Long trip for some beer. Jake was outside watching my back. "Same kid as last week," he says of the sedan. You know, the total stranger who the next day was also Happy Hooligan's son.
I kick myself now--I should've called the cops the moment I saw him, & let nature take its course. But if both these idjits came back exactly 1 week later at the same time of night, I guess we'll have some fun next Fri.

9/25

A guy tried to buy--WHAT ELSE--a pint of deliscious Bukoff & we carded him. "This is expired," said Shelley. "Yeah, about 9 months ago," he agreed. Of course, we take expired IDs as often as we take expired credit cards: never. It's strangely hard to renew a fake ID. He left all pouty, then less than an hour later returned from the AAA next door with a new ID. I guess it just took the proper motivation...

9/28

Actually, the most amusing thing that's happened lately was a real I Guess You Hadda Been There, but I'll share it anyway. I went to lunch with Jessica Sun to give her her birthday prezzies (I never thought a grown woman would get so excited over a used "Jem & the Holograms" video!). She brought her adorable daughter Jacqeline, who was in full-bore Silly Mode. Her lunch was the kid's meal of mac & cheese & cut-up hot dogs. JJ put the cut end in her teeth with the pointy end hanging out so it looked *exactly* like a tongue, & she looked exactly like a 4 year old Gene Simmons from KISS. Well, it WAS funny! Not my fault you weren't there. Like a coupla days ago when Kill Kill decided to join me in the shower, ran the wrong way twice through it, & ended up drenched. All her fur was spiked out. She looked like a Mohawk on legs. Never Mind the Bulldogs, Here's Kill Kill.

This is from Fri...A woman decided to go get another bag-in-a-box wine cuz the glue had come off 1 side of the box. This would be like not buying a bottle cuz the label was ripped, and, yes, I see THAT all the time, too. A few days earlier someone wouldn't buy a 12 pack of Bud Ice cuz the package was open (again, not enough glue). "It coulda been tampered with!" he explained. Yeah, RIGHT. Some diabolical genius opened your Bud cans, spit in them, then sealed them up with no trace of this happening, yet was defeated in his Evil Scheme cuz he DIDN'T HAVE A GLUE STICK. Curses, foiled again!
Every few months I'd get a variation on this at the record store: "This CD is wrapped funny" --AH HAHAHAHA!! Indeed it is!! Hey, everybody! Come over & look at this hilarious shrink wrap!!-- "--You re-wrapped it cuz it was DEFECTIVE, didn't you?" So. I could spend 20 minutes warming up the re-wrap equipment in order to put this "defective" CD back on the shelf, then do it over & over again until SOMEBODY decided that it wasn't worth the $15 to return it, or I could spend 30 seconds writing it up for a full-credit return. I'd explain that to people, & they'd still snarl "If it's defective, I'm bringin' it back!" Ya know--the lil world of paranoia many people live in astonishes me. It's never directed to anything they SHOULD worry about. I should get copies of the Agriculture Dept's Allowable Filth Levels standards & hand them out to people. Do you know what's an allowable level of hot dog rat feces? How many thousands of "thrips" are allowed per pound of vegetables? ("thrip" is USDA for "dead baby bugs") Do you want to?

9/29

Too busy putting away the end-of-month beer buy-in to note anything SHAWTworthy, but I did get repeatedly abused by a radio ad for Outback Steakhouse. Some faux Aussie sang this melody-free ditty that called the place "far away from the city" (it's next to the Mall) & asked, "Kangaroo can survive in the desert--How 'bout you?" Well, there's a novel advertising tactic. I usually don't pick restaurants based on the challenge of surviving them. "What's so special about our steaks? The e. coli!" It would've been accurate for Jack in the Box a few years back. And it ended with Outback's stupid slogan: "No rules, just fun!" "Uhhh...waiter, I wanted my steak well done & I got a flaming bag of dog poopie instead." "No rules, mate! Though it sure was fun watching you stamp it out!"

9/30

Oh baby, you just gots to check out this! Ya see, ya goes through this magic intestine &...
No, stop reading & go look RIGHT NOW! Or the rest won't make sense! I can wait.

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You read the disclaimer at the bottom, right? I mean, it HAS to be a joke that's just as dry as the desert sands, since there's no evidence of humor anywhere on the site (I mean, besides the amazing sausage of transport). But what type of loony would sign up for this?
Maybe I should wear overalls. The meat-tube looks slippery.
THEM: Who would you like to be:
ME: Jean Claude Van Damme & George W Bush
Brief description of why you'd like to be this person:
So I could beat me up after I branded myself on my butt with a hot coathanger while on a coke binge, then be President
Second choice::
Dawn "Mary Ann" Wells
Brief description of why you'd like to be your second choice:
I know she's over 44, so I'd like to be trapped in her body as a pupa. I waould like to be her pupa.
Pupa DOES mean what I think it does? and I won't get flushed??

Here's their reply:

Thank you for signing up with JM Incorporated. You will soon be
contacted by one of our operators via email to confirm and
schedule your appointment. In the event your vessel requests
cannot be filled, we will do our best to offer you a suitable
alternative.

Thank you again. We understand how excited you must be, and we
appreciate your patience.

-Craig Schwartz
JM Incorporated

10/1

A guy comes walking into the store saying "Jesus CHRIST!" to himself over & over. This is not a good sign, folks. He blasphemes up to the register & informs me (I DIDN'T ASK) "I hired these guys to do a job for me, & they're drinking me into the poorhouse! Jesus CHRIST!" OK, if I hired someone, my personal 10 Commandments would include No Drinking on the Job, right up there with No Setting My Stuff on Fire & Please Masturbate Elsewhere. What was the guy buying for these pitiful alkies? 1 95 cent, 12-oz can of beer. Drinking him to the poorhouse, a Dixie Cup at a time.

10/2

The Corporate Mind: It's no surprise that the company that distributes Budweiser products has money to flush. They paid someone to check 4 bags of empties we returned to them, & found that instead of them containing 480 cans they contained 463. Then another person wrote up an invoice, put it in a stamped envelope, & mailed us a bill for 85 cents.

10/5

Hey, they accepted my entry to Computer Stupidities. The friend shall remain nameless.

I went to a brew pub in Willimantic with KMDS on Sun. I hadn't set foot in the town for maybe 10 years; it's been 20 since I'd lived there. But it was odd to see the same businesses in the same spots 2 decades later. The McDonalds, the Burger King, the VFW hall with the cannon pointing at the Burger King dining room, the Walgreens with the giant radio antenna that was unused even when I lived there (& its barbed wire fence--damn security conscious drug store, that 1), the medical supply store with the very odd sign (listing "Osotomy Supplies" just above "Russel Stover Candies"--nothin' gets my sweet tooth going like a room full of colostomy bags), & the park. I remember walking through that park 1 sunny day with my friend John. John pointed at a picnic table. "Man, that is 1 UGLY cat!" "Really ugly, & scrawny, too!" I agreed as we walked closer. "Mangy," he said, "and what an ugly shade of brown." "Brown?" We started walking a little slower. The cat was on the picnic table eating something. It glanced over at us. "That's not a cat..." It was a very large rat. We were about 10 feet from it when it finally decided to scamper off.
Can't say I miss living in that town.

10/6

You know the neighborhood's going downhill when a customer doesn't care how many people hear him talk about how he's going to pay his $25,000 bail bond.
That's it. That's all I got tonight. What? Not enough?! Greed is a cardinal sin, people! So here's something nice & stale from the very early days of the now-defunct Pokey the Penguin Club.

IT SEEMS ONLY PEOPLE WITH NAMES SUFFIXED WITH
   "SPLUT" POST TO THIS LAME SAD PATHETIC FLAMBOYANT
   PIERCING ELASTIC BLUEBERRY CLUB!
   I AM SORRY, THE ADJECTIVE BUTTON ON MY KEYBOARD GOT STUCK
   AND IT IS ONLY READ BY ME & THAT SWEATERLESS GRRRL MS WIERDO.
   SO I MAY ABUSE IT AT RANDOM! HATEFUL CIRCLE! MY NAME
   IS INIGO MONTOYA & YOU KILLED MY FATHER! WITH A
   BLENDER, WHICH IS AN UNPLEASANT WAY TO GO, LEMME TELL YOU.
   AND NOW NO ONE WANTS TO EAT MY BLENDER PUDDING.
   EVEN THOUGH WE BURIED DAD'S BLENDER. THE COFFIN WAS
   PRETTY SMALL. SO DISTRAUGHT WAS I, I BURIED THE WARRANTY
   WITH HIM. I COULDA JUST RETURNED HIS BLENDER & HIM & GOT
   A NEW ONE! WHAT WAS UP WITH ME? SO I HAD TO BUY A
   NEW BLENDER, BUT EVERYTIME I MAKE BLENDER PUDDING,
   PEOPLE GO "EEEWWWW! THAT'S NOT THE BLENDER YOUR DAD GOT
   PUREED TO DEATH IN, IS IT?" AND I SAY, HEY, GO THE CEMETARY
   AND LOOK WHY DONTCHA, YOU'RE SO SMART!!
   HERE IS MY STORY, MAY IT WARM YOUR PART. IT IS TITLED "THEY
   CALLED HIM JO-JO THE HOWLING MONKEY BOY UNTIL A FREAK
   EXPLOSION AT A FACTORY THAT MADE PIPES CAUSED A
   PIPE TO GO THROUGH HIS SKULL, HIS SKULL MIND YOU WHICH IS
   REALLY SOMETHING YOU DON'T NEED NO PIPES BISECTING
   USUALLY, AND THEN THEY CALLED HIM JO-JO THE PIPE-IN-THE-HEAD
   MONKEY BOY, BUT HE OVERCAME THESE AWFUL OBSTACLES BY
   GREASING UP HIS HAIR INTO A POMPADOUR TO HIDE THE PIPE, AND
   THIS MAN, THIS SO-CALLED MONKEY BOY, GREW UP TO
   BE OUR GRATEST PRESIDENT, MR RONALD 'SHEMP' REAGAN!!" 
   NOW BEGINS MY STORY: ONCE THERE WAS THIS BOY THEY
   CALLED JO-JO THE HOWLING MONKEY B
   SHIT. I GAVE THE STORY AWAY, DIDN'T I? 

A little old lady asked Rudy: "Do they pick up the mail in that mailbox? [the 1 a few doors down from us]" "Yeah, around 3 every day." "Oh, good. I was afraid it was 1 of those dummy ones."
.....
1 of those...what?
She spoke it like it was a common occurence for the Post Office to erect fake ones. WHY? To get out of delivering some mail? Why not just throw it away? Why don't we fill the bottles of vodka with water? Cuz we'd GO OUT OF BUSINESS REAL QUICK-LIKE is why, as would the Post Office. Even if they were fake, they'd have to come & empty them eventually, unless they've got composters inside--no, wait, then they'd be filled with stinky compost. Why would anyone even--GRIK--think something so--OIT--insaaaaaAAAAAANE!!!!! AUUGGHH!! HEAD--on fire! BRAIN--exploding!! I DON'T UNDERSTAND THE HUMANS! GET ME OFF THIS DEMENTED PLANET! TAKE ME HOME, MOTHERSHIP, TAKE ME HOOOOME!!

10/8

A woman asked us if we had any of the new Connecticut quarters yet. They only came out yesterday & the Mint doesn't airlift them to every bank in the US, so, No, not yet. "I was in Vermont a couple of months ago," she said, "& got the newest quarter in my change. I said to the girl behind the register, 'Oh, it's 1 of the new Georgia quarters!' The girl said 'Hmm, we must've had someone from down South up here then.'"

10/9

For those of yez just a-DYIN' fer Kill Kill pics (OKAY, that's just ME, but MY page MY kitten!) here's her latest scheme: hiding under the Pookie. The scheme? The key she hits the most is nearest her head--the key lock. So I can't type...

"I need a good Chardonnay in the $3-4 range," she said [note: Boone's Farm is in the $3 range], "My dog left 5 big loads on my neighbor's lawn & he stepped in 1." Uhh, sorry, normally I just match wine with food--I don't know what wine goes with dog shit.
Wait! Yes I do! BOONE'S FARM!

In the most nasal, nails-on-chalkboard voice you can monotone, start singing:
"Meat is a-nnoy-ing,
Meat is...Not Good.
Meat is a-nnoy-ing,
Meat is...Real Bad.
Meat is a-nnoy-ing..."
Do it to as tuneless a drone as you can, like a Gregorian chant that would start even the most tone-deaf Benedictine monk clawing his eardrums out, & keep it up for TWENTY MINUTES.
Now pretend you're the parent of the little girl having this psychotic Vegan episode. Would you say "Shut UP awready!!" or IGNORE it?
Now pretend you're ME, LISTENING TO THIS! AAARRRGGGHHHH!!! GET THE LIL MONSTER TO AN EXORCIST, PAL, before I grab a power drill & TREPANATE HER SKULL SO THE DEMONS CAN ESCAPE!!!
Some parents shriek at their kids at the slightest imagined transgression, others ignore them completely. Today was a thankfully brief flashback to the toy store managing days. There, we'd get the "LOOK, mommy, LOOK!" ad infinitum screams in 15 minute spans every day (unless the child was Hispanic, when it would be "MIRA, mama, MIRA!"). Mommy can ignore it, so she assumes the world can (note to Mommy: WE CAN'T). Once I had the double displeasure of 1) a repulsive battery-operated bell-ringing Santa that played "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" for my whole shift, & 2) a pair of ill-mannered brats that screamed "STOP! STOP! STOP!" every 2 SECONDS at the Satan Claus for HALF AN HOUR. Everyone in the store plus passers-by in the Mall glared at the bastards throughout this torment. At the end, their negligent father came up to the register, gestured towards the Santa by his still-chanting Children of the Corn, & asked without the merest shred of self-awareness, "Don't you get sick of hearing that over & over?"
That's when I killed them.

10/12

Kill Kill really likes getting the Sunday paper. She especially looks forward to the coupon section.