Oddly enough, the highlight of my weekend was going to Big Lots. It's been my first weekend off in a month and I found that I was really not in the mood to do anything except putter around my house. It was such a nice day out I was perfectly happy to do so.
Sometime over the weekend I found myself heading to big lots. Whenever I run out of laundry detergent I go to big lots. No idea why. I think it just gives me an excuse to go there and giggle in the toy section.
On the way in I peered at the gumball machines. I am a sucker for the little fifty-cent pieces of plastic crap that those things have to offer. Bouncing glow in the dark rubber balls, ooze, goop, aliens, bling, figurines, its all good to me. Why just the other day at k-mart I was peering at a machine that was giving out 'Novelty miniature cups' emblazoned with some toy companies latest moneymaking cartoon figure. These things were shot glasses. I cannot figure out what a 'novelty miniature cup' can be other than a shot glass. Drink up, kids.
Anyways, I was peering at the sticker machine at big-lots when I noticed one slot offered spiffy black and white stick-on Jesus tattoos. They were actually labeled something like 'Latino religious icons'. At any rate I was just tickled to see stick-on Jesus tattoos. Back in yea old sailing days sailors used to get big images of Jesus tattooed across their backs. The reasoning was that if they were ever sentenced to be lashed, the guy doing the lashing would not be real comfortable lashing an image of Jesus, and thus would not lash as hard.
Gears quickly turned in my brain as I tried to figure out some way of using this to my advantage. The only thing I could come up with was perhaps putting a Jesus tattoo on each cheek, and then going out and making lewd advances on catholic girls. Thus if my offers of playing hide the salami are rejected, they might not be as quick to slap me on the cheek.
So I eagerly shoved in a couple of quarters and pulled out my prize. Much to my disappointment, I did not get Jesus. In fact, I am not sure what I got. It appears to be some Romanesque woman leading a school child by the hand while brandishing a spear and the flag of some country. Since it's in black and white, you cannot tell what flag is supposed to be. To be honest, the whole thing looks a little communist to me. As far as I know it might be some well-known Latino icon as familiar to them as Abe Lincoln sitting in his chair is to the northern US.
Oh well, I paid fifty cents for it. I'll bear it proudly until I feel like scrubbing it off in the shower.
While at big lots I also picked up an Energy drink. 'VON DUTCH' is the name of it and the can is adorned with trippy artwork such as flying eyeballs and the like, except they are all done in camouflaged colors. I have never heard of it. I have not actually gotten around to drinking one yet. . I'll slurp one tomorrow and give a full review.
Hopefully it will not be too disgusting because I bought twenty-four of the damn things for six bucks. If it's nasty ill give the rest of them to the WILL WORK FOR FOOD bums I see standing on the street corner. Maybe if they have some more energy in them they will actually go work.
I finally glued together that black entertainment center I bought a while back and then dropped when I was trying to move it. It looks ok; although it's sheer size reminds me how woefully small my television is. Ah well, I like it better than what I had before and that's all that counts.
2026 Update
Dialing up 2006, where the big weekend thrill is a fifty-cent Jesus sticker and two dozen mystery energy drinks.
Ah, Big Lots in 2006—a temple of impulse junk where you could wander in for laundry detergent and leave with camouflage-eyed energy drink art and a dubious religious sticker. Twenty years later, that whole wandering-and-giggling ritual has been outsourced to recommendation engines. You don't browse a dark aisle and discover a mystery saint; you get served an algorithm's idea of a bargain while trying to cancel a subscription you never meant to start. Energy drinks, meanwhile, have colonized every shelf and gas station cooler, though the prices have lost their blessed innocence: six bucks today barely covers a single 'limited edition' can with a QR code you're supposed to scan at a concert. The vending machine still exists, no question, but it's mostly charging you eight dollars for a phone charger, not selling Jesus tattoos for fifty cents. And the tattoos themselves? You'd probably have to order those online and wait two days, with shipping costs exceeding the sticker. I miss the tactile stupidity of putting quarters into a machine for a tiny mystery—back when the only credit card involved was the one still in your wallet.
“2006 Ed, you bought twenty-four cans of an energy drink you had never tasted and then planned to weaponize your leftovers against 'WILL WORK FOR FOOD' guys—what exactly was the endgame, and did the vending machine's mystery saint ever reveal herself?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, you're assuming there was an endgame, and that's your first mistake. I saw twenty-four cans of some weird camouflaged eyeball drink for six bucks and my brain just sort of short-circuited. The plan, if you can call it that, was to drink one, and if it tasted like battery acid and regret, I'd offload the rest on the corner guys. Not to weaponize, exactly, more like... redistributing the energy. If they're gonna stand there with a cardboard sign, might as well be buzzing on Von Dutch, right? Worst case they get the jitters and actually finish that fence-painting job. As for the saint, no, she never revealed herself. I wore that sticker for about two days, then it started peeling in the shower, and now she's a sad little gray ghost stuck to my bathroom tile. I still don't know if she's communist or Catholic, but she's got a spear, so I'm not asking questions.
