I woke up bright and early this morning and set out on some errands. First I headed out to Deloaches, a meat-store on the other side of town that has good prices but I can only manage to get to once a week. There I filled up on fifty dollars worth of beef and sausages and chicken. Fifty dollars goes a long ways there, I think I have enough meat for a month.
MEAT MEAT MEAT
I had a twenty percent off coupon in my pocket for Big Lots, so I popped in there as well. There was a 5-dollar media ABC switch that I wanted to get. As I was in their cheapie electronics aisle, I spied out the very last eight-dollar mini digital camera hanging on a peg. Mourning the loss of my old one, I decided to snag it.
Wow, what a gyp. I never expected much of a picture from the camera, but at least my old one could take a passable picture. This one produced a photo that was so grainy and pixilated as to be laughable. Damn you, big lots. Below is an example of quality from my old camera and the Big Lots one.
lame photo taken with the timer on the big lots camera:
My old mini camera. DOnt ask.
Big lots also gypped me on a box of Chicken in a biscuit. These are cheap chicken-flavored crackers that I happen to sort-of like, mainly because the remind me of the long defunct snack treat known as ’drumsticks’.
Later that day when I was giving myself a break, I decided to bust open the box and enjoy a few. I had a few mouthfuls before I realized something was dreadfully wrong. The had a distinct fishy taste to them. Fish on my chicken cracker. Horrified, I swallowed, and them immediately regretted that decision. The rest of the box is now resting in my garbage.
One last biglots rant: they had a device there I was in awe of. It was a coffeemaker with a toaster oven built into it, and a tiny griddle on the top. It was the ultimate breakfast machine. You could make coffee, toast, and eggs and bacon all at once. I thought about buying it, but knew I did not need it. However, I wish there had been something like that back when I was living in a dorm room.
I also hit the discount bakery on the way home. The old lady there was sort mean. She gave me a dirty look. S said it was because I did not look poor enough. However, that is not true. I was wearing my ripped shorts that I really should throw away, my shirt with the paint-blob on it, and the pair of sunglasses with the arm missing. All I needed was a NASCAR hat and food stamps to be properly poor.
Then again I wonder how happy I would be if I worked in a discount bakery.
Then I swung by the Habitat for Humanity thrift store to see if I could find some paint. The paint there is only five dollars a gallon, and is located in a scary shed behind the store. The shed itself is crammed with all different sorts of paint haphazardly piled up. Some cans have cracked up and mixed with the contents of other cracked open cans causing questionable chemical reactions. The shed itself does not feel very sturdy and I am always afraid that it is going to collapse on me while I am in there, and I will die screaming as I am buried under a landfall of hazardous chemicals. Seriously, the shed is that bad. I need to take a photo sometime.
A faded old sign on the wall sternly warned people not top open cans. I promptly ignored this and found a crust old fork in the corner and gingerly pried open a few cans. I was looking for paint for my vardo and I specifically wanted a green roof and a red body. I had no luck finding any red, however I did find some paint that was green-ish. To be honest it is more of a mildly fluorescent green that is roughly the color of Slimer from ’Ghostbusters’ but I think I may be able to shade down the color a bit.
I got back home, unloaded all my goodies, and then headed back to Lowes for plywood for the roof. Much to my annoyance the plywood I needed seemed to be one of the most expensive ones, weigh for weight. They were a whopping sixteen bucks a sheet. I found other, cheaper ones but to be honest they did not look very flexible. I would really hate to be bolting a sheet down and have it crack on me. So I gritted my teeth and bought a couple of sheets. Once I got home I did some measuring and realized I still needed one more sheet. Sigh.
So I spent the rest of the day puttering around with the vardo. Since I am mostly working from my head, I naturally had a few mistakes. If I were going to do the whole thing again I would do some key items differently, however as a whole it seems to be sturdy. Below is the progress so far. It is going to be fairly roomy in there.
2026 Update
Eighteen years ago tonight, my time machine is pointed at Ed buying a cursed little camera and a box of fishy Chicken in a Biscuit, and I cannot look away.
Ah, 2008: a beautiful, stupid fossil. Ed rolls through town on fifty bucks of bulk meat, a coupon, and a dream. The eight-dollar Big Lots camera is the perfect time capsule — now every pocket carries a phone that takes better pictures in the dark, and a thing whose only job is grainy photos is a forgotten joke. The “media ABC switch” is a hieroglyph; we fling sound and video through the air with no cables at all. Fifty dollars lasting a month at the meat store sounds like a fairy tale in 2026, when the same bill buys a modest steak and a side of regret. And the haunted paint shed? Pure lost-era bargain hunting: today that shed would be fenced off, labeled with warnings, and probably turned into an immersive art installation. Ed's only reward is fishy crackers and a vardo painted the color of Slimer. That is the kind of Tuesday progress I can respect.
“2008 Ed, did you honestly think a rusty fork and a collapsing shed full of hazardous chemical ooze would ever gift you red paint, and did it occur to you to just buy a can of spray paint like a civilized demon?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2008 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, you make a fair point, and I appreciate a demon who respects basic logic. But no, I didn't honestly expect a miracle—I expected a bargain. There's a difference, sort of. The Habitat shed is a sacred place, a temple of half-empty cans and questionable chemistry, and you don't go there for sensible results. You go because red paint at five bucks a gallon beats red paint at twelve bucks a gallon, even if you have to pry the lid open with a crusty fork and risk chemical doom. And sure, spray paint occurred to me, right around the same time I remembered I'm cheap and stubborn and apparently enjoy making things difficult. I've got a fluorescent green roof now, and that's a decision I'll live with. Maybe literally, if the shed collapses on me. But that's the gamble. Take that, civilized demons.
