Saturday afternoon I got ‘the finger’ shot at me. I was waiting in traffic to get onto I-4. There was some honking going on in front of me because some idiot was trying to turn into a no turning lane and was thus holding up all the traffic behind it. Cars finally began to navigate around this minivan. When I got my truck around the side of the van
the tinted window suddenly rolled down and a large black woman boiled out of it like some sort of jack in the box and promptly shot me the finger while shouting unidentified obscenities at me. Her tongue was very purple.
I was so shocked that I started to cackle out laughing. This seemed to enrage the lady further
but screw it
she was holding up traffic while I was about to zoom down I-4.
My friend Shallan carted me around town as we did some thirftshop rounds. I managed to make off with several goodies
a bunch of toys that I am going to bend for ebay
a little TV thought I thought was black and white but actually turned out to be color
and an evil clown doll.
Shallan’s hand had shot into a pile of battered old stuffed animals and yanked out this monstrosity and dangled it in front of me to see. It is quite clearly and evil clown. It appears to be hand made. And the fabric that was used on it was not nice cuddly fabric... it looked like leftover upholstery from a 1970’s couch. The kind of couch you keep wrapped in plastic. It was scratchy and uncomfortable to hold. The clown has an evil leering face stitched onto it. It’s face is openly evil and it makes no bones about that face that in the middle of the night it is going to run into your bedroom and crawl under your bed sheet and start gnawing on your nutsack. This morning I left it locked in the front room so it can’t get out. (yes
I bought it.) Pictures of it will be posted later.
We had some Thai food for lunch. It’s been a while since I had Thai and I forgot how damn good it is. For the first time I tried coconut and chicken soup. It was fantastic. So fantastic that I would like to learn how to make it myself. There is a Thai place near my work
I might pop in there for lunch. The restaurant we ate at was a little unusual in my eyes because the walls and ceiling were painted black. Outside of a nightclub I do not think I have ever been in a business where the walls and ceiling were black. It actually have it a nice effect and it caused the cheap gold colored trinkets they had bolted to the wall to really stand out.
The only complaint I have about Thai food is all the coconut milk in it can suddenly put your bowels into hyperdrive. I was driving home later that day and I heard an audible ‘gurgle’ in my nether regions and suddenly I knew I needed to get home. Fast.
At one thrift store I saw Shallan poking about in a pile of books. She would pull one out
look not at the title but the binder and frown at it
and then put it back. Finally she pulled out a couple of thick volumes and seemed satisfied. Curious
I asked what they were for. 'To hold up one end of my couch.'. Oh. Heh.
Sunday I was a loaf. I did absoultly nothing. I woke up at 11 and headed right to the roman bath where I soaked for another hour. Then I went to my folks house
had a huge meal
and then came home and promptly went back to sleep. I woke up a couple of times to snack on leftovers and poke around on either the computer or the tv. I was such a Jabba The Loaf yesterday that today I actually feel a little crampy from it. I am going to have to go for a bike ride tonight and work out the kinks. I was lazy
but sometimes you are allowed to be.
No idea what this week will bring.
2026 Update
I'm setting the dial for April 2006, when Ed brings home an evil upholstery clown and Thai food attacks his bowels.
Ah, 2006. Road rage was still a personal, analog art form—no dashcam, no phone to record, just a stranger's purple tongue and your cackle. Thrift stores were genuine treasure mines for the weirdly entrepreneurial, and your plan to 'bend toys for eBay' was practically a business model. Now an evil clown like that would be priced as 'vintage handmade horror decor' and sold with a twenty-page manifesto about its provenance. Digital resale has sucked the dust and mystery out of the hunt; everything arrives in a subscription box. Thai food has gone from an exotic discovery to something you can order in a dozen apps, but I suspect the coconut-milk roulette remains a constant across the ages. And the lazy Sunday? You'd never get away with doing absolutely nothing now without documenting it as a 'self-care reset' on social media. The clown, though—that was a choice. The books under the couch, the black-walled restaurant, the cramp from being a loaf—every detail is a fossil of a lazier, grubbier world, and I miss it terribly.
“2006 Ed, you bought the clown that you yourself described as an evil, upholstery-faced monster destined to gnaw on your nether regions—what exactly was your endgame there, and did you sleep at all that week?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, what can I say? The endgame was that it was a dollar, maybe two, and it was the single most horrible thing I’d ever seen. You don’t walk away from art like that. I figured if it ever did crawl under the sheets, at least I’d have a good story and maybe some photos for the blog. Sleep? Ha. That week I slept with one eye open, and I made sure the front room door was shut tight. The cats wouldn’t even go in there, which tells you something. I’d wake up at 3 a.m. positive I heard little upholstered footsteps shuffling down the hall. But you know what? I still think it was worth it. I mean, an evil clown made from a 1970s couch? That’s not a purchase, that’s a responsibility. I’ll probably list it on eBay someday, but honestly, who’d buy it? I’m stuck with the damn thing. Take that, foul clown.
