I almost woke up late this morning. Almost. Time to set up my nickelodeon alarm clock again.
Last night after work I got home and realized I was supposed to go shopping after work. I needed some basic items
and and distressed yowl reminded me I had to get cat food. Annoyed
I flopped down on the couch and stared at the ceiling for almost a half an hour
attempting to will my body to get up and go to Wal-Mart. Finally it did. I was surprised.
I got to Wal-Mart and did a slow circuit of the store. I was in no hurry; I did not have to be anywhere. I checked out the discount toy aisle. The batman digital camera that I had bought for 20 dollars a while back was now nine dollars. Not a bad price for a 1.5 megapixel camera. I wandered through the auto section to look at stereos. One of these days I am going to get a new MP3 playing cd player for my car. I miss my old one dearly
however something else has always 'come up'. I did not get a good look at the stereos… someone had left a basket of strawberries next to the display and they had decayed into a fuzzy pile of mush with gnats buzzing around it. The smell drove me away.
At the seafood section I stopped to get another shark steak. However
instead of shark steak the label now said 'shark flank'. I asked the lady behind the counter what the difference was. She did not know. I got it anyways.
I roved around the store looking for whole-wheat hoagie rolls. They simply did not exist. I noticed that Wal-Mart seems to deem something to be 'too healthy' and does not stock it. I am serious here. For instance
if you go to the syrup aisle and look for some real maple syrup
there is not any. It's all Ms. Butterworth or Log Cabin or all those other fake syrups that are made out of high fructose corn syrup. Perhaps the walmart theory is that if the customers got too skinny and healthy
they would not end up buying the mounds of sugar and salt encrusted goodies that seem to make up the bulk of some shoppers shopping carts.
Wal-Mart should open a daycare. You know those little shop cubicles in the front of the store that house the eyeglasses place or the nail place filled with Asian slaves doomed to a dreary life of painting lightning bolts on the fingernails of ghetto-wenches? They should just clear one out and put a fence up and call it 'Wal-Mart daycare'. For 10 bucks you can stick your kid in the cage all day. For an extra five dollars you can have them hosed down before you pick them up. It could be a fully automated facility as well. Like those porta-potties in France that clean themselves.
I have to run down to the post office on my lunch break today. This annoys me because it takes up my entire lunch break to run down there and come back again
not to mention the gas it wastes. However I have a new toy in the mail and I do not feel like waiting until this weekend to get it.
After Wal-Mart I wanted to work outside for a while
but the light was failing and I was zoned out. I ended up watching the Wallace and Grommit and the case of the were rabbit'. It was a fun
clean movie. I like how every now and then you see a thumbprint appear on one of the characters faces.
Around ten I forced myself to go out for a bike ride. River walk was completely deserted except for an old man with a basset hound. The hound was shuffling along on his short legs
causing his big ears to flop around. When I got home I was too wired up to fall asleep. I ended up reading my book until around 1 in the morning. I am a sleep wimp so I know I am going to nod off today sometime.
New ghost hunters on tonight. Woot.
2026 Update
Firing up the time furnace for a 2006 evening of Ed, Wal-Mart, moldy strawberries, and questionable shark flank.
Ah, April 2006, when a man could spend half an hour staring at his ceiling to summon the will to drive to Wal-Mart. In my 2026 dominion, that 1.5-megapixel Batman digital camera is a fossil, and every pocket now carries a telephoto lens plus a soul-crushing subscription. That MP3-playing CD player for the car is also a relic; we get dashboards that nag for over-the-air updates, and I despise them almost as much as gray laminate. Whole-wheat hoagie rolls and real maple syrup are no longer pharmacy-grade contraband; they’re ordinary, though modern supermarkets still hide the good stuff behind inexplicable premium signage. Your post-office errand feels almost quaint; I mostly scream at package-tracking notifications from apps. And the caged daycare with the optional hosing-down? Oh, Ed. That was not a business plan. That was a man who needed a nap and about two fewer hours of Wallace and Gromit. The moldy strawberries, though? Eternally, disgustingly timeless.
“2006 Ed, why did you still buy the shark flank after the lady behind the counter admitted she had no idea what it was? Did you eat it, or is it still evolving in the back of your fridge?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: So, Beelzebubba, you have to understand the Wal-Mart seafood counter logic. When a lady in a hairnet tells me she doesn't know the difference between shark steak and shark flank, my first thought isn't fear, it's curiosity. Also, I'd already walked the whole store, stared at rotting strawberries, and mourned the lack of whole-wheat hoagie rolls. I wasn't about to leave empty-handed. I figured flank sounds tougher, cheaper, maybe more exercise for my jaw. (Yes, I am that easily amused.) As for eating it, I did. Cooked it up with some butter and lemon and it tasted fine, a little chewy maybe, but no tentacles or extra eyes. I'm pretty sure it's fully dead and not evolving in my fridge, though I haven't checked the back shelf in a few days. That's a gamble I'm willing to take. Take that, foul seafood.
