The Vegas Shirt

Saturday I took my daughter with me on some errands I had to run. I like to bring her along every few weeks, force her to hang out with her old man. She never wants to go, initially. But after a while, she loosens up and begins to talk and enjoy herself.

The big chore today was going to the Salvation Army and picking out my Vegas shirt. Anyone can go to a fancy store and find a fancy chemise, but where's the fun in that? My brother Tim set the precedent of finding amazing shirts for these kind of trips. Something that denotes the kind of trip you're looking to have - adventure, exploration, educational. In this case, Vegas.

We roamed the racks, Emily pointed out her picks and giggled at the possibilities. She knows my brother, her Uncle, will chose an amazing shirt from his salvation army, so we have to find something that will compete. I'm also looking for a cowboy hat, something that would go with my boots which I have all shined up for the trip.

In the end we locate 3 great shirts but no cowboy hats. I'll post pics when I get back, but keep in mind one of the benefits of a cheap Vegas shirt is you can always just leave it behind. Like they say, what you vomit on in vegas, stays in vegas. I don't plan on abusing myself like that, but what am I, a psychic? It could happen.

Later, after selecting my next wine to make, lunch at her favorite restaurant (Fuddruckers), we played a few games of Laser Tag. She had never been there and asked that be our "fun" activity of the day. And fun it was. Emily made the transition from calm, genteel young girl to all-out combat specialist. She found the great places to hide, the strategies for attacking the opposing teams, and joined forces with another young group of players, leaving her dad to fend for himself briefly while little snots ganged up on me.

They would shoot me, which disables my gun for 15 seconds, but keep standing there, so they can shoot me again as I become active. So I plugged their gums with my fingers then shot them when I got active. They may be young, agile and harder targets to hit, but that wasn't my first laser tag game. Which they found out as we saw the scoreboard outside afterwards. Who's your daddy??

Well, I'm her daddy anyways, and she didn't seem too embarassed.

Bee On A String

The lunch conversations with the people I work with are rarely boring, but one this week was awesome for it's originality. The topic was putting a bee on a string.

"First you catch the bee, then put it in the freezer..." someone was saying.
"Wait, hold it." I said. "Go back. How do you catch a bee, exactly?"
"I don't know, like in a tupperware container." He said, pantomiming the action with his hand.
"Kind of get it between the lid and bowl... then close together."
I nodded. "Got it. Continue."

"So put it in the freezer for like a minute, which puts it to sleep."
"A minute? That's all?"
"Yeah, then take it out and tie a string on. When it wakes up, he'll fly around with a string hanging down."
"What if he wakes up while you're putting the string on?"
"Well you have to work fast, maybe have the string looped and ready."
"Where to you tie it?"
"On his foot." someone said.
"His foot? What do I have a giant magnifying glass like those guys who paint miniatures?"

Nobody answered, so I asked the obvious question. "And what do you do with a bee with a string on it?"
"What DON'T you do with it?"

The ideas flooded in. A bouquet of Bees ("Honey Bees for my Honey!"). Tie a note and you have Bee Mail. Attach the bee to a helium balloon. Bees tied to your car as a security measure. None of them were really practical.

"Can you do it to a hornet. ?" I asked.
"Maybe. But it really pisses them off."

Probably true.

Play Us Out, Sting

Always

The giant lighted sign above Walmart's entrance says "Always" in flowing, friendly script. It's 8pm on a weekday night, and like other customers I'm here for simple things. Some bananas, file folder bins and Spree candy. You can't do that at Price Chopper, so here I am.

The store slogan never sunk in before tonight, as I made my way through the busy store, human drama unfolding all around me. A lady has fallen in the appliance isle. A mother is yelling directions to her children 3 isles over, who are not listening, so she is yelling them over and over. Teens are roaming the electronics section with pants mysteriously levitating below their buttock region. The belt is not doing the work, and I can't figure out what is.

This sums up what the slogan means to me:

• Always loud and depressing. The people who work there hate their lives, or are so stung on crank they can't smile wide enough, showing off the rotted and missing teeth.
  
• Always smells like a Spaniards armpit (I can only imagine).
  
• Always reminds me I don't like going there. Next time I will drive to three different stores rather than standing in line for 30 minutes while the skinheads in front of me discuss the best automatic handguns you can get in Israel, stopping every few minutes to check their cell phones and mutter "Where the skanks be at?"
  
• Always have the security gates sound off when I try to leave. Then it's another 10 minutes as my great grandfather checks off my list of items, removing each in turn from the bags, then replacing them. They never find out what triggers the alarm, so it goes off again when I leave. I don't stop a second time.
  
• Always glorious to hit the fresh air outside, and be glad to be getting away from there.

Last night god sent me a "Hey, sorry to put you through that" for as I pushed the cart to the car there was an amazing light show going on to the east. A huge cloud was hosting a lightning storm. Every few seconds a new bolt would ignite, and a section of the fluffy cloud would illuminate brilliantly in the dark sky, then go dark. Then a new section would light up. Over and over. I sat in my car for 10 minutes to appreciate it.