The cop was probably clued in by all the gingerbread I-beams the cranes were tossing around
It doesn’t quite feel like summer yet in Portland, but the drizzle has slacked off a bit and so you are starting to see more people on the sidewalk. Since I’m not generally sociable and don’t interact with strangers that much, I had forgotten how funny it can be.
For example, there’s a library two blocks from my work. Recently as I was on my way to the library I passed a bus bench where a man in a fedora was intently pretending that he was reading a take out menu. At first it was kind of irritating - both because it felt false, since who the hell can spend more than ten seconds reading a take out menu? and also because the guy was less than a block away from a humongous variety of far more entertaining reading material, including a wide variety of free newspapers that are right inside the door. But after I had picked up my stuff and and poked around the cd racks for a few minutes I began the return trek to work, and lo and behold, I passed him again, still intently using this take out menu to pass the time. And this time it was hilarious to me, because I had been irritated at him for being half-assed, but if he’s going to seriously commit to being half-assed - if he’s going to carry on the charade for ten minutes - then I, and probably most people who are my age and were raised in the slacker culture of the 90’s - can salute him. Dedication to being to being lazy is dedication nonetheless.
That library has actually provided me with a lot of funny interactions, actually. Just today when I was waiting for the light to change so I could cross the street I found myself next to the woman who vacuums and dusts the secure room where I work. I’ve said pleasantries to her before, of course, but I have never been in her presence long enough that small talk was required, but now we had two blocks we were going to spend together. The first topic of conversation that occurred to me was obviously a no-go; whenever I see someone who I assume doesn’t have a lot of money coming out of a library I feel like “fuck yeah - democracy works!” It makes me feel rather patriotic that we have a system set in place to give equal access to culture to people across class lines, but… Patriotism is perhaps best left out of polite conversation with strangers, Memorial Day having already passed.
Anyway, I saw that she had some DVDs so I asked her what she’d gotten. She showed me that she’d checked Tron Legacy out, for her thirteen year old son apparently. I said that the film looked nice but was only kind of ok. She asked me what it was about. I’d never tried to explain Tron to someone who didn’t have English as their first language, but it turns out it’s hard. “They’re inside the computer” is not self-explanatory, apparently, or at least, it’s not self explanatory when it’s followed up with “they’re riding motorcycles made up of light.” It felt like I was on a game show like the $25,000 Pyramid - I had a very short of time to say something I knew but couldn’t quite sum up succinctly and I was trying to explain it while consciously avoiding certain words that my conversational partner probably didn’t know. Oh well. Her son might like the movie anyway.
But while I often have funny interactions with strangers, it’s rare that I have comforting ones. That just happened to me, however.
I had gone to Trader Joe’s with the specific mission of buying things to compliment the cold-cut sandwhich I was planning to make. (Incidentally - and off topic - as I was actually making this sandwich my cat, who is normally not much of a beggar, begged for some turkey. And as I gave it to her I thought “there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” - because this cat, this mostly kibble-fed cat, barely knows of turkey, but yet I know of both turkey and barbecue. Perhaps this cat, who is quite a picky eater, would not be blown away by barbecue. But she should be.)
Anyway, I was going to Trader Joes to buy two things: potato chips and a beer. And right as I was putting my two items in my bag, another woman started checking out. And she also had two items: cheese and wine. So I said “oh, you’re getting the classic combination, cheese and wine” and she kind of laughed. But then I really looked at the cheese, and this was some nice-ass cheese. This was not like a cheddar. This was… foreign. It was triangular, which is how I know it’s good; I’m a square cheese guy. And the wine was not like a six dollar bottle, either. And then I looked at my beer and potato chips and was like, man, I’m kind of a slob. (I should add that I was planning on opening the beer up on the walk back home, but I was kind of debating how far I could get into the Industrial district with an open container before someone saw me and thought of me as a hobo; it’s been since high school since someone confused me for a hobo and I’d like to keep it that way. So perhaps I was self-conscious of the inferiority of my purchase because I was already trying to minimize my hoboverlap, which is a word I just made up but should be self explanatory.)
But as I was walking home, chips open but beer still closed, I was passed by two people on rollerblades. (Actually, they were two people on rollerblades and a guy on a bike, all three of them biking in a tricycle formation for some reason, but the guy on the bike doesn’t figure into this story. I only mention him at all because the whole thing seemed weirdly pre-destined like something out of a Wes Anderson film, and the bike guy is the sort of detail that would tie the whole thing together on the fourth viewing.) Anyway, the female rollerblader asked “Why am I so dirty?” with mild worry and the male rollerblader sarcastically said “Because you’re religious”. And then they were past me.
It took me a little bit to process what had happened, because their tones were so far apart his reply almost felt like a nonsequitir - but also because I grew up in the South, and you’d never hear such casual blasphemy there. It was no big deal for this guy to sarcastically reply to a question about filth with a disparaging look at sin. It really struck me then how heathen-friendly this city is. When I overheard that guy, I realized: man, this really is my city, because I’m also the sort of guy who would say something irreligious on a public sidewalk and not give a shit. And fuck it, I’m also the type of guy who starts drinking on the street at seven p.m. Fuck wine-ladies (even though that lady seemed nice.)
Incidentally, between the time I bought the beer and chips and when I overheard the rollerbladers remind me that this town is my town, damnit, I had texted my fashion designer friend about my weird moment in Trader Joe’s. Right after the rollerbladers passed me, she texted me back that she had gotten my text in the parking lot of Safeway, where she had just bought wine and a box of mac and cheese. And I also checked my gmail for the first time today to find out that Amazon had sent me an offer for a discount on a wine and cheese tasting class. So, you know, even if I’m not classy myself I can know that I’m at least friends with people who are half classy, and with a little bit of work maybe one day I can graduate to triangle shaped cheese.
Also Dorothy had to nix joining up with the Man In the Mid-Life Crisis who was looking for hair plugs. Having his sports car along wouldn’t have helped since there were four of them and she isn’t the trophy wife sort
So most hospital gift shops sell flowers. So if the gift shop in the beehive’s hospital sells flowers, is it still a gift shop or does it become a cafeteria?
Someone should check Louis C.K.’s birth certificate to see if the C.K. stands for “Caligula Krueger”. Odds are that it does
This is an alternate version of the one I posted on El Kiablo. I can’t decide which is better… But I’m done thinking about it because even at it’s best this is not going to go down in the annals of great cartoons.
