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Monday
Apr122010
Captainless, I Stumbled Through This Whole Day
Monday, April 12, 2010
Today, I woke up with the intent to get a bunch of design work done before an afternoon meeting. I got out of bed, put on a pair of pants to make being awake seem all official, and then promptly fell asleep in my chair. Brilliant start.
Luckily, I woke up just in time to get ready for my meeting at the Saskatchewan Legislative Building, which is darn purdy.
I attended Question Period, during which there were lots of speeches and yelling at the opposition and pounding on desks. One guy spilled his water glass on the carpet. Our questions about the deplorable state of gynecologic oncology in the province were met with bluster.
You gots to love the Sask Party. No, you don't.
Then, I went home and ate whatever medication I had on hand that might properly attack the headache emanating from behind my eyeballs. I didn't have much luck, but one of those pills must have been for sinus colds, because, man, were my sinuses open for a few hours.
Then, I used the trip planner tool on the city's transit website to find out what bus to take to my second meeting of the day, a product knowledge session for my shoe sales job. I boarded the website's recommended bus, and then that bus drove and drove and drove in the wrong direction! until it came to some remote bus stop! in a sea of far-flung big box stores! and the bus driver told me that I and the only other passenger had to get off! as that was the last stop on his route!
It was very exciting.
I stepped down onto the sidewalk, and this is where all that excitement left me. NOWHERE.
The other passenger and I stood at the bus stop together for a moment. She blinked at me with eyes that swam behind the extreme curvature of her glasses.
"What's your name?" she asked. She ran her wet nose along the length of her coat sleeve.
I looked from her snotty coat to her rusty, wheeled basket, thought about spending the next half hour with her, and chose to flee to the nearest building.
Man, was Winners ever depressing. First, they had almost no pants in stock. They had a stupid amount of cardigans but no pants.
I almost bought a cardigan, but then I thought That's exactly what they want me to do, so I didn't. Plus, it was a weird shade of orange that might have edged into peach once I got it out from under those blinding fluorescent lights. I find peach-coloured clothing generally anathema.
I felt an unnatural attachment to this pillow, but I think that was due to the handful of medication I ate before the ill-fated bus tour of the ugliest end of the city.
I did not, on the other hand, feel any attachment to this hideous blouse. It was a hideous pastiche of style elements that are in right now, but they were horribly executed. It had that scoopy, drapey kind of neck, elastic at the bottom underlined by ruffles, a too-heavy zipper along one shoulder, and a loud pattern. It wanted so hard to be relevant. It wasn't.
Then, there was the shoe section where there appeared to be only one of each shoe present. The lamps were uniformly hideous. The quilts looked cheap. That people were going to consume these things depressed the hell out of me.
These faux-stone statues didn't help.
I always wonder what's up with the long ear-lobes. Anyone? Anyone?
And then, guess what? I missed the next bus, and Winners was kind of starting to freak me out, especially when I saw two or three women picking through giant, fake, tin watering cans. The women looked really stupid, kind of like they were infantilized adults in some kids' show like Big Comfy Couch.
Cree-pee.
So, I called for a taxi, but I was so busy thinking about breathing my way through the bizarre world of Winners that I accidentally told the dispatcher that I was at Wal-Mart, and I ended up standing around in the cold on the sidewalk in front of Winners for another half hour before figuring out that I had to call for another taxi.
It was only 6°C (42°F), which beats -40°C (-40°F), but it's still not awesome when the only alternative is to go back inside the Vat of Retail Hell and stand around with a bunch of faux stone plant pots and garden frogs.
Not! The! Pots! And! The! Bug-eyed! Statuettes!
This is what Winners looks like from the outside when one is safely away from the pots and bug-eyed statuettes. Suckage.
And then, the taxi arrived, and I nearly wept at being relieved of the tyranny of crap.
PS. It was actually almost dark when the cab took me home. It only looks bright out because of the glare from the all the cars at the stop light.
PPS. I don't always find Winners to be so anti-life force.
I think I was just unsettled by my weird bus trip. There were these dorks on the bus who were discussing whether or not the one's mother's habit of drinking beer while driving around on a riding mower was a punishable offence. They kind of pushed my brain off-kilter when coupled with my burning headache eyes.
And, also, sometimes I like the tyranny of crap, like that time I brought home Desmond. Sometimes the right object can act like a booster shot of awesome, and Desmond delivers daily.
PPPS. I made myself feel better when I got home by baking up a mess of hot wings slathered in Sriracha hot sauce. I don't know if those from-a-box wings were any more real than those faux-stone plant pots, but, damn, were they tasty.
UPDATE: I completely forgot to tell you how I created these photos. I took each of the photos using the CameraBag iPhone app with the Helga setting, and then I ran them through the ShakeItPhoto app.
Luckily, I woke up just in time to get ready for my meeting at the Saskatchewan Legislative Building, which is darn purdy.
I attended Question Period, during which there were lots of speeches and yelling at the opposition and pounding on desks. One guy spilled his water glass on the carpet. Our questions about the deplorable state of gynecologic oncology in the province were met with bluster.
You gots to love the Sask Party. No, you don't.
Then, I went home and ate whatever medication I had on hand that might properly attack the headache emanating from behind my eyeballs. I didn't have much luck, but one of those pills must have been for sinus colds, because, man, were my sinuses open for a few hours.
Then, I used the trip planner tool on the city's transit website to find out what bus to take to my second meeting of the day, a product knowledge session for my shoe sales job. I boarded the website's recommended bus, and then that bus drove and drove and drove in the wrong direction! until it came to some remote bus stop! in a sea of far-flung big box stores! and the bus driver told me that I and the only other passenger had to get off! as that was the last stop on his route!
It was very exciting.
I stepped down onto the sidewalk, and this is where all that excitement left me. NOWHERE.
The other passenger and I stood at the bus stop together for a moment. She blinked at me with eyes that swam behind the extreme curvature of her glasses.
"What's your name?" she asked. She ran her wet nose along the length of her coat sleeve.
I looked from her snotty coat to her rusty, wheeled basket, thought about spending the next half hour with her, and chose to flee to the nearest building.
Man, was Winners ever depressing. First, they had almost no pants in stock. They had a stupid amount of cardigans but no pants.
I almost bought a cardigan, but then I thought That's exactly what they want me to do, so I didn't. Plus, it was a weird shade of orange that might have edged into peach once I got it out from under those blinding fluorescent lights. I find peach-coloured clothing generally anathema.
I felt an unnatural attachment to this pillow, but I think that was due to the handful of medication I ate before the ill-fated bus tour of the ugliest end of the city.
I did not, on the other hand, feel any attachment to this hideous blouse. It was a hideous pastiche of style elements that are in right now, but they were horribly executed. It had that scoopy, drapey kind of neck, elastic at the bottom underlined by ruffles, a too-heavy zipper along one shoulder, and a loud pattern. It wanted so hard to be relevant. It wasn't.
Then, there was the shoe section where there appeared to be only one of each shoe present. The lamps were uniformly hideous. The quilts looked cheap. That people were going to consume these things depressed the hell out of me.
These faux-stone statues didn't help.
I always wonder what's up with the long ear-lobes. Anyone? Anyone?
And then, guess what? I missed the next bus, and Winners was kind of starting to freak me out, especially when I saw two or three women picking through giant, fake, tin watering cans. The women looked really stupid, kind of like they were infantilized adults in some kids' show like Big Comfy Couch.
Cree-pee.
So, I called for a taxi, but I was so busy thinking about breathing my way through the bizarre world of Winners that I accidentally told the dispatcher that I was at Wal-Mart, and I ended up standing around in the cold on the sidewalk in front of Winners for another half hour before figuring out that I had to call for another taxi.
It was only 6°C (42°F), which beats -40°C (-40°F), but it's still not awesome when the only alternative is to go back inside the Vat of Retail Hell and stand around with a bunch of faux stone plant pots and garden frogs.
Not! The! Pots! And! The! Bug-eyed! Statuettes!
This is what Winners looks like from the outside when one is safely away from the pots and bug-eyed statuettes. Suckage.
And then, the taxi arrived, and I nearly wept at being relieved of the tyranny of crap.
PS. It was actually almost dark when the cab took me home. It only looks bright out because of the glare from the all the cars at the stop light.
PPS. I don't always find Winners to be so anti-life force.
I think I was just unsettled by my weird bus trip. There were these dorks on the bus who were discussing whether or not the one's mother's habit of drinking beer while driving around on a riding mower was a punishable offence. They kind of pushed my brain off-kilter when coupled with my burning headache eyes.
And, also, sometimes I like the tyranny of crap, like that time I brought home Desmond. Sometimes the right object can act like a booster shot of awesome, and Desmond delivers daily.
PPPS. I made myself feel better when I got home by baking up a mess of hot wings slathered in Sriracha hot sauce. I don't know if those from-a-box wings were any more real than those faux-stone plant pots, but, damn, were they tasty.
UPDATE: I completely forgot to tell you how I created these photos. I took each of the photos using the CameraBag iPhone app with the Helga setting, and then I ran them through the ShakeItPhoto app.
Reader Comments (10)
Winners looks like our Tuesday Morning shop here in Colorado. SCARY. I love shops like this, but T.M. is a little too budget for me sometimes. And I'm budget.
P.S. You make me laugh.
P.P.S. Wings in Sriracha are my kyrptonite.
Wow, that is strange. I was sucked into my own vat of retail hell today. And I don't know why.
I've wondered about the long ear lobes. Maybe when you become enlightened, your earlobes grow.
That was a blouse?? Good lord, I thought it was a throw. That's just wrong.
Long earlobes are a sign of spiritual enlightenment, wisdom and compassion. Also, the Siddartha Gautama would likely have worn jewellery that would have left his earlobes elongated. When he became the Buddha, he removed the jewellery from his ears. The lobes are a sign of his renunciation of the material world.
You are the only person I know who can make Winners look beautiful.
Thanks for the pics from the legislative building. I haven't been there for 30 years -- whoa!
Do you ever feel weird taking photos inside a store? Like it's a criminal thing to do? I always feel a bit like someone will walk up and ask me not to do that.
Heidi, I do feel weird about taking photos inside stores. Most chain stores have rules against it and pretty much all shopping malls. Shopping malls are technically private property, and I have been approached by security before and told not to take pictures. So, it's not so out there that you would worry about getting caught.
That pillow is seriously awesome/awful, I can't really tell which, maybe both (seriously both).
In addition to Palinode's reasons, the elongated earlobes are used to indicate the Buddha is all-hearing.