Because we had a day off and no plans, we decided to revisit Cape Cod on our second day off. We drove alternate routes on the way down and back, traveling on the outside of the cape on the way down and on the inside on the way back. Normally the trip from bridge to tip is a couple of hours, but if you take alternate routes, it seems shorter because you see more than the typical highway monotony.

Do you seriously have any idea how many mini golf courses there are on the Cape? No matter where you are, you can’t throw a rock without hitting a giant whale par 3 or a lighthouse par 4. The number of mini golf courses is only topped by the number of friggin Christmas tree shops, which you can’t spit without hitting. Which I would if I didn’t think it would fly out the window and come back and hit me in the forehead. I hate the Christmas Tree Shop.

If you are unfamiliar with the Christmas Tree Shop phenomenon, it has nothing to do with Christmas at all. It’s simply a place where women go to buy things to clutter up their homes. And if your a man, stay the fuck out of there. I don’t care if you share an effeminate side, a penchant for ladies’ undergarments or a craving for cock. No common ground will save you. If you are not dripping with estrogen, they’ll eat you alive in there.

The only time I set foot in a Christmas Tree Shop was with my ex wife. Because her family made such a big fuss about the place, I could only assume that they owned a special plow with which to plow the merchandise directly into their cars. As a flea market fan myself, I thought that the place sounded interesting and figured, “Why not?”

I’ll tell you why not: because it’s not a flea market. It’s like a craft fare/fire sale bomb exploded in there. I walked about 15 feet into the store and was so inundated with low priced crap that I was completely overwhelmed. There wasn’t a manly item in the store. Hell, besides the elderly, broken down shopping cart slaves that some women tote with them shopping, there weren’t any men in the store. It was like accidentally wandering into the ladies unmentionables section and getting stuck there.

Within 10 minutes, I found myself staring into a basket of wooden apples.

“What are these, wooden? Who the hell needs wooden apples,” I asked no one in particular.

No fewer than five middle aged women lurking in the aisle simultaneously turned to me and berated me about exactly why people need wooden apples, why I had my head up my ass, and why if my ex wanted to buy wooden apples she should not be questioned on her purchases because I was a stupid, stupid man.

They didn’t explain wooden apples to me in a gently, “you poor man” kind of way. They were not kind. They were vehement. They defended a middle aged woman’s right to squander their poor bastard of a husband’s paycheck on whatever useless horseshit they wanted. They were on the attack. Over wooden fucking apples.

I turned to the ex wife standing outside of the gauntlet and just said “What the fuck? I’ll be in the car,” and walked the fuck out of that store never taking the stamp to allow re-entry. And since then, I haven’t been back.

Posted in #1GF!, Anger