The Life of Riley is a weekly post that details my activities since I ended a thirteen year career as a corporate drone. These posts are usually long, personal, and geared more for my own memory than the reader’s entertainment.

Sunday (Day 252): Gay Disney

Got up and went appliance shopping. Went to the mob scene of Yale Electric, and the helpful atmosphere at Kams before taking our pile of confusion to Friendly’s to refuel. We had a waitress who seemed new, and we both got sandwiches and shakes. The shakes were too thin, and they gave us these fat, color changing straws that sucked up the shake so easily that they seemed even thinner. #1GF! wandered around and got some regular straws from the kitchen to make the shake seem more normal. Easier and more feature filled is not always better.

Afterward, we hit all the big box appliance giants. We spent ten minutes in Best Buy but couldn’t find what we needed, so we headed over to Sears. Even though I wanted to get some information from the employees, I refused all help. I refused rap beard earring man, and then a guy who you could smell the desperation on him like the mint on his breath. He wanted to make a sale so badly that it overshadowed our need for information. Instead, we poked around the appliances and realized that the smaller shops may have ratcheted up what we wanted in our appliances.

On our way out of the mall, #1GF! wanted to get some girly stuff from one of those girly stores that sell creams that cost as much as a power drill that no self-respecting man has any idea what they are for. Just like you don’t go barging into the shaman’s tent, I’ve learned to wait outside these places until #1GF! has picked up whatever voodoo magic that ladies pick up. I could see through the glass that no one was helping her after a good five minutes so I started pretending to be exasperated, complete with lolling my head around, and flopping on the railing like a rag doll. She has learned that I’ll only stop if she doesn’t look or laugh, so that’s what she tried to do. Unfortunately, I do stupid shit in case she looks, so people passing by were turning their heads into the store to see what I was so exasperated at. I found this more amusing, so I started doing the look only when people walked by, just to see if they looked into the store. This is how I amused myself at five, and it’s nice to know that the same formula works thirty years later.

Once one of the black clothed priestesses of beauty realized that #1GF! was waiting, she sold her her magic potions, and we decided to see if the daughter of one of #1GF!’s friends was working at Hollister. Because I do all my clothes shopping in fifteen minutes a year at the same store, there has never been a reason for me to venture into Hollister before. The place is pitch dark, there are giant pictures of half naked dudes at the entrance, and the music is usually thumping. I never really knew if it was a gay club or a store, but I knew it wasn’t going to sell anything that I was buying.

Led by #1GF!, we ventured in to the dark store. The place was like a maze, the only lights were pointed at the clothes, and the music was loud enough that it was hard to hear directions from #1GF!. I decided that I had better not lose sight of her because I was sure that if I were found wandering the store by myself, one of the employees would push the trap door button that would send me down a chute into a trash compactor in the detention level. I kept my eye on her as we wandered through the fake ferns (that I assume were fake due to the extremely low light levels) which made it feel like we were waiting online on some haunted jungle ride at Disney. The girl we were looking for either wasn’t working (or was guarding the detention level), so we made our way back toward the exit. By the door, we said goodbye to a girl who was wearing flip flops (It’s February) and headed back out into the stark fluorescent safety of the mall. We were giggling once we left and all I could muster was “Wow. I do not think we are they’re target audience.”

After that, we headed home to process some of the pile of appliance information we had amassed, only to realize that basic appliances that we had looked at no longer looked so great. Dammit. By 7 PM we had given up and were watching a movie, but it felt more like 10PM.

Monday (Day 253): Chicken Soup

Wrote all day and turned a whole chicken into a whole pot of chicken soup.

Tuesday (Day 254): Barber Breakfast

I drove #1GF! to work so that we could go look at appliances together once she was out. She suggested that I get a haircut, which I knew meant that my hair was out of control. I tried to call the barber, but he didn’t answer, so I decided that I would stop in and see if he had any time for a walk-in. When I got there, the sign on the door said “Be back at 10:30″. Just as I was turning to leave, I saw my barber through the glass waving me in.

“Sorry about not calling, but do you have any time today, Bob?”

“Sure, but do you want to go to breakfast?”

“Oh thanks, Bob, but I don’t want to intrude.”

“Oh, no. Come along. I’m just going with my daughter and the grandkids.”

“I don’t want to get in the way, Bob.”

“You’re not in the way, come on.”

Once I was sure that I had opened enough exits that he wasn’t walking out of, I accepted and went to breakfast at a local diner with him, his daughter and two of his grandkids.

Once we got back, his daughter headed out, and I took a seat on the couch to await a break in the schedule. A cop came in to get his hair cut down from my post haircut level down to something more cop like. Typically, I find cops to be paranoid, but this guy was amazingly friendly considering he worked in the city drug units and he had never met me before. At some point, a very old guy came in looking to schedule a haircut for a very specific time later in the week. He thought it was funny that there were three Jo(h)ns in there, four if you included the one in the bathroom.

Soon it was my turn in the chair, and I heard this story. A regular customer who lives within a block of the shop called to setup a haircut appointment, but he misdialed by one number.

“Bob?”

“Yep.”

“I need a haircut.”

When the guy responded with, “Well, so don’ I,” the caller realized that he was talking to some random Bob out there in the city, rather than his barber. The two men got to talking, and the guy who called found out that the guy on the other end of the line was 94 years old and had his license taken away by his daughter because she was afraid he might smash into something. The caller asked where the old man lived, drove over to his house, picked him up, and drove him back to the shop for a haircut. I guess the 94 year old guy was well-dressed, with it, and stayed for a while because he ended up being a hoot to have around. This is the reason that I drive well out of my way to go to the same barber shop that I’ve been going to for the last twenty years. There are some characters in there.

On the way home, I picked up a couple of books at the library, and worked on a Perl script that pulls data off the web until it was time to go look at appliances with #1GF!. I picked her up, and we spent some time talking to a sales rep and got our choices very close to nailed down. I have some quirky ideas about what I wanted in certain appliances, so the guy started making fun of me by insinuating that I wasn’t very manly because I cared about certain aspects of the appliances. We got the third degree about who does what chores until the guy seemed satisfied that I wasn’t a bitch. I cook and do the food shopping a majority of the time, so there are a few small things that I look for in appliances. I don’t know why he cared about it, but I didn’t. I was there to buy appliances not worry about someone’s opinion of me.

It started snowing in the eight foot walk between the door and the car, and it was neat to watch the first flakes come down as if someone had flipped a switch. We drove home in the snow, with my windshield wipers making such a racket that I only put them on when necessary.

Wednesday (Day 255): All Your Base

I started writing a personal letter to #1GF! for Valentine’s day, and had a hard time deciding whether to turn it into a blog post. I wanted to say exactly what I meant without worrying about who was reading it, but I also thought that shouting from the rooftops makes a different statement than a private letter. In the end, I decided to tell the world.

Once it was finished, I created the “all my heart” graphic as a play on “All your Base”, but that is sort of an inside joke to gamer geeks. I was thoroughly amused by it, but if you didn’t get it, here’s the explanation. In the late 80’s there was a video game called Zero Wing that had notoriously bad English translations in it. One of them was the line “All your base are belong to us”, which somewhere around 2001, found its way into game geek culture by being cited over and over by gamers everywhere. “All my heart are belong to you” is a play off that. #1GF! didn’t get it, but I don’t think it was a waste of time.

Once that was done, I put together a teenage mixtape for #1GF! to listen to while she was at work. I even included those songs that I knew she liked but were painful to include. That’s love, baby. I finished that up about 15 minutes after she got home from work, doing my best not to spill the beans on her blog post and playlist. For what seemed like the tenth day in a row, we had homemade chicken soup for dinner and I still wasn’t sick of it.

Thursday (Day 256): I Choo Choo Choose You

While I was making the coffee, I told #1GF! that I had written and pre-posted the night before. Because she usually checks my writing before it goes out, she asked me if she should read it. I said that she could if she wanted to, to make it seem like I had put out something short and crappy. I was more than surprised at the amount of tears that were all over the place before she was finished reading. It was how I felt, but I didn’t say anything that she didn’t already know, so I didn’t think it would make such a big impact. She then gave me a card covered in pen-drawn hearts addressed to “Nut Sack”. She likes to cry. I like to laugh. We both got what we wanted.

Once #1GF! got out the door to work, I gave up on showering, and spent the whole day working on the poster for the March FineTune Friday theme announcement. I’m no artist, so those things take me all day, but I think that the posters are getting better each time. By the time #1GF! got home with the pizza, I was stinky and looking a little crazy because I tend to twist my beard when I’m concentrating. I doubt she cared though. She seemed as if the post were erasing any bad things that I could produce, no matter how bad they smelled.

Friday (Day 257): Surprise Dinner

Got up and continued reading Doc Bergen’s Old Nantasket, which made it seem like the town of Hull had a crazy amount of corruption in its past. Gambling, whore houses, monopolies, and dirty politics were the norm around there in the early part of the 20th century. After I finished the book, I did a little writing until #1GF! called me from the parking lot to tell me that we were going out to a Mexican dinner. I had no idea that she was coming so I had to spend a few minutes combing my beard down from the twisted mess it becomes when I write, to a more tolerable level for the general public.

Saturday (Day 258): Douchy McDouche

Went appliance shopping yet again. We got a late start and headed over to George Washington Toma, where the salesman was a very likable guy who offered us a lot of different price points and opinions to help us narrow down what we were going to buy. After a couple of hours of winding into further confusion, we moved on to the ding and dent store to see if anything jumped out at us. Ding and dent tends to be hit or miss, and we missed this time around. By that point it was late in the afternoon, so we decided to see if we could get some quotes from Yale Appliance.

Yale is an independent appliance store, but it’s so busy that you have to take a pager and wait for a salesman. For the fifteen minutes we waited, we wandered around checking to see if they had any of the appliances that had made it into what we thought was our final cut. While we were looking at washers, the pager went off, so we headed back up front. A thin lady introduced us to our spiky haired saleman.

“Jon?”

“Yes?”

“This is Douchy McDouche. He’s going to help you today.”

“Great, thanks.”

“What can I do for you today?”

“Well, we…”

[To someone over my shoulder] “Huh? No way, man. I’m finished. Done. Cooked.”

[Back to staring at me]

“Well, we’re outfitting a renovation with all new appliances, so we’re looking for [specific stove type and color], [specific fridge type and color], [specific dishwasher with model and color], and a washer / dryer pair, probably [specific brand and model].”

He walked us over to the dishwashers and sort of pointed at them. No sales pitch. No description. Just half answers when asked. You know what, salespeople? Give me the fucking pitch. I’ve heard about the dishwasher from a bunch of salesmen, but give me the fucking pitch anyway. Tell me about the cycles. Tell me about the water usage. I don’t care if you simply tell me that the fucking thing has a water squirter inside that makes the dishes clean. Just show me you know something about the product.

After standing in silence in front of a dishwasher for what seemed like an eternity, I suggested we move on to fridges. The salesman led us to a brown fridge that was both the wrong type and color that we had described to him maybe five minutes before. I know that people make mistakes, but I could feel #1GF!’s eyes burning a hole in my head, so I reiterated what we were looking for. The salesman then took us up the stairs into another room, yelling to the resident cook on the way like we were at a frat party and he was leading a drunken co-ed up to a secluded room.

I don’t expect salespeople to retain everything I say and treat me like my sale will make their career, but if the salesman doesn’t have the mental capacity to retain what I’m looking for for five minutes, I at least expect him to make up for it with a small amount of professionalism that suggests that he is at least interested in the sale. This guy wasn’t doing either. Strike one.

When we arrived at the next fridge he wanted to show us, it was not only still the wrong type, but it was blue. We said that we weren’t interested, and you could see the inkling of irritation floating behind the sales exterior. #1GF! and I shared a “Fuck this. Time to go” look, but I was hoping that the guy would eventually listen to us and show us something in one of the categories we were looking for. Instead, he took us to a mammoth fridge that cost $3200. I told him it was out of our range, and he told us that our choices were “boring”. Maybe they are, but I don’t think that’s something you say to a customer. Strike two.

#1GF! was past the point of done, but I still was trying to get the guy to sell us something. I don’t understand why he wouldn’t let us buy something from him. Next, I tried to get him to suggest a washer to us, but he just flopped around like a fish on the deck. If we liked it, it was good. If we asked about something else, that was good. When he suggested that a washer won the best buy for some magazine, we showed him the magazine where Consumer Reports said that it wasn’t very good. He refused to waiver. It was still good. Even though we knew they weren’t, all washers were equal in features and benefits in this guy’s eyes. The only negative piece of advice that he offered was that one of the washers on our list was a “waste of money” and only good “if you’re a 72 year old lady who can’t bend over.” I wish I had made up a back problem, but I wasn’t fast enough and was still hoping that this guy would give us some information on something.

Like a glutton for punishment and without a single scrap of information in hand, I suggested we look at stoves. We told him what we were looking for, and he showed it to us. No commentary. No helpful information. Nothing. Then, almost in mid-sentence and as if our session had expired, he said, “Well it sounds like you have some decisions to make.” and walked away. Half of me was pissed at having wasted our time, and half of me was relieved that he was gone. So long, Douchy McDouche. Strike three.

As we walked out, #1GF! said, “You know it’s a shame that guys like that will ruin business for them.”

“True. I’ll never go back there. That guy sucked. But now we know.”

We went home and cooked some pasta and sat down to try out this series called “Heroes” on Netflix on demand. They have two seasons available, and we plowed through episode after episode because it was so good. And randomly throughout the night we would each say, “Man, that guy sucked.”

What I Learned

• Heroes is really good.
• Yale Appliance sucks.
• Chicks cry over mushy stuff even when it’s not to them.
• I can eat chicken soup every night for dinner and be happy with it.
• I think I’m getting better with the art stuff.
• Hollister is like waiting in line at Gay Disney.
• Some stoves have a “Sabbath mode” to allow observant Jews to serve warm food on the sabbath or religious holidays. I guess that observant Jews are allowed to use electricity that is already on, but not allowed to turn a stove on or off on the sabbath. I had no idea.
• There is no experience like going to breakfast with your barber.
• There are good salesmen and really bad salesmen.
• Chicks dig mixtapes even if they’re corny.
• If someone will drive to pick up an old man they don’t know and take him to a haircut, the world isn’t such a bad place.
• Writing makes my beard look crazy.

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