The next morning I woke up incredibly early to take advantage of some sweet Early Bird specials at Kohl's (according to the internets the day after Christmas is quickly becoming Black Friday II). So combine that with the everyday low prices of Kohl's and it makes 5 AM on the day after Christmas seem worth waking up for. I got to Kohl's around 6:15 and spent a solid 30 minutes debating how to spend my gift card (jacket, sweatshirt, or a 4th, 5th and 6th shirt that all look the same, by the same brand, just different style. I went with a combo jacket/hoodie, as I fear I will never look normal in a real winter coat. I got a fleeced lined hoodie that will keep my street cred in check. Amazingly, I walked out of Kohl's with $7 still on my gift card (I have self control).
I then proceeded to hang out with the dogs and watch The Simpsons movie on HBO until it was time to go back to my Aunt's house and install an HDTV and TIVO. As part of my sweet manual labor day job, I have learned quite a bit about technology (this is a lie, everything I know about HDTV, I learned from the internet.) Thus I have become the go to guy for the family, which is fine, because for me it's easy, I get treated like royalty ("Oh MY, you know ELECTRONICS? You can match COLORS?" Yes, I can.) and I get paid. So I spent about an hour or so installing an HDTV and HD TIVO for my Aunt and Uncle and then proceeded to drag my mother to the mall so that I could buy a new pair of Vans.
The mall parking lot literally had no spaces. We waited for a solid 15 minutes just to get into the parking lot, while my mother continued to ask "are you sure you want to do this?" Oh, I was sure, as there are no Vans shoe stores within 300 miles of North Carolina (interesting, considering that the local mall has approximately 8 shoe stores - 4 women, 1 Foot Locker and 3 stores that all have sort of abbreviation as a name and sell nothing but Lugz and $200/pair Nikes. I'm not sure, but I feel like that MAY not be my style.)
Once we got into the parking lot, I told my mom to drop me off and drive around while I took 3 minutes to go get a pair of shoes. She pleaded no (apparently wanting to waste as much of my day as possible) and told me she didn't have her license. After trying to subdue the urge to scream "WHO DOESNT ALWAYS BRING THEIR LICENSE WITH THEM?" I calmly explained that the cops who monitor the parking lots aren't real cops, wouldn't pull her over anyway (unless she suddenly got a seizure and just plowed through child after child on the sidewalk) and probably weren't smart enough to read her license in the first place (perhaps give them a Bennigans discount card as a fake?).
I finally convinced her, ran up the escalator to find that the Vans store had two types of slip on shoes: colored and checkered. No patterns, nothing fancy (because I need a pair of fancy slip on sneakers) and so I left. It took me about 5 minutes of running around the parking lot looking for my mother, who apparently found a parking spot and, because I was not looking for a parked car, I totally missed. Then it was off to home to prepare for my evening with my friend Emily.
I had had plans for New Jersey this trip. Reaching out to several friends to hang out in the weeks prior to the trip and securing loose plans (including a friend who I can only get a hold of once a year who, apparently (and braggingly) dates a guy in the band from the iPod commercial "I tried to do handstands for you.") In my 4 days, I saw 2 of these people, making my batting average about .200. One of these people was my dear friend Emily, who I hadn't seen in nearly a year. We were originally going to meet in NYC, but because getting into the city is about as fun as listening to Gavin Degraw yodel, we decided to meet "halfway" in White Plains NY.
White Plains is a city, apparently, with a booming downtown area - complete with a Wal Mart on one side and the richest, fanciest mall on the other. We visited both, but not before I had my first encounter with a "The Container Store," which only sells containers. Fancy containers though, because I know when I'm organizing my old shitty t-shirts or CDs they need to have their own $4,000 coffin. Yeah, I'm not a "The Container Store" fan (also, because it's weird to write "a" and then "The Container Store.")
We visited the mall, which makes you pay for parking (classy) and started walking around looking for a place to eat, it came down to PF Chang's and a Diner. Considering PF Chang's is expensive we chose diner. Wrong choice. I had the honor of having the worst service ever at a restaurant. Below is a quick recap of the errs of the waitress:
- We are seated at a table that has not yet been cleared, including tip money from the last customer.
- Our waitress doesn't even come to get our drink orders within the first 10 minutes of being seated.
- Once she does come, we are not yet ready to order food, which obviously pisses her off and she walks away, bringing the drinks back 5 minutes later. She puts the drinks down without letting us order food and escapes.
- A few minutes later Emily calls her over and we order, but not before she throws (yes literally throws) straws at us after Emily asks, "Could I please have a straw?" (Geez Emily, stop being such a bitch, using please and shit. You think you are better than me with your etiquette? THIS ASIDE HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE MIND OF OUR WAITRESS.)
- The food came out a short time later but sucked. The burgers were dry and of course they cost $10. My thoughts started to lust for $12 sweet and sour chicken.
The diner also had this sweet donut inside. But that's about it as far as enjoyment factor. We then proceeded to walk around the mall which only held stores like "Gucci" and "Ann Taylor" and "Designer I've never heard of." Needless to say, we decided Wal Mart would be more fruitful.
We got Wal-Mart and it was 2 floors! (Oh the city has such great nuances.) With the birth of this 2 floor invention comes the cart escalator. The cart escalator is located next to the regular escalators and works simply: push cart in, it will guide it slowly to the next floor for you. So Emily and I are headed downstairs and the guy behind us is having trouble getting his cart to go down (he doesn't see the "BROKEN" sign or he possibly couldn't read it, as Emily and I were the only white folk in the store.) He pushes the cart extra hard and it comes flying past me, barrels down through the doors at the bottom, designed to stop the carts, and smashes into a 40 something man who just stands there acting shocked as he waits for it to hit him.
It hits him, square on. The combination of the rattling death cart and his thud to the ground will always be engrained in my memory. The man was hit, stumbled back and then possibly thinking he could make a scene, decided to fall and let out a loud groan. This being America, no one offered to help him up and I was just now reaching the end of the escalator, I was about to walk over and help him until I hear "DON'T MOVE. STAY DOWN. YOU CAN SUE!" followed by loud shouts for security. It was quite the site to see and totally made the 3 hour round trip worth it.
Emily continued to stare as I continued to shop and when we went back upstairs 10 minutes later he was JUST getting up (his injury you ask? Embarassment.) Emily and I then proceeded to stand in the 12 Items or Less line for 20 minutes and even pulled off the always risky "switch lines because the other line is moving faster." Normally this doesn't work for me but I guess if an old man can get hit by a runaway metal cylinder, than anything is possible! It's Christmas time!
I then got a call from my Uncle that his new TV was broken and I offered to come look at on my way back from New York. An hour later, I arrive, unplug the Tivo, wait 30 seconds and wait for it to boot up and it looks to be working. I show them how to use Tivo and I quickly scurry back to my parents house. Deciding that I would be leaving the next morning (a full day early) because I couldn't bear sitting in my bedroom, waiting for my friends to call and risking a high school flashback that would surely end in tears and 4 hours spent listening to the entire Dashboard Confessional discography.
Part 4 (The Final Chapter) tomorrow.
Later in the week:
The Time I Went Christmas Shopping
and
The Time It Became 2009
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