I made a new friend in the restroom at the mall.

I was tooling around at Easton Town Center today when suddenly, I heard the men's room a-callin'. As I was using the water closet, I did as I always do: stare straight at the wall in front of me for the entire duration of the urination session, as to avoid any uncomfortable eye contact with any nearby piss patrons. I did this today, even though I was the only person in the powder room.

Right as I was wrapping up my business, I heard someone walk into the restroom and into the toilet stall, followed by the distinct sound of pee going into the toilet. This was accompanied by an obnoxiously loud sigh of relief that lasted for about twenty or thirty seconds. This poor sap must have really had to go.

As I was washing my hands, I saw him in the mirror as he walked out of the stall and started making his way in my direction, obviously to use the sink next to mine. He was wearing a Buckeyes T-shirt and looked like a common thirtysomething family man. All of a sudden, my Spidey sense started tingling as I thought to myself, "Awww, shit. He's gonna talk to me."

"How's it going?", he asked excitedly as he pumped some soap into his palm.

"Pretty good, and yourself?", I replied.

"Good!", he said, still kinda giddy.

I then started feeling really awkward, and thought that I should add another two cents until he was out of my way, because he was standing right in between me and the hand dryer.

"Yep, just another day at the mall...", I blurted out, wincing at myself as I said it. At this point, I felt totally fucking gay.

But it seemed as though he was thrilled to continue the conversation. He was like, "Yeah, the wife and I..."

Right at that moment, he hit the button on the hand dryer, but just continued to keep on jabbering. I couldn't hear a damn word he was saying, so I just kind of nodded at him every five seconds or so. He said something to make himself laugh as the dryer shut off, so just I kind of humored him with a chuckle.

As he was walking out, he wished me a good day, and I replied, "You too, man, good luck."

He exclaimed, "Thanks! I'm gonna need it!", and busted into a fit of boisterous laughter as he walked out the door.

All things considered, this incident was not quite as uncomfortable as when someone at the urinal next to you tries to strike up a conversation in mid-pee, but it was definitely somewhere in the same ballpark.

Either way, I dried my hands for about ten minutes, just to make sure that some distance would be made between him and me before I was to exit the bathroom.

Although I was a bit curious to see what his wife looks like.

Fear and Loathing at the Post Office.

I usually hit up the Post Office about four of five times a week to ship out all of the crap that I sell on eBay. I always make it a point to go there after closing time, because there is still access to the lobby, which has one of those automated machines that weighs packages and prints the postage, so that you can quickly apply the labels and drop your stuff into the chute. Pretty damn convenient, if you ask me. Of course, you can also use this machine when the place is open, but I always wait until later, because there's always some crazy lady there whose job it is to show people how to use the machine. She'd seen me in there about a dozen times, and tried each time to show me how to use it, even though I had already done so a billion times. I just had to begin to avoid her at all costs. The bitch just gives me the creeps.

When I walked into the lobby, some guy who looked like Larry David was using the machine, so I went ahead took a place in line behind him. Over the course of the ten plus minutes that he was taking to complete his transaction, a couple of girls had joined the line behind me. One of them smelled like a banana, but I couldn't tell which one.

Finally, The guy using the machine took his printed receipt and walked away. I didn't have much to do there, and I was kind of hurrying through it, because having people waiting behind me there always makes me nervous, and besides, the odor of bananas was getting pretty fucking strong.

Right in the middle of my transaction, one of my contact lenses fell right out of my eye and onto the top of my cheek. I grabbed it with tip of my index finger, because I didn't really want something that I press against my eyeball to get stuck to the floor of the Post Office. I couldn't exactly try to put it back in right there, because I wasn't done with my transaction, and there were still people in line behind me. What I always do in a situation like this is to put the lens on my tongue until I make it to a safe spot to put it back into my eye. The problem is that I was chewing on a piece of Juicy Fruit. I swiftly took the wad of gum out of my mouth with my left hand, threw it into a small trash bucket that was right there, and put the lens into my mouth with my right hand. If I do say so myself, it was was a pretty damn smooth move.

I finished up the transaction and quickly headed over to the table behind me to apply the postage to the packages and get the hell out of dodge, only to see that the Larry David guy was back at the end of the line for some reason. As I got the stuff ready and threw it all into the package chute, I could see him out of the corner of my eye, staring at me with a look of utter disgust on his face.

Yeah, well, fuck that guy.

AND the horse he rode in on.

I don't really know where to put this stuff.

Every time I move, which seems to have been several times over the past few years (most recently of which was about a month ago), I always get rid of a whole shitload of stuff first. This time, although I did trash a great deal of baggage, I also threw some of my gear into storage. I paid a visit to my public storage facility today, hoping to straighten it up a bit, trim some of the fat out of it, and maybe even find a thing or two that I might consider worthy of taking home and decorating my new place with.

I actually did accomplish a far sight more than I usually do when I go out there. Every time I'm at the unit, I have every intention of bustin' in there and gettin' my hands good and fuckin' dirty. But most of the time, I just open up the door and stand there looking at all of the stuff in a state of bewildered delirium for a few minutes, only to decide to save this chore for a later date. I then promptly get back into my car and get the fuck out of dodge.

But this time, I did manage to spend an hour or so going through a box or two of my old belongings. here are a few things that I decided to drag along home with me.


A seven-ounce juice glass featuring the likeness of Spectreman, the title character of one of my favorite TV shows of all time. I bought it on eBay about six or seven years ago. Fuckin' score!


A very informative pamphlet that I picked up at the Florida State Fair about ten years ago. I've since given it another read, and I didn't really learn anything that I hadn't remembered from the last time I picked it up. But then, the whole "And What To Do About It" part doesn't quite apply to me, because I don't really have any children of my own, and I'm not going to be out and about at Target and such looking for random kids on drugs, just so that I can feel a bit more intuitive than I actually am for being able to call them out on it.

And finally, this wicked awesome sticker of Lando Calrissian.

No explanation necessary on this one.