It should come as no surprise that I live a pretty isolated life. I compartmentalize every aspect. The job doesn’t touch the personal life. The radio show is its own entity. Through it all, there is one constant.
TiVo.
My little friend. Every night, he greets me with his red and his green eye ready to serve up a little slice of television. I sit down in my easy chair and I watch. And watch. It’s nice to not use your brain once in a while.
Well, it’s always nice to not use your brain.
So I’m a tad isolated. Now sometimes I mix it up. Sometimes I, oh, say update a website. Or I write more e-mails. And then, more. It all adds up to sitting in my little fortress and trying not to venture out if at all possible.
Not that people don’t try to coax me out of my comfort zone. The last attempt involved some llamas and we all remember how that turned out (http://www.timkretschmann.pageantcast.com/2004_12_01_timkretschmann_archive.html and then Go to Llamas Scare Me in late December). I’m just not the adventurous sort. Roller coasters are one thing, but people scare me.
So, anyway, I made yet another resolution–actually same as last year. I nearly hit the mark last year, but I need to stay on this one. See, I made a deal with myself to get out of the house to the following tune. Each month I must go see one movie…in public. Each month I must go to the mall for no less than two whole hours with each visit constituting at least one hour.
Sounds easy, right?
Not for me.
I generally don’t get to either of them until we’re deep in the twenties of the month. I just hate it. Can’t stand going to the mall, when I know I can get a better price online. And the movies? My home setup is better than 78% of the theaters out there so why pay so much to see a movie once–and not even own the DVD?
It’s rough.
Well, I tried the other day. And it did not go well. But you knew that because these little missives are very rarely about a good time that was had.
I go to Southridge. (Cue someone to say: “So you’re the one.”) There’s a good reason. Though I’ve lived on the south side my whole life, when I go to Southridge, no one knows me. Whenever I go to Mayfair, some old German club member sees me or someone I worked in Hell with or something. It’s scary but I would say the rate is over 78% there, which is very close to the over/under on my movie theater quality.
So I go to Southridge. Like everyone, I have a favorite spot to park. My mom was always a JCPenney parker. She went down in that lower parking lot by JCPenney and we always went in by JCPenney. I can’t tell you the last time I bought something at JCPenney, so I park where dear old Dad always parks–by the Sears.
See, Sears has things I actually buy. Like electronics. Like tools–for installing electronics.
And a weird thing has happened in the months leading to Sears being acquired by K-Mart.
I’ve bought clothes.
Used to be I got clothes twice a year. Birthday. Christmas. It was a good system. Mom bought the clothes, thus I knew they would be tasteful and usually kind of stylish. Or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Well, it took being out of the house for the better part of a decade and an unfortunate shrinking problem with my wardrobe that I had to go buy some clothes.
The stuff at Sears was generally stuff I liked. First of all, and this is important, it was pretty cheap. Lord knows if I liked a shirt that had a $30 price tag on it; that was a non-starter. That’s two previewed DVD’s at Blockbuster, not a friggin’ shirt. Get real.
I bought a shirt for $40 once. Once. And now I can’t find the damn thing.
Yeah, that’s not happening again.
Ever.
So I found some nice dress slacks, but because my body doesn’t retain a single shape for more than a week, I thought I better try it on. I resented having to do this, but the slacks were like $15 so I had to try.
I hate changing rooms. The thought of undressing in a public place isn’t exactly a dream of mine…to be sure. The thought of changing my clothes behind a two-inch slab of particle board in my bare feet with pins jutting out of the rug at every angle while an overweight black woman called out to her two sons to “Come out here so I can see it” wasn’t my idea of a party. Just isn’t. Wasn’t. Never will be.
But that’s exactly the situation I was in. I had dropped trow when this 500 pound woman comes back by the little cubes (they look unnervingly like toilet stalls to me) and started pushing back the little curtain on some of the entrances to see if her little darlings were back there.
And she was working her way back.
Now, I could have sounded like a complete geek and shouted out, “Hey! Don’t come back here. I’m not your son and I’m changing.” That actually seemed a little too cowardly, even for me. So I tried to ignore it.
I took the pants off the hanger next to me, knowing full well if they didn’t fit, there was no way I’d get it back on the hanger that neatly again, and commenced to pull the pants up. They were a tad tight, so I kind of hopped as I pulled up. I did that once. Twice. Successful on both hops. It might actually get up around my waist with a little perserverence.
And apparently balance.
On the third hop (could have been the fourth, but third sounds better, eh?), I hopped up, came down on one of them little pins in the carpeting, and lost my balance toppling me through the curtain. With pants halfway up my legs, I laid on my side, and looked up at the largest expanse of black woman I’ve ever seen at what must not have been the most attractive angle available.
I’m getting a flashback and it’s making me shudder.
I just looked up sheepishly as she looked down at me in astonishment. I simply smiled and asked, “So, find your kids yet?”
Sincerely,
Captain Catastrophe