man, those kind of peanut butter balls would have made some of my family holiday gatherings a lot easier.
I knew a kid who had been prescribed phenobarbitol in suppository form to control seizures. Now I am retroactively wincing for her…
when I get buttock - leg pain I go to my chiropractor and he fixes me right up, happens a couple times a year to me (sciatic nerve)
So I went to Target to buy a girl’s hair scrunchy for the one-eyed Marquis de Sade and perchance to buy a gaudy neo-Gothic ring. I found the scrunchy easily enough- pink and lavender which matched the Marquis’ manifold pox scars on the mask, and I found a ring I liked but even though it was only $7 (cheaper than some of the ones on the open rack) it was in the locked costume jewelry cabinet, so I called for assistance. After twenty minutes of walkie-talkies and intercom pages and semaphore signals and drumbeats and mouth to ear relays and a miniature “We Think You’re Gonna Like It Here” knockoff number it’s finally determined who has the keys to the display cabinet. One person. “Vonnie” has the keys. Vonnie’s at lunch and won’t be back until 5 and it’s now 4:40 or so. Well, it’s not worth waiting for, I’ve got a lesser Goth skull ring, it’s only for a school function that’ll last an hour anyway, so I go to check out.
The cashier rings the scrunchy and says “You must have a little girl” and I respond “No thanks I just had some ribs” then realize what she means… “oh no, it’s for me…Halloween Costume.”
“You’re going as a little girl for Halloween?”
“No, I’m going as… a weird old man actually.” I’m not going to say the Marquis de Sade obviously because in the first place she won’t get the reference (this is the city in which I drove my Yugo, Victor [that’s Victor Yugo] for years and nobody ever got the reference) and in the second place it’s too much information. She rings up my next purchase, which is a small box of adhesive eyepatches, because I’ve been advised to sleep in them for the weekend since I share a bed with dogs and they’re not sure what’s causing the iritis and it might be infection (which in fact it is). The cashier says “You goin’ as an old man by wearin’ little girl hair kebobs and band aids over his eyes?”
I say “No, no… the hair scrunchy is for me but the eyepatches are for my little girl. I really don’t like her watching so much television. All the sex and violence."
I say it with a smile, specifically one kind of like Jeremy Irons at the end of REVERSAL OF FORTUNE (“Ah, yes, a vial of insulin please…. Just kidding”), but she looks horrified and says, somewhat loudly,
“You gonna cover your baby girl’s eyes so she won’t look at the television!?”
“No, no, no… she’s not a baby. She’s six years old."
Yugo, Victor Yugo, like the author… one day I’ll learn to not be a smartass, however well intentioned. I perhaps should have been a Yugo salesmen because I can say the absolute damnedest things that you wouldn’t think anybody would take seriously and they take them seriously. (Of course I can also relay the gods’ own truth- minimized versions of it even- and be called the damnedest liar in creation.)
“No, I promise, the eyepatches are for me. I have an eye problem. That’s why I’m wearing these granny sunglasses.” (If I haven’t mentioned, I’m wearing really dark clip on sunglasses over my regular glasses at this time, which may seem a bit odd to people in a store, but because my eye is bothering me.)
“Oh… what’s wrong with y’eye?”
“It’s called iritis… it’s like arthritis in the eye… makes it very painful and very bloodshot.”
“Ooh… can I see it?” (This being the woman who thought I was weird for not wanting my non-existent daughter to watch sex and violence, remember.)
“Uh… sure…” and I flip up the sunglasses (because in true Old Southern Woman style they’re the flip-up variety, though that’s not even 1% of why I’m an Old Southern Woman now).
“Oooh… if you’d come in here like that I’d wanted to know where you got yo’r contact lenses cause I like that. Look so real.”
“It is real.” Every time I say “is real” I think of Israel. Specifically I think of a picture of Jacob fitting Joseph with the coat of many colors from The Children’s Bible of my youth. They made Jacob a decrepit old man- since he wasn’t that much older than Leah and Rachel he couldn’t have been but maybe middle aged. Even when I was a kid this bothered me.
“I know it’s real. How long it been like that?”
“Well, this time, about a week. I had it about ten years ago and again about five years ago. I’ve also got a corneal tear they say. Just hasn’t been a good week I’m afraid. I’ll tell you though, if you’ve never had eye problems, these things might be the size of a golfball but they hurt like a basketball… it’ll make you into a baby…” OH MY LOVE/MY DARLING/I HUNGER FOR YOUR TOUCH
UNCHAINED MELODY has been recorded by more than 500 singers and in more than 80 languages and by some accounts was the last song Elvis ever sang in public. One version, not Elvis’s, is playing on the cell phone of the lady not immediately behind me in line but the lady immediately behind her. The lady who is immediately behind me seems politely irked, but I don’t think it’s at the lady behind her’s choice of ring tone.
“Oh, I’m so sorry…” I say, sincerely. "I didn’t realize there was anybody behind me…”
“’s okay hon… I understand you cain’t see too good out that eye…”
“No, I cain’t." I have an annoying pronunciation chameleon quality- I’m truly not intending to be patronizing when it happens. What is patronizing though is the humorless smile of the cashier, which I swear is reading silently “Yessir, thank you for sharing, but I got other customers…”, she who apparently has no memory of just asking to see my bloodshot eye.
So I take my srunchy and my Opticludes and leave the Target. (In case I didn’t make it clear, they were paid for.)
Pity about the ring, but as I said I’ve got one I can use, though it’s a bit cheesy. I get into my car, which is parked fairly close to the entrance, and I’m about to crank the ignition (about the only part of the car I can crank really, especially with one eye, though I actually use a key) when I hear someone say “SIR!” and turn instinctively, for I’ve been called that before.
I turn my head left and what to my functioning eye doth appear but a Target she-clerk with a cell phone clip on her ear. (Actually I don’t know if she had one or not, but you’d have cadence/metrical equivalent of blue balls waiting for the rhyme if not.) She’s standing on the sidewalk outside the entrance and seems to be signaling to me.
“Me?” I say in sign language (I speak a pidgin form of Target), and she sends signals that translate roughly as “Yes…. G-o-o-d G-i-r-l Helen!” and nods her head vigorously, with a smile. Then she gives me a come hither sign that consists of pointing and a crooked finger motioning “come here”. I get out and comply, wondering “did I set off an alarm? I didn’t hear one… but then I am half blind…” and take the bag from next to me and go back to show “I promise, I really do have a receipt”.
“Hi… is there a problem?”
“Oh no, not at all, wadn’t you lookin’ at rangs in the display case?”
“Yes but…”
“Well good news! Vonnie’s back!”
Next time: “Vonnie Key-holder, Vonnie Key-holder, what a beautiful name…”
(urinating my pants in anticipation of more)
He does this on purpose you know…he gets off on knowing we are out here, refreshing, refreshing, refreshing. This time is going to be the one, a new installment. Ok, not this time, so next time, over and over. We are like a bunch of blue-haired ladies in Atlantic City, perched on our stools, punching those buttons, cause this time we are going to get our Sampiro story fix.
Or maybe its more like the monkeys (chimps?) in the studies, who long after the reward is removed, repeat endlessly the steps that used to release the food.
Whatever it is, it ain’t pretty.
Hello, my name is GillianBoarman, and I am a Sampiro Story Slut.
I’m not really sure where I fit in the “body type” slang of teh gays. I’m not now nor have I ever been a twink or a fratboy (two slim and relatively hairless types) or a swimmer (Mike Phelps obviously), and I’m certainly not a jock or a bodybuilder. I used to assume I was a bear, meaning “big burly guy” (specifically it means big, burly, and muscular, like a heavyweight wrestler, but has come to be applied just plain Megabar Variety fatasses who don’t want to self-identify as such, which is closer to the mark with myself). I am overweight (or as the ancient ones of my youth called it, “havvy-sot” or, my favorite, “healthy”- as in ‘Dozier didn’t have enough ass to last him til Tuesday, but his wife was healthy lookin’, got to be so healthy she couldn’t fit in the rockin’ chair")- not immensely so but certainly noticeable (full clothed recent pic- one that I quite like I must admit), and have been muscular but currently and usually am not, but bears are by definition hairy, and I’m not. I have body hair, for I’m a mammal and all that, but it’s very blonde and relatively scant, and since the Sun is my mortal enemy and I never have a tan and usually wear long sleeves in summer I’m whiter than Julie Andrews singing the Blues, so I identified as a polar bear for a while, but then I learned that polar bears are bears who due to age or premature greying have white hair (which really does more sense I’ll concede). So I’m going with “I’m a Silverback”- a potbellied guy with a beard that’s still dark but getting gray hairs but no chest hair.
Vonnie is somewhere between a twink and a fratboy. Looks a bit like Dave Franco(James’s brother, also an actor but without much notice yet) or perhaps a cuter former spokesperson/9-11 hero/potsmoker Ben “Dude, you’re gettin’ a Dell” Curtis (the bottom in this picture- heh heh). Less than half my age- probably 19, possibly 20 or 18, and worlds out of my league, even if he were gay, which becomes an interesting guessing game and I still don’t know if he is or not.
But anyway, more than I am a Silverback, more than I’m a Bear, I’m a man and, gay or straight, men are stupid and completely malleable creatures when something they want to see naked is nice to them. Antipas in the Bible offering Salome half his kingdom comes to mind- if she’d held out another minute she’d have gotten the whole thing plus half the proceeds of a night job her uncle/great-uncle/stepdad Anti would have taken. Instead she settled for the head of the nation’s most prominent Baptist, which I can totally appreciate the sentiment behind but it won’t really take care of her in her old age.)
I don’t have a kingdom and my eye hurt so I just bought more rings than I’d anticipated.
More in a moment- unintentional- work beckons
If they’re the rings in the photos, they’re very nice. And you need to resist your temptation to mess with cashiers - the poor dears can’t help not understanding anything you say. I too have the ability to say the most outrageous things with a dead straight face - one of the reasons I love my husband so much is that he always knows when I’m kidding. Even my family still don’t always know (here’s a hint - if it’s a huge whopper, I’m probably pulling your leg).
ETA: And as coincidence would have it, I have peanut butter balls in my kitchen as we speak!
So Vonnie has a voice that could be Gay (G) or just straight Partyboy §, but whatever it is it’s adorable like the rest of him. Man does he fill out his cute little genes. I wouldn’t have thought anymore than “he’s a cute lil’ thing” if it weren’t for the fact that when he saw me it was like he was coming up to me on the street after running me over with his bike, a repentant sheepish look on his face as he takes my forearm in his hands
(G) +1 § 0
and says “Oh man, I am sooo sorry! I just like completely forgot to give over the keys when I went to break! Sooo sorry! I hope you’re not too upset!” (Well, I was, but I’m sure we can think of some way you can make it up to me.)
“So which rings did you want to see?”
I show him the cabinet.
“Ooh… you do know these are lady’s rings, right?”
"Yeah, but… "
“I know I know, if you like it you like it, wear it, I’m the same way…”
(G)+2 § 0
I try a couple on and remark “actually it’s for a costume.”
“Cool. Are you going Goth?”
“Demented old French aristocrat” I half mutter, trying on the rings.
“Oh no way… Marquis de Sade?”
Vonnie the Key Guy Vonnie the Key Guy, what a beautiful [del]butt[/del]name…
“Yes… congrats. I’d have said Marquis de Sade but…”
“…but I know, no one would know who he is, right? Like, I said the other day something about how I felt like a pariah, and nobody knew what a pariah is! I mean yeah, I know, it’s not a word you hear everyday, but it is a word! Where are you going for Halloween? Got a party?”
“Not exactly…”
“I’m going to one tomorrow night. Some of the dudes in my dorm are throwing it…”
(G) 2 § 1
“and I’ve been planning my costume for like a month and still don’t have it the way I like it…”
(G) 3 § 1
I ask “Who are you going as?”
“The devil.”
(G)3 §2
How disappointingly banal. You can buy a devil costume at Target.
“But… not like the red horns and pitchfork and all… I’m going as Lucifer! The Prince of Light, you know? Morningstar!”
(G) 4 §2
“Oh cool take. The most beautiful of the angels.” (GREAT MOVE JON! OH SHIT I CAN’T BELIEVE I JUST SAID THAT… HOW ABOUT YOU JUST QUOTE FROM IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNEST AND GUFFAW BEHIND A LACED KERCHIEF!)
“Exactly!”
(G) 4.5 §2
“The problem is, I’ve thought of all these ways of trying to convey who I am but I don’t think they’ll get it. Okay, check this out…”
Way ahead of you dear…
“…I’ve got this costume I wore like two years ago, should still fit me… when I went as Cupid at a church play…”
(G) 5.5 § 4
“…you know, white cloth and all…”
“Like a tunic?” I ask, biting my tongue to keep from asking the obvious question of “or like a loincloth that in the past couple of years you’ve grown just enough that it now reveals just a hint of pube and a simultaneously entrancing and agonizing penumbra of firm young buttock yearning to be released from its shroud like confines… cause you know that works better for The Tempter…”, but I just say instead “or like a robe?”
“Well, like a thigh length robe… needless to say I’m gonna have the tightie whities on underneath…”
Thank you Clariiiiiice…
"…but the problem is I can’t figure out how to like, you know, get the costume to say ‘Lucifer!’ instead of just ‘dude in a robe with wings’.
“How about a walker?” I suggest.
“A walker? Like… what kind of walker?”
“Like really old people use… you know… fallen angel?”
“…hu… Oh! HAAH AHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Oooh man, I’m glad I didn’t think of that cause I’d have done it… God, that’s great!”
There is no feeling of accomplishment more vaingloriously appealing than to make somebody you want to see naked laugh and smile.
“But no, I’ve got like some bat wings from this guy who makes fantasy costumes and sells them at Dragon Con…”
(G) 7 § 4
“…that I’m borrowing from my sister…”
(G) 5.5 § 4
“…and that I painted this kind of oxblood red…”
(G) 6 § 4
Wait, he said “oxblood” in relation to a color…
(G) 6.25 § 4
“and for my hair I got this long black wig, like a Cher or Ozzie Osbourne wig…”
Okay… long black wig, but… can’t award a point to either side…
“but I figure the real trick is in the accessories…”
(G) 7 § 4
“…I have a pentagram medallion…”
(G) 7 § 5
“which is a bit too… y’know… obvious…”
(G) 7 § 4
“Pity I don’t live with my mom anymore…”
(G) 7 § 5
“because I’d love to borrow this pin she has of a star bursting light…”
(G) 7.5 § 5
“and I’ve thought of various like make-up things and all, but might have to go with the littlest horns I can find or press on black nails or something. I do have some green cat eye contacts.”
(G) 8 § 5
“Do you have anything that’s made of… or looks like- snake skin?” I ask.
A look of puzzlement for a second and then an epiphanette— “ooh yeah… snakeskin… like a snakeskin belt! Wear it as a sash!”
(G) 9 § 5
“My girlfriend has one that would go around me! Thanks Dude!”
(G)9 §9
Wait… this is Alabama and he’s college age… status quo ante-sash comment.
(G)9 §5
or at least split the difference
(G) 9 § 7
“I’m gonna call her as soon as you leave and ask to borrow it!” Yeah, you do that dear, pehaps it’ll gently prophesy and thus lessen the blow later on when you have “a talk” with her about how it’s not her.
“I wonder where I can get some snake tattoos… okay, now I’m wired… I can paint some snakeskin on with makeup if nothing else… Man, Thanks Dude! You were fate coming in here!” Think nothing of it dear…
Awkward silence.
“I’ll take these two rings here…”
“Good choice. Want me to ring you up.”
“You don’t even have my number do you?”
Perplexed look… “oh… heh heh…”
I put the debit card on the counter by the jewelry register before he can think I’m being too much of a troll. “Man, I’m looking forward to this… gonna plan some tats and do them tonight… soon as I get home…”
He said tats.
(G) 9 § 9
“Of course I have to remember to take them off before church the next day.”
(G) 9 § 10
Wait, this is Alabama…
(G) 9 § 8
Ah, who knows. Didn’t have a chance anyway, but at least it was nice to watch a guy who looks hot even in a Target jacket (and those blessedly tight jeans) laugh and know I did it.
“Well thanks a lot Vonnie… nice meeting you…”
“You too dude! I totally owe you one!”
Oh, you’ve already paid.
So anyway, that’s where I got the rings (the one in the pics) and came one step closer to being the Old Southern Woman I am today (as I will soon demonstrate).
I love the running totals…Nice.
::bouncing in my seat, bouncing in my seat, hey-ho the dairy-o, I’m bouncing in my seat::
[full name said like your momma], you are a big tease.
Oh, great! Now you’ve just scared him out of a year’s growth, though he’d probably thank you for that, given the comments he’s made upthread, he’s going to be feeling neurotic again. Worse, he’s now not going to be able to come back and give us the rest of the story until he finds the phone machine at his work with his Mom’s voice on it! 
You’re a wise man, Sampiro. A very wise one indeed. :adds this to list of maxims learned in this life:
You’re coming back to the thread, right Sampiro? You can’t just leave us hanging like this!
snerk
Sampiro, you may get me in trouble.
Usually I sneak quick sips of the SDMB here at work so as not to be caught by my teleporter of a boss, but this thread has had me reading for ten minutes [del]straight[/del] in a row. Come back, Shane!
Ah, Sampiro, it’s a shame this is a free board now because I would pay happily to be able to read what you write.
Lovely. You have a gift, Sampiro.
erm… Any reason why this is now a pit thread??
Bump! What they asked? 
Wasn’t it always?