02/07/99
Pickle

As I have mentioned before, Sonya and I go to the same place to get our hair cut. Sonya gets her nails done there, too.

So yesterday we both went and got a haircut and Sonya got her nails done. The total bill? A hundred bucks! How 'bout that! Thats a lot of fuckin' cash for a haircut and some acrylic.

We do look good, though. They do good work.

Afterwards, we went to Memphis Comics and Records, a pretty cool store. I bet you can figure out what they sell, can't you?

So we're browsing around and I'm looking at these guys who are in there. Geeks, stoners, longhairs, fatties - you've seen 'em. I'm not passing judgement on them or anything, but you could tell these weren't the most socially gifted of people. They'd probably never kissed a girl.

And there's my wife, sifting through the racks, yelling at me, "hey, Harold, where's the Death stuff? Do they have any? I still need number two from the first series!"

If looks could maim I would have left that place in a basket. I'm so lucky.

Still later in the day (we did a lot of shopping) we found ourselves at Betty's Resale, the premiere resale/stripper/drag queen clothing location in Memphis.

The front half of the store is devoted to all manner of fabulous clothing: six-inch heels, sexy dresses, boas, vinyl...you get the idea. I've been in there lots of times, though, and I've never seen the dancer/transvestite demographic they obviously cater to.

Yesterday, though...

Sonya leads me down one of the aisles to show me a pair of boots. At the end of the aisle, in front of a three-sided mirror, a girl was trying on a dress. I thought it was high schooler trying on something for the prom.

I was totally mistaken.

She turned around and faced me. The girl was a total knockout. Flawless skin, hair elegantly upswept, expertly toned body...and the dress was not something you wear to prom. I could see all but her nipples and it was cut low in every place that it could be cut low and still allow her to be out in public. The eighteen-hole Doc Marten's she had on were pretty cool, too.

Sonya heard her say, "I cain't dance in them spiky heels."

I'd tip her.

So we were browsing through the stripper clothes. Sonya would look at a particularly exciting outfit and my jaw would hit the floor with a satisfying clonking sound.

"I would give you money if you'd wear this stuff," I told her.

Sonya picked out a nice black boa and we got in line. In front of us was an interesting couple. The guy had that little black-gay-man-ponytail ponytail and the "girl" was about a foot taller and twice as wide as the guy.

"Did my make-up come in?" she asked the clerk in a deep, rumbling bass.

We got up to the counter and the lady checked us out. The boa was a touch over fifteen dollars.

"That's a good price for a boa," I said, a little half-smirk on my face. I actually don't do that much comparison shopping for boas. However, a lot of people don't pick up on my (admittedly subtle) sense of humor.

"It really is," the clerk said, stuffing the boa in a bag, "some places'll charge you that much for one a them lil' ones with just three feathers on it."

As she rang in up, she said to herself, "would that be in miscellaneaous? No, that would be exotic."

We got in the truck and I said, "congratulations, Sonya! You just bought a piece of exotic clothing!"

"Are you gonna give me money now?" Sonya asked.




We had horrible weather last night. Sonya and I went to bed about one. I immediately passed out...

...and was awakened by gale-force winds pounding against the bedroom window. The wind was blowin' so fuckin' hard the shades and the blanket pinned over the window were blowing around over the window. The closed window.

Sonya got up and turned on the TV. We had an everything warning.

The wind slacked off, though, and we went back to bed. Bring that nasty-ass weather on! We are not afraid.




I went down to Beale Street earlier to get some cash. The smell of Beale Street is unmistakeable: beer and piss and fried food. It smells like a party.

Sonya and I used to go down to Beale all the time when we lived there; to eat or to drink or to just walk and see the tourists and the guy with the cross. Now, though, we live on the other end of Downtown and only make it for a concert every now and then. Besides, it's all tourists now, compared to a few years ago when the fate of the whole Downtown area was still in question.

It's one more thing that makes this town great, though.




So I was at the drive-thru at Wendy's, waiting for some sammiches. This kid walks out of the door by the drive-thru, looks around, and flings something into the parking lot, just beside my truck.

It was a pickle slice.

I guess the kid didn't like pickles.




Introduced in the Tennessee legislature Friday: a bill that would let people eat roadkill.

Said one state legislator: "If people are gonna wreck their car when they hit a deer the least they should be able to do is take it home and eat it."

Great. Jay Leno has material for his monologue tomorrow. If we're going to do shit like this no one should get mad when people think Tennesseans are hillbillies.





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