Kerosene Bot

Tonight after work, I drove out of my way to go to a gas station and take this picture, because I think it’s one of the coolest robots I’ve ever seen. No, not a kerosene pump. A ROBOT. And I won’t let anyone tell me different.

I Can’t Go Shopping Anymore

Grocery shopping has become problematic lately. I hate shopping anyway. Clothes shopping, grocery shopping, shopping for anything. I know what I’m after, I get in, and I get the hell out. It’s a Y-chromosome thing. But I realized the other night that late night grocery shopping at Wal-Mart is a whole different kind of adventure. Recently my day job became a night job (change of hours) and then a day job again, but I still don’t get off till nearly 8:00pm. The other night after I got off work, I had a few errands to run and then decided to stop by Wally World to pick up some groceries. As much as I hate to support that particular bastion of American excess and ugliness, it’s the only place in town where I can get a pound of hamburger meat (and not that cheap, 30% fat crap) for under $4.00.

One of the things I needed to get was spaghetti sauce. Can someone please tell me at what point did shopping for spaghetti sauce become like shopping for cough syrup? There’s like 627 types of sauce out there.

I stood there staring at the shelves like a gaping mouthed moron trying to decide which way I was going to go. Do I want mushroom? Garlic? Mushroom and garlic? Onions? No onions? Italian herbs? Regular herbs? No herbs? There was even one jar proclaiming in a big, wavy banner on the front that it was “Marinara”. Isn’t it all marinara? I ended up going with what sounded the best to me: garlic. You can never go wrong with garlic. I’d never make it as a vampire. I’d put garlic on my Frosted Mini-Wheats if I had half a nerve.

Going through the checkout line was another exercise in awkward. You usually have plenty of down time when you’re going through the checkout line at a Wal-Mart because despite the fact that they have 27 lines in the place, they never have more than 3 open at any given time. This results in plenty of time to pretend like you’re not looking in the cart in front of you. But you know you are. The guy in front of me was shopping for nothing more than 7 packs of boxers. That’s it. Just 7 packs of undies, 3 to a pack. What was that situation all about? Was it just time for a general re-stock/replacement? Had his laundry gotten stolen somewhere? You know what, I’m calling it. Anything other than those 2 explanations is going to be weird. Anything. Those are the only ones I’m accepting. Although I’m dying to know. And you know you are too.

So that was the story with “guy in front of me in line”. But I know you’re dying to know what was going on with “girl behind in me line”. Sometimes when I go to the grocery store, I’m not just shopping for pork chops. I’ll admit that I’m “checking out the scenery”. But I can’t flirt with a girl when she’s got a buggy (I’m in the South and that’s what we call them down here) full of groceries. I have a constant fear that I will glance into her buggy and see what she’s got. And I just know that in my attempt to look at her and smile, while glancing quickly at her buggy, it will be on the one day that’s she’s out shopping for “special lady products”. And now suddenly we’ve gone from having a cute story to tell at our wedding reception one day about how we met at the grocery store to me just being the weird pervy guy who made her feel uncomfortable because in between awkward grins, I was staring at her uh…you know…stuff. So, I gave the buggy a once-over when I was sure she wasn’t looking, and then flashed her a polite smile and a look dead in the eye that said, “I’m just being polite because we looked at each other for a fraction of a second, but I’ll hold it just a little longer just in case…See anything you like here?…No? Ok, well the guy with all the boxers is done now, so I guess I’m up. Oh, and after I pay and I’m about to walk away and you’re bending over your buggy to put everything on the counter, I’m probably going to be checking our your ass. Just thought I’d give you a heads up. Later.” God, my awkward smiles don’t know when to shut up.

One last thing. As I was heading out the door, I overheard the following conversation: A lady was stooped over a trash can and digging in it. An elderly man was just walking in and she looked up and asked him if he could help her because she, and I quote, “dropped her $12 bill in there.” Part of me wanted to stick around for a couple of seconds to see how this played out, but I just kept on walking to the car. I’d dealt with enough already.

The Ross Scale

This is a place holder. I realized the other day that I’ve been lazy lately and have ignored this place at a time when one should not be ignoring blogs. I mean, it’s nearly Christmas for crying out loud. It’s not like I don’t have things to talk about. So, before I start going off on decorations, music, and that fat pervert who still owes me a G1 Soundwave, I’ll give you this early Christmas present: The story of how DJ D lost his game.

By “game”, I mean my ability to pull the ladies. Now, don’t get me wrong. I do alright, but even I have my off days. Friday was one of those days. What follows is my account of my failed attempt to “dip my pen in the company ink”, as it were.

I was standing in line behind this cute girl at work the other day in the cafeteria. It was taco day. I noticed she had a bow in her hair that had a skull in the middle of it. I’ve also noticed her around. After staring at it for a few minutes, I said something like, “Hey, I like your skull.” For some god-awful reason, I felt the need to point at my skull as I said it.

“Oh, uh, ok…thanks”. She turned back around.

A few minutes pass by and I realize that she probably thought some weirdo just complimented her on her actual skull. So, I decided to dig the hole deeper clarify.

“I meant, I like your bow thing…with the little skull.”

“Oh, thanks.” She turns back to the taco meat.

More time passes.

“I mean, not that your skull’s not nice too. I’m sure it’s fine. I just didn’t want you to think I was talking about it. But the skull’s nice too. I mean, the real one…And the bow.” By this point, I can see the look in her eyes is saying that she really wishes that this line would move a little faster.

“Your hair’s nice…”

Oh, the humanity. Someone just make it stop.

All I could think about was the time Ross flirted with the pizza girl and I tried to grade what I was going through on a scale of Worse Than Ross or Better Than Ross. She ended up just ordering a side of rice. I don’t know if that was her plan all long or if she abandoned tacos altogether in an attempt to just get out of there faster. At least I wasn’t talking about gas.

The 2011 Halloween Punkin Carving!

By the time you read this, Halloween will have been over for over a full day and then some, and I will be curled up in the bed that sits behind me as I type this, dreaming of Alison Brie and strawberries. But for the next few minutes, I’m fulfilling a promise to myself that before this season was over, I would write my yearly punkin carving post. Sure, I’m getting it in a little over the wire, but who gives a care. Yesterday was Halloween and in my mind, it’s still the season of the witch until I hit the sack…at 5:00am on Nov. 2nd.

And so, since I’m trying to get this knocked out as quick as possible, and because I decided to make the ridiculous decision to combine all my pictures into neat little squares, I’m just going to get on with the show. Somehow I had it stuck in my head that since I started this blog in 2008, that I had written a pumpkin carving post every year. Right now is where I would have included a link to each of them. Turns out I only did it that one time. Samhain and lack of sleep can have a weird affect on your brains.

Right, so just like last time (and all those other times that I thought I wrote about), my punkin carving ritual involves me going over to my cousin’s house, me drawing up some super complicated design that takes me forever, and my cousin just taking a giant knife to his and hacking the crap out of it after only 5 minutes. And yes, my victim here was old Stemmy that I discussed in the last post.

So here’s the picture show. Mine is the pointy toothed, grinny one, and his is the one with triangle eyes and square teeth. I’d elaborate, but I’ve got pictures to resize and insert and I’m starting to nod off over here.

I even made a little vidja! If you listen close, you can hear my cousin yelling something in the background a couple of times.

This post was supposed to be even longer. I took a total of 15 pics that were going to be involved, some of which were taken at my workplace involving severed limbs, a chainsaw, copious amounts of fake blood, and enough spider webs to keep Party City in business. But, I think I’ve made it clear exactly how late it is. So, in the interest of brevity, just use your imaginations and picture a haunted house throwing up all over a bunch of cubicles, lit by stale neon lights, and you’ll get the picture.

I will leave you with one final image though. I was recruited to participate in a punkin carving contest. I lost and I’ll forever be bitter about it. It might just be my someone-stole-my-stapler-for-the-last-time-and-I’m-going-to-burn-down-the-building moment. They actually had a 15 point system by which they judged them, and I got 2 out of 15 points. Two. Two fucking points. For this.

Whatever. Hey, I’m about to hit post on this thing and it’s 5:00am, Nov. 2nd. You know what Nov. 2nd is?…

MY BIRTHDAY!!! Gaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!

I have bought…THE PUNKIN.

Soon, my precious. Soon.

I Did A Stupid Poster Thing

I’m grateful to be gainfully employed. I really am, but my day job is…well, it’s not exactly my life calling. But I guess there could be worse things. For the most part, I get paid to sit in front of a computer and occasionally get up and mess around with other computers and printers and things. I work in IT during the day. That’s about all you need to know. I do pride myself on a certain air of mystery, after all.

So, when one of the supervisory types came round today and wanted to recruit some people for a, get this, poster contest, guess who jumped at the chance to spend an hour or so not teaching idiots how to set up their wireless networks. They were specifically looking for people who have some sort of artistic talent or ability. Apparently every department would submit one poster and they would all be judged. I don’t even know what the winners would get. All I know is that it would mean I could get away from my desk for about an hour or so.

So the recruits were myself, some chick I don’t know who had no artistic ability at all, but was just looking for an excuse to not do any work, and the nerdy guy that sits next to me who spends most of his time reading Robert Jordan books and drawing Dragon Ball Z characters into his sketch book. At least I have someone at work who I can talk to about the twists and turns of the Wheel of Time series. It’s nice to have a fellow Jordanite on my team.

So we set about our work, and I use the term “work” lightly. Lazy Girl came up with some convoluted concept that involved putting stars all over the poster and having them all represent something, ultimately coming together into a bigger star that represented the client, or some other nonsense. I was distracted the whole time she was explaining it because she kept drawing all of the stars as The Star of David, only I don’t think she knew what a Star of David was. The plan was, she would draw the simple stuff (unintentional religious symbols and lettering), and the anime nerd and I would take care of the real work. The real work, by the way, consisted of me drawing a picture of a printer and him drawing a picture of a person sitting at a desk typing.

I guess I should mention now that the supervisory type only told us about this thing at 2:00, but said that it absolutely had to be done by 3:00, even though they’ve known about this thing all week. Well, we knew that wasn’t going to happen. Lazy Girl kept ducking out and running back and forth to her desk and pretty much disappearing for long stretches at a time. So, Anime Nerd and I just decided to take pages from his sketchbook and work on our individual parts separately, and then we’d just cut them out and tape them onto the larger poster paper later. But, our scheduled lunch breaks were coming up, so that killed about 45 minutes. Then they came to us and said it had to be done by 4:00. Some more work stuff got in the way, yadda, yadda, yadda….

Long story short, somewhere around 4:45, I found myself standing in front of a printer, frantically sketching a picture of it, while Anime Nerd was frantically drawing what can only be described as an amputee with a bionic implant growing out the side of his face. Lazy Girl was flipping right the f**k out, throwing stars everywhere. I kept poking my head around the corner, watching the judges as they actually were in the middle of judging the poster contest while we were still in the process of coloring and taping. We ran over there and submitted it just in time to see them hanging the winning ribbon on the winning poster. You know what, I don’t even care. The whole deal was such a clusterfudge from start to finish that all I cared about at that point was that I spent the better part of 2 hours away from my desk eating lunch and playing with color pencils.

The sadness you see before you is the final result. Don’t ask me to explain it. I didn’t understand the concept the first time she came up with it, and I don’t understand it now. All I know is that I was in charge of drawing a frigging printer. (Note: You might want to click on all the pics here to get bigger versions. They’re kind of light and contain a lot of fun details that you can’t see in these smaller versions.)

Here’s a better shot of my handiwork. That’s the result of about 30 minutes of sketching, a dull pencil, and using a folded up piece of paper as a ruler/straight edge. If I cared more about it, I’d be really ashamed. Believe it or not, I occasionally earn a little money on the side by drawing portraits. I wouldn’t even hang this thing on the refrigerator.

But you want to know the worst part? After all our hard work, Lazy Girl’s near aneurysm over how her stars were going to turn out, my constant drawing and redrawing of that stupid printer, not to mention Anime Nerd’s…whatever that is…THIS thing, concocted by someone over at the customer service department, was the winner of the contest.

Bullshit.

Forget Wendy. Meet Cadillac.

I’ve been on a major Waffle House kick lately. I don’t know what’s gotten into me, other than I cannot resist their chicken sandwiches and hash browns. A couple of posts ago, I introduced you to Wendy. If you haven’t read that yet, do some clickin’ and some readin’ and come on back. I haven’t seen Wendy since that fateful night, although I have revisited that specific Waffle House several times. In fact, it’s kind of a regular Friday night thing for me. I find myself sometimes on Friday nights stopping by the only bar in town that I give a crap about, having a few drinks, making a tipsy dial or two, and stopping by The Awful Waffle, as we call it down here. And that’s really the only time to go to one. You’re not going to get the full experience at 3:00 in the afternoon. Now, 3:00 in the morning, after you’ve had a few, that’s the time to go.

And that’s the time when you’ll meet the subject of this post — Cadillac. No, not the car. The star. Keep reading.

First of all, I was impressed with my parking skills as I pulled in the other night. Check it out.

Good one.

I walked in the other week hoping to revisit Wendy, but instead was met by a whole other brand of crazy. I sat at the counter and was greeted by a lady with a giant grin and a larger than life personality. She didn’t introduce herself, but I heard the other two people there refer to her as “Cadillac”. I’m not questioning anything. It’s Waffle House. This shit’s par for the course. I didn’t recognize her, but somehow we struck up a conversation. Or, I guess I should say she started up a conversation. Cadillac seemed like she’s never met a stranger and knew all the customers by name. I only wish I could have gotten the entire encounter on camera, but I did get some of it. We’ll get to that later.

At some point the conversation turned to her schedule. I asked her when she got off, and she said in a few hours. It was then that she realized it was Friday and that she was about to start her weekend. She celebrated by singing, “Fuuuuu-uck!” While “raising the roof”. Yes, as in lifting her hands in the air, and waving them like she just don’t care. I guess now would be a good time to mention to those of you not familiar with Waffle House, that the normal rules of decorum and language go out the window as soon as you walk in the door. This is the case for every one you go to. You’ll be greeted with the nicest, most polite, most attentive waitresses you’ve ever met in your life, but they will have the mouths of sailors on shore leave.

I figured while she was in good spirits, now would be a good time to ask her about Wendy. I’d love to get her take. I’ve only had one encounter with Wendy and I haven’t seen her in there since, so I was thinking maybe she quit. So, I asked Cadillac what she thought of her or if she ever worked with her. Her response:

“Oooooh! Oh, that bitch!? Oh, she’s a winner. She thought she was going to be the main bitch around here, but I had to set her straight. There’s only one main bitch around here, and it’s Cadillac. Let me tell you right now!” She then proceeded to go into a witch-like cackle that would chill you to the bone. I don’t know what the hell happened to Wendy, and I don’t think I want to.

Right about now, I was thinking, if I’m going to catch her on video, now’s the time. So, I convinced her to let me just turn my phone on, and talk a little bit. I was curious about the name “Cadillac”, and more specifically, what was going on with her name tag. I had noticed that it actually read, “UNKNOWN”. The result is below.

Of course, I had to get a pic of the actual name tag itself. Sorry about the flash over part of the words. As you can see, it actually does say, “UNKNOWN” and “I WEAR DEPENDS”.

Folks you can’t make this stuff up.

But, the story doesn’t end there. Let us fast forward to last night. I was driving in from Columbia after doing my radio show. The show ran about an hour long, and I was pretty worn out. About half way into my trip, I decided I wanted to stop for some hot chocolate. I saw a Waffle House sign, and figured that would be the place to go. They usually have pecan pie, and I had a craving for that too, so that clinched it. Something you need to know about the South, is that Waffle Houses are like churches and girls named “Britney”. There’s one every four feet.

So, I walked up, sat at my usual spot at the counter (all Waffle Houses are the same), and ordered a slice of pecan pie and a cup of coffee (they were out of hot chocolate — crap!). This time, I was just there for people watching. I wasn’t going to be hanging out very long because I was in the middle of a long trip, and in the car I was actually kind of wrapped up in an episode of Coast to Coast AM on AM radio. I am an enormous Coast to Coast AM fan and Michael E. Uslan was being interviewed. He is the executive producer for every single Batman related movie, not to mention the animated series. He’s also a noted comic book authority, writer, and author of The Boy Who Loved Batman. He’s pretty much responsible for every piece of Batman related media that you’ve seen in the last 20 years, and I really wanted to get back to the car so I wouldn’t miss anything. If you’re questioning why that was so important to me, you clearly don’t know me that well.

As I scarfed down my pecan pie, my waitress ran around refilling cups and things. I noticed the other waitresses referring to her as “Little Bit”. At one point, she leaned up against the counter in front of me, with her back turned to me and her ponytail in my eye line. I also noticed that she had some kind of tattoo on the back of her neck, but couldn’t make out what it was because her hoody was covering up most of it. So, I asked her. The conversation ran thusly:

“So, what’s your tattoo on your neck?”

“It’s my name. You wanna see it?” She turned back around and lowered the hoody. I noticed it was something written in Arabic. “It’s my name. It’s in Arabic.” She pronounced it “uh-RAY-bic”.

“What’s your name?”

“Heather.”

“Is that so you won’t forget it?”

“Well, I can’t see it.”

“Oh, I guess it’s so other people will know. I mean, if they speak Arabic.” I pronounced it Arabic.

“It’s supposed to be a conversation piece.”

“Well, looks like it’s working.”

“You want some more coffee or something?”

I should have asked to see her name tag.

White Trash Halloween

It’s finally about that time.

I saw my first official Halloween commercial on TV yesterday. It was for Party City and had a bunch of nitwits dancing in costumes to some shitty cover of “Thriller”. I don’t care. It’s everywhere now. Target’s a little disappointing this year, but at least they’re in full on rubber bat mode. This is my time. The time of year when the rest of the world tunes their brains to the same infernal frequency that mine is locked into 666 days out of the year. The signs are in the autumn air and the lawn decorations are creeping up. And how.

I live in the south and let me tell you something right now. If there’s one thing that rednecks like to do it’s to demonstrate to you exactly how much useless shit they have by putting it out in the gee-dee front yard. In short, rednecks love to decorate outside for holidays. And that is why we’re here today. The other day after work, I decided to make a Halloween run. I hit up Target and a couple of the other smaller stores to see what was out and if I could snag any good deals. It was kind of a last minute decision. I was actually already in my neighborhood, about 2 turns away from my driveway, when I decided to turn around and head out. That was how I ended up in the other side of the neighborhood. No, it’s not the rough area so much as it’s the…well…mobile area. And that’s where I spotted this vision. You may want to click it to get the bigger version. You don’t want to miss anything this baby’s got to offer.

Take a look at this thing. I’m not judging. I’m really not, but you have to wonder what goes through the brains of people. Let’s take a quick inventory. We’ve got a wagon of some kind in the middle there. There appears to be a makeshift bridge leading up the the front porch. On said bridge there may or may not be a chainsaw and weed eater. No, those are not part of the spooky decor. I also like how they obviously had some of that pumpkin “garland” stuff left over and just said, “fuck it, we’ll just string it up next to the door”. And let’s not forget Old Glory. But the best..the absolute best is the star of the show. The pumpkin bush on the left. I’m guessing that’s a bush. I don’t know what that is, but not since I built a Snow Thing, have I seen someone work so hard to make something so sad with so little. Rock on, Trailer Park of Terror. You may not know how to clean up, but at least you’re putting some effort in.

By the way, two trailers down, I saw a front yard with no less than 4 chickens in it, as well as a giant open bag of dog food laid out next to a garbage pail, from which 3 neighborhood dogs were feeding. Yep.

So, after the Trailer Park Tour of Terror was over, I made my way to Target were I was honestly a little underwhelmed. They’re usually the place to be every year, but so far it’s lacking a little something. Instead of revolving around a central theme of zombie butlers and creepy mascot children, this year there are just a few rows of candy and costumes…and that’s about it. Maybe they were just getting started. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and check back later, but I found much more interesting things somewhere else. Right here:

Wilson’s is one of those types of places that Matt writes about sometimes, if we’re lucky. It’s one of those deals where from floor to ceiling, you’re assaulted with a barrage of…stuff. Stuff of any kind in the world. There is very little order or reason to any of it. I saw everything from sewing supplies to fart spray to tiki torches to well, you’ll see. The first thing you need to know is that I have to apologize for the lack of pictures, and possibly dodgy quality of the ones I did take. That place was crawling with not only children, but also employees, coming up to me every 25 seconds to see if I needed anything. I’m sure the fact that I was just walking around shifty eyed with my phone in my hand didn’t help. I was trying desperately to snap any pic I could at all without getting a kid in the shot or getting spotted by one of the 427 people they had working there. The last thing I needed was to get thrown out for being some pedo perv with a weird Halloween kink.

So, this first one was done on the fly and it was the best I could do while pretending to text while getting the stink-eye from the large woman behind the front counter. It probably didn’t help that I forgot to turn the flash off.

You know how I said the place was packed from floor to ceiling? Yeah, I meant that literally. Some areas actually had giant spiders and ghosts and things hanging down just above your head. The isles are incredibly narrow and every square inch is packed with all manner of spooky crap. It’s like a Spencer’s had sex with a flea market. Here was the best I could do at getting a shot of a full isle from a safe distance. Note the South Carolina state flag displayed on the back of that one lady’s shirt. I promise that wasn’t planned.

While making the rounds, I decided to check out the rest of the store, the non-Halloweenified parts. It was there that I found this. Gothic Powder Paint.

                                                    
I don’t know what you’re supposed to do with this, but I’m guessing it involves drawing ceremonial pentagrams in the sidewalk that will eventually be washed away by the tears of Robert Smith.

                                                                                          
In conclusion, my favorite part of the store was this guy.

I’m sorry for all of this.

Going Through Changes

Changes are in the air lately in the life of DJ D. And they are 4-fold: Seasons, Jobs, Gender (calm down, and just keep reading), and Radio:

1) Season Changes — It’s no secret that Fall is creeping up on us and I couldn’t be happier about it. The summers here are horrendous. Absolutely abysmal, and I’ll be happy to see the back of it. The temps here in the summer are usually somewhere between 90-98 degrees in the day and don’t get down much lower than that even when the sun goes down. But lately, even though the days are unbearable, the nights are at least getting fairly cool. Around here, that’s actually progress. Usually, we don’t see what you would call cold weather until right around Halloween, and I can’t wait for it to happen. December and January actually get pretty damn cold though, and while everyone else is complaining about it, I absolutely love it because I appreciate it while it lasts. I know that in a matter of months, I’m going to be bitching and moaning again. My description of our 4 seasons is as follows: Hot, Hotter, Are You Kidding Me With This Right Now?, and Jesus, It’s Cold All Of A Sudden.
But do you know what brings me hope? This:

This was at Wal-Mart the other day, right on the outskirts of the Back To School section. There were no other Halloween decorations around. Just one lone skull, a portent of fun things to come. Of course, by the time you read this, some of the stores will have already started to put things out, but I don’t believe Wally World has. Any day now, though. I’m writing this on the night of Labor Day. As far as I’m concerned, on the day after Labor Day…it’s on.

2) Job Changes — Two weeks ago I started my new job. I don’t know that I have much to say about it, other than I’ve been looking for a while, and I guess I’m relieved to have found something. I had to go through 2 weeks of training, which wrapped up on Friday. I had today off, and tomorrow I go in for my first official day of doing the work. It’s tech support, which means I’ll be spending my days talking to complete idiots on the phone and counting down the minutes to my next break. Yes, I’m happy I finally have a job after nearly a year of looking, but I’m still looking. I may still be doing this a year from now, but I hope not. Right now, I’m just glad to be getting a paycheck, although it’s not much more than I’ve been making on unemployment. I’ll miss my days of laying around, surfing for jobs online, and catching up on Desperate Housewives.

3) Gender Changes — No, not me. Settle down. But it does seem to be around me quite a bit lately. I’ve gotten to this weird point in my life in which I am regularly interacting with not one, but two transexuals. I’ve been driving down to Columbia lately (the reason why is coming up in #4) and while down there, I’ve been stopping by my old place of employment, which happens to be one of the biggest comic book stores in the country. I usually swing by and pick up a few back issues of whatever series I’m reading at the moment, and since it’s usually on a Sunday, the person working at the counter is my old co-worker, Dana. Dana didn’t always used to be Dana though. When I worked there, she was David. David was always an odd bird. He was just a tad on the feminine side, tended to wear women’s blouses to work, and feminine earrings. I thought nothing of it until I saw him at my favorite dive bar one weekend in full drag. He was introducing himself as Dana and wouldn’t answer to anything else. I don’t know if he thought no one would notice, or if he was just trying out being female for a while. Either way, it was a preview of what was to come. Of course, looking back, the thought of anyone dressing in drag at that particular bar wasn’t all that weird. He was hardly the first one and the bar hasn’t been voted “Best Place to People Watch” in the local paper for a few years in a row for nothing.

I stopped working at the store shortly after that, and actually didn’t see him for a few years. I think he may have stopped working there himself for a while, or just scaled back his hours. Fast forward a few years, and I walked in one day to find some new person working there. Some lady that I only saw from the side. The only thing I noticed was that she had long hair and was, as they say, top heavy. Sure enough it was old Dave, now full on Dana. I don’t know what the deal is with those things, if they’re the result of hormones, surgery, or a combination of the two, but I know a lot of women who were born women who would be jealous. Dana’s alright in my book. She’s always been good for conversation and is seriously passionate about comic books. I’m talking ranting and raving passionate. Sometimes it’s a little difficult to get away from her once she gets on a tear about asshole artists she’s met, or god-forbid, the new DC relaunch. But, that’s another post for another day.

Did I mention, I have two transexuals in my life? Yep, the second one’s at my new job. Her name is Erika (nee Erik), and is not nearly as far on as Dana. “She” is really just a young, effeminate gay man with long hair who identifies himself as female. We’ve all decided to respect it, although she’s not really putting quite as much work into playing the part. But, I do have to respect it. No pun intended, but it takes some real balls to live in the good-old-boy South and not only be a gay man, but decide you’re going to live as a woman, no matter how far along into that you are.

4) Radio Changes — For those of you just joining us, I have been the DJ of a radio show for the past 14 years. Last year, I had to move out of town and for nearly a year now, it’s been off the air. But, about a month ago, I decided that was enough of that, and put in my application to get the show back. It means I have to drive down to Columbia (an hour and a half away from where I live now, in my home town) once a week, but it’s absolutely worth it. During my time off the air, I’ve used Facebook and other online locations to network and promote the hell out of it. I managed to collect over 100 new “Likes” on the Facebook page in the past year, which is pretty cool for a show that wasn’t even on the air and only existed as a collection of old playlists and YouTube videos. I get new “Likes” every day and the feedback on the page has been great. I was just doing it this past Saturday night and got some great feedback from two new listeners in Australia and Ireland, both guys who discovered it online and have been waiting for their chance to finally actually listen. Looks like Facebook is good for something after all. For those of you not in the know and who are interested, here’s all you need to know. I have to give a shoutout to Jugendsehnsucht for designing this kickass flyer:

Dark Entries: Goth Radio
Saturday nights 10pm-Midnight (Eastern)
WUSC 90.5 FM — Columbia, SC
Listen here streaming live at WUSC’s website
The Dark Entries: Goth Radio Facebook Page

Meet Wendy

The other day, I had a craving for Waffle House. Waffle House is an institution around here, and for some reason they build them in 2’s. And, just like Baptist churches, you can find one about every 4 feet. There are 3 within a 3 mile radius of my house. Two of them are so close to one another that you can literally stand in the parking lot of one and look down the street and see the other one. God’s honest truth. But, I don’t want to talk about those two. I want to talk about Waffle House #3. You see, that was where I met Wendy.

I took this picture on the sly as she was zipping around, washing dishes and refilling drinks. I was texting a couple of people while I was there, just telling them about my Waffle House experience and I brought up my waitress. During the course of the meal, I decided she had to be introduced to the world.

I’ve been to this particular Waffle House several times and I’ve never seen the same waitress or cook working there twice. Either they’ve got a large staff that rotates a lot (you rarely ever see more than 3 people working at a Waffle House at the same time anyway), or they’ve got a high turnover rate. I guess that explains why this was my first introduction to Wendy. I never asked her her name, but it was on her name tag. She never asked me mine either, but the second I walked in the door, her first words to me were, “Hey Bo, how you doin’?” For those of you not familiar with life in the south, “Bo” is a term of endearment, and is kind of the redneck version of “buddy” or “dude”. I’ve never once called anyone “Bo”, but have been called “Bo” quite a few times. Wendy apparently likes the name because it was the only thing she called me the entire time I was there, and I heard it about 10 times…

“Hey Bo, you want some more Coke?”
“How you doin’, Bo? You need anything?”
“Dang, it’s hot out there today. Ain’t it, Bo?”

That was just one of the few things about Wendy that made Wendy…Wendy. Wendy looked like she’d not exactly had the easiest life so far. First of all, she only had about 2 teeth in her head. They were on the bottom, and spaced out evenly, one on each side, with a giant gap in the middle. It looked like a 7-10 split.

She was kind of skinny, had obviously spent a lot of time in the sun, and loved her some blue eye makeup. And check out that standard issue Waffle House visor. Well, not so much the visor, but the flair. Oh Sweet Jesus, the flair. Looking back, I wish I’d asked her about it.

When I first sidled up to the counter, she turned to the other lady working there and said, “Hey Mama, you wanna get this one or you want me to do it?” Mama replied, “Go ahead and take it, hon”. Why do I mention this? Well, the plot would soon thicken. A few minutes later, an older gentleman with a cane comes in and sits down. As soon as he walked in, Wendy exclaimed, “Hey Daddy!” Alright, so we’ve got Mama and Daddy on the scene. So far, so good. BUT…about 5 minutes later, another lady comes in and sits down next to Daddy. A patron at the next table looks up at Wendy and says, “Hey Wendy, you know these two rascals?” Wendy replies, “Yeah, you know that’s my mama and daddy”. What’s all this now? How many Mamas are we talking about here? Is this a “Bo” thing, where she just calls everybody “Mama”? I wish I had more answers for you, folks, but The Great Waffle House Mama Mystery will have to be solved another day.

So, that’s Wendy. Now that I think about it, she kind of reminded me of Lil from Squidbillies.

Wendy, you’re alright. Thanks for the hash browns.

Love,

Bo.

 
 
 

And now, for no reason whatsoever, just to end this post, I give you all something else I captured on the sly. My favorite uncle, Uncle Paul, passed out in front of the evening news.