A Streetcar Named The Economy

In a brief conversation with a friend earlier, somehow a discussion of the political climate morphed into screaming for Stella. I then thought that it might be an entertaining idea to re-work Tenessee William's, "A Street Car named Desire," to reflect our trying times. Thus far, these are the main characters:

Stella = The American people; pretending nothing's wrong and avoiding the truth. Just trying to make a nice home...

Blanche = The Republican party, The Tea party, Glen Beck et al; unrealistically longing for a kinder more gentile time but, in reality is really kind of soiled and nuts.

Stanley = The ECONOMY; angry and out of friggin' control. He really wants to F*** somebody.

Mitch = President Obama; trying to turn a "ho" of an economy into a housewife. He doesn't quite realize that politely courting a b***h this messed up is kinda useless.

More to come...

Merry Christmas, baby!

The peace of the season be with you all!

Unattended

So, earlier I was in a store and I notice almost immediately at the end of one of the aisles, a woman's purse sitting in a cart full of crap. The weird thing was that the cart was unattended. The still weirder thing was that there were cupcakes in the cart in a plastic bag along with; a humidor, a man's black ski jacket, some fake red stemmed flowers and other strangeness. This was a department store that did not sell food, mind you. I was in that area of the store for more than a half hour and no one went near the cart or purse. And for most of the time the cart with the purse just sat there taunting curious me. I shopped around and it was now roughly 45 minutes later. I happen back and noticed that the cart was still sitting there unattended.

I went to the counter and told the saleswoman. She and I went over to the cart, opened the purse and took out the wallet. We looked about and saw a woman near the dressing rooms in the distance who looked like the person in the driver's license photo. We asked her if the cart was hers and she nodded with a scowl, yes. She appeared annoyed by our question. She then slowly went off in the opposite direction leaving the cart and purse sitting there. She did not stop at her cart or even walk that close to the thing. Wouldn't it be natural to check the thing at this point? She appeared mad rather than concerned.

The sales woman went back to the front of the store and I moved a safe distance from the cart. I watched the woman and the cart. At all times she was no less than 20 feet from the cart. She shopped and looked at merchandise as if the cart was not hers. Not once did she even look in the direction of the cart. Yeah, I realize that none of this is any of my business but... What was this about? My first thought was that it was some sort of sting and the first person to remove an item from the cart would be tackled to the ground and prosecuted as a shoplifter. The saleswoman and I suggested among ourselves that perhaps the woman had some sort of issue(s). Perhaps she had some sort of psycho-social problem that precluded her from being careful of her belongings or going about without cupcakes. Who knows?

I finally felt uncomfortable in the store and bid the saleswoman a good day. It still bothers me though.

Drama in Real Life

Yesterday morning, I spent a couple hours wondering about my local library branch. I was unable to find any of the five titles I was searching to borrow. That point is far less significant to what happened when I left.

I should start by stating that I have always been an exceptionally curious guy with the exclusion of screaming police cars and fire trucks. Most people run towards them with camera phones at the ready. I usually go in the opposite direction. I don’t really know why. Perhaps, I have some deep rooted fear of being an “eyewitness,” brought on by what I discovered that young couple doing in the park when I was but, a lad of six?

Moving right along… Directly across the street from the library is St. James Catholic Church. St James is a late ‘50’s- early ‘60’s well manicured complex which includes a school building. In front of and blocking traffic in both directions of St. James were a half dozen police cruisers and the police chief himself. I glanced over and first thought that maybe there was a funeral in progress but, then quickly realized that something else was going on. What? Don’t know, don’t care; I continued to the corner cross street which was no more than a half block away. I was briefly forced to walk in to the street to avoid a mound of snow on the sidewalk.

At the corner was a credit union bank. The parking lot was to may left as I walked by and it was necessary also to walk into that lot to avoid the unplowed snow on the sidewalk. (In a minute you will see this as more significant.)

I continued my walk; I stopped at a store and then eventually arrived home to eat apple pie instead of a healthy lunch. The pie made me sleepy or it was the episode of, “Design on a Dime,” I was half watching. Anywho, I woke up a couple hours later. It was around 4:30pm. I flipped on the TV and the cable news was beginning. Apparently, while I was in the library; the credit union bank was robbed at gun point by a man of my approximate; age, height, weight and race. WTF! Yeah, I said this out loud. Wait, it gets better… While the police were searching for the bank robber they found a body of a half naked man sticking from the snow bank in front of St. James church.

While certainly odd, the body did not appear to have been the result of foul play. We are told that the deceased; walking about without a shirt, outer jacket or coat died somehow; got buried in the snow bank and with 40 degree temperatures, voila! I should offer that the dead man also fit my general description and that the police feel certain that because he was dead for two days at least. He was most likely not connected to the bank job. What an eerie coincidence; I too have been known to on occasion go about half naked, in some ways I am dead inside and, I have never been involved with a bank heist.

Now, the way I see it I dodged two bullets yesterday. I pretty much walked on to two crime scenes in an attempt to remain oblivious. Do you believe that perhaps some deity is trying to tell me something?