I was walking around in the french quarter one day last week looking to see what kind of trouble I could get in to, lol. Taking in the sights smiling at all the cute little tourists and stuff trying to look like the colorful local that I am, but just generally minding my own business when I passed by a display window of a small shop on Chartres St. that sold custom jewelry. A few pieces really caught my eye so I decided to go in and check it out. The way I was dressed is important to this story, so I was wearing a black T shirt I had picked up at a Marilyn Manson concert a few years back with a fallen angel in front and some big red satanic looking symbol on back, scruffy levi’s and my big black boots, a belt with metal studs all around, a beard and my hair nicely spiked up, lol.

Inside the store was a well dressed lady in a black dress and heels and she was alone. I started to browse the cases with the jewelry and oddly enough I was really taken by one set of womens earrings that I thought were absolutely stunning, with an antique gold finish and each had a beautifully hand cut tourmaline on the dangly part. Mind you I was not looking for earrings, but for a new ring for myself, nor did I have anyone to buy earrings for at this time. She noticed me admiring them and generously offered to try them on her self so I could see how they appeared while being worn, I said no thats ok I am not looking to buy them. What does she do? She takes them out of the locked case and puts them on anyway and actually modeled them for me on the spot, I was floored but yet I didn’t feel like I was being pressured into buying them. What an amazing person to take her time to treat me in a way that seemed above and beyond the call of duty and to a person that probably looked like they couldn’t afford the damn things in the first place. Made my day.

Went to one of those huge ass home improvement stores that always claim to have everything you will ever need to do it yourself, cross our hearts and hope to die, the other day to help my mother buy some concrete catch basins for the downspouts on her house. As we entered the outdoor home and garden area I was elated to see an employee way in the back in the area where the concrete items were stored on the ground and high shelves. It was obvious that the man was on his cell phone and as we got nearer I noticed he moved over behind one of the shelving units as though he were trying to hide from us, as he was too damn busy talking in to his phone to help us, mere customers that we were, we were obviously well below the level needed to interupt the call he was making to his stock broker/drug dealer/girlfriend/momma/old buddy from Detroit/the President/sex hotline/psychic hotline/suicide hotline/gay sex hotline/girfriend in Cincinatti, which I am certain was of the utmost importance, just judging by hard he tried to avoid being seen. Did this deter my mom? Hell no, she homed in like a cruise missle and asked him where we could find the goods we needed. Well he told us the items we needed were just inside the side door of the main building, so we hiked off to have a look and it turned out his info was incorrect and I searched back outside again until I found the things ONE aisle away from where we first met the cellphoneguy. Now this thoroughly ticked me off but I held my tongue when my mom collared him to help get the items down (heavy concrete) while I went to retrieve a platform to load them on to. When I returned the cellphoneguy had sneaked away leaving the items one shelf lower, but within our reach, sigh, what an asswipe he was. Was I through with him? Hell no.

We went up to the front to check out and there were no prices on the items and the girl started making phone calls to Satan to find out the price on these stupid things and after waiting a few minutes I walked to the back and literally ripped the big price tag thingy off the shelf destroying it in the process. The checkout girl sheepishly said “Sir that’s supposed to stay on the shelf”

I replied that I know, but this will give the cellphoneguy something to do when he’s not on the phone. I smiled and we left.