This year was much better. I was able to get my parents gifts that I was genuinely proud of...mostly the 2 foot long Abbey Road street sign that I got my dad for his man cave. I went to great lengths to obtain that sign.
About a month back or so, 3 weeks, whatever, I ordered what I thought would be an 18", metal, road sign off of Amazon. I waited roughly 2 weeks for this and received it 3 days before Christmas. As those 2 weeks were passing, I kept pulling up after work waiting to see a elongated package waiting gleefully for me on the front porch, but I never saw it. Finally one day, I open the mail box and pull a 12" envelope out of the mailbox. It was flimsy and bendable and much to my dismay, when I opened it, I pulled out what looked to be an Abbey Road bumper sticker. I was livid. I stormed into the house, whipping the 'sign' about and having a tantrum. I just kept looking at it like it was magically going to grow into the sign I'd imagined, but alas, it did not. Then I just started laughing. I laughed for a good 9 minutes, just looking from the 'sign' to Ben, Ben to the 'sign'. Finally Ben says to me, "Why don't you just return it?" Of course, this thought did occur to me, but what's the point? So we hung it above our living room doorway. Our house is not the typical Pier 1 Imports decorative display, but rather a colorful little thing full of blues and oranges and Grateful Dead, John Lennon and Phish art work and posters hanging everywhere. We agreed upon moving that our house was to look more like a museum of music rather than a Martha Stuart 'Living' magazine cover. Screw that. It's our first house, we want it to be original.
So after making peace with the whole ordeal, I came to the disheartening conclusion that the only way out of it was to drive 40 minutes North to a hell hole called Orland Park, Illinois. Orland Park mall was the only mall in the tri-county area that had a store that sold the actual sign I was looking for. I hate Orland so much...that's why I decided that buying it off Amazon and paying extra for shipping and handling would be worth not having to drive there. I'm thinking this was more the reason behind my tantrum in the first place than the $14 dollars I spent on the thing. You'd think that $14 dollars would have been a good clue that I was being ripped off, but did I check? Nope, I'm an asshole. So, after work one day, I sucked it up and started on my journey to Orland. I had listened to a co-worker on how to get to Orland 'quicker', so I got off the exit she suggested. As soon as I get off the exit, I am stuck in dead stop traffic, and still roughly 20 minutes away from the mall. Immediately regretting my decision, the road rage starts to set in. Naturally, the whore in front of me wants to slam on her breaks as much as possible which is only increasing my hatred for Orland more and more. I finally turn onto the road the mall is on, and wouldn't ya know it, I get stuck in another bout of dead stop traffic. Finally, after nearly an hour (this trip should not have taken me more than 25 minutes), I arrive at the mall and start looking for a spot. As I suspected, there weren't any, so I found myself having to park at the veeerry end of the lot, literally 2 spots away from the road. So I practically jog inside as I'm trying my darnedest to get in and out of there as quickly as possible, and luckily the store I needed to go too was directly across the particular entrance of the hell hole I'd entered. I power walk furiously into the store, grab the sign, and get into the check out. As I'm exiting Hell, people are just mindlessly slamming into me like I'm not even there, emo kids are hanging out doing emo things, it was a mess. I think I had a mild panic attack trying to get out of there. Once I got outside, it occurred to me that my car was so far away that I risked being stabbed or mugged on the way back to my car, so started running...I must've looked like such an idiot, but I didn't care. I had gray sweatpants on, black boots that Ben calls my 'pirate boots' that kept bunching up at my ankles, a dirty white coat with fingertipless gloves. I'm pretty sure I probably looked like a bag lady who had just robbed someone and was on my way back to my bridge or shopping cart or whatever bag ladies live in. I let out a huge sigh of relief once I finally planted my ass back in my car. Just when I'm home free and attempting to exit the mall's enormous retarded lot, I accidentally wind up in the one exit that only goes one way, which of course, was the opposite way of where I had to go. Eventually I turned around and wound up in the Chick-Fil-A drive thru to pick up a bag of fried cholesterol for Ben and I for dinner. I don't get it people, what's the deal with this Chick-Fil-A hype? I had a deluxe chicken sandwich, which is a basic sandwich, they just added cheese, and it tasted no different to me than any other fast food chicken sandwich with cheese. The Polynesian sauce that everyone raves about is nothing more then Burger King's sweet and sour. Seriously. Try them both, prove me wrong.
By the way, once I got home, I took a picture to compare both signs...the top one is obviously the wrong one!
Until next time...
