Which is really late. It took a while for me to read everything. I’ll get back to Elvis in a couple of days here. I received a late Christmas gift at work and needed to buy a couple of gifts quick on Christmas Eve. And here I was so happy to have finished my Christmas shopping. (Insert workplace etiquette tip here. If you’re expecting a return gift, please don’t hand out gifts at the next-to-last moment.) In any case, I’d a received a thoughtful gift (a case of the cream soda-my favorite) and I liked the two people involved, so I needed to do something.
Unfortunately, my work hours on the Eve were going to
preclude a timely gifting. I hate going
to work on Christmas Eve. While we only
have to work a half day, for me, this means coming in during the day and
working by myself. Yeah, I work by
myself all the time at night, but somehow, under these circumstances, I actually
feel lonely. It’s the only time I
do.
I was determined to make the best of it this time. I went over to Subway for Cold Cut
sandwich, literally the only safe option on their menu, but really I went so I
could go to the PQ Treats next
door. I wanted to try their seasonal
“Grinch-flavored” Frozen Tornado
(like a Blizzard). I missed seeing it available when I was there
last week and had to correct that oversight.
Okay, a happy dinner was set.
I made my way to work in the afternoon, well ahead of when
I planned to clock in. Security on the
building wasn’t armed, but the place was empty.
All the lights were on up front, which made it feel very deserted. (I also had to turn all the lights off. There’s over 20 at least.) I put dinner in the fridge and freezer and went
back out to walk over to the nearby Downtown
Mall in the brisk cold winter air.
I planned on going to Coas
Bookstore and Zia Comics. I thought the bookstore was my best bet for a
pair of gifts. Their websites were
ambiguous about whether they were actually open. Regrettably, by late afternoon, the bookstore
had closed, but those hardcore comics fans had stayed open till the last
minute. Now all I had to do was find two
gifts for girls at a comic book store.
There’s a bunch of figurines there, but neither were anime
or superhero fans that I knew of. One of
the girls was easy. I just needed
something with a unicorn. A My Little Pony comic was close
enough. The other was a Yankees fan. This would have been tougher, but I
remembered there was a spinner rack of biography comics where I got that Elvis trade. Thankfully, there was an Alex Rodriguez bio comic with him in a Yankees uniform on the
cover.
I flipped through them back at work. I won’t speak to the quality of either of
these comics, other than to say that the Pony one looked cute and the A-Rod one
looked a bit like an amateur production.
I made a quick scan of the above page.
I can relate no context to it; it just cracked me up. I put them on their respective recipients’
desks, where they were happily received on Monday morning. Mission accomplished.
Okay, while I was there I did some me-shopping too. I was looking for the King-Size Conan that had been solicited for this week. At $7, I wasn’t surprised to find copies
still on the rack. I also picked up a Fables #1 reprint. Everything had gone well.
As I walked to the register, I noticed a bunch of comic
book long boxes on tables in the game room across the lobby. (Sadly, this room hasn’t been much used this
year.) There was a sign on them which
read, “$1 apiece or 50 cents apiece if you buy 10 or more.” It was a cross between advertising and a
challenge. I made a left pivot before reaching
the register and attacked the dollar boxes.
There were about 12 boxes as I recall, and they were
stuffed full. Only because I had plenty
of time before starting work did I consider going through all of them. The store didn’t seem ready to close anyway. I made a quick flip through all of them, but I
was thorough. Unfortunately for the
shop, most the comics were fairly recently issues that they’d overstocked
on. There was one particular recent
comic that was in the front of the front of every box. Nothing was in any particular order, as you’d
expect in the bargain bin. I’m not sure
how long I spent going through them, probably more than a half hour.
I didn’t set a goal of getting ten comics, but with that
many comics there, it would have been surprising if I didn’t. When I finally got to the register, I had
four new comics and 11 from the bin. It
was all a pretty eclectic mix. I got
back to work and started on my dinner.
I’d worked up an appetite walking and frantically combing through the long
boxes. There was surprisingly plenty
going on live on Twitch and Youtube for entertainment while I ate
and skimmed through comics. (Looking
back, apparently I mostly watched FrivvyFox on Twitch.)
When I started work, it went smoothly and I was able to
get home earlier than I usually do. What
a great day! I pulled a couple of
surprisingly appropriate last-minute gifts out of my butt. Got a filling, if nothing special, meal. (“The Grinch,” by the way, was green
pistachio flavored with almond shavings.
It was pretty good.) And, I got a
bunch of comics for myself. Then I
started reading them. We’ll cover that
next.
(Sorry, this was a bit of an indulgence, but I did want to
record having at least one pleasant day in 2020, even if it was just me by
myself.)
No comments:
Post a Comment