Today was the day that we hit all of my favorite haunts from college...well the second time I went to college. We went all of the places I used to go to except for the half that have went out of business.
We started the day off at a pawn shop. Now pawn shops in this college town are different than other pawn shops. You have the advantage of having a bunch of over privileged kids, who have their parents (or their parents' credit cards) buy them the latest toy that they desperately need. Then the weekend comes, and not wanting to ask their parents for beer money, they take their new stuff to the pawn shop and go straight to the local watering hole. This is a good thing for bargain hunters and a bad thing for parents. There is a trick in dealing with pawn shops, and the most important is, you have to know about the products you are thinking about buying. Pawn shops are just like any other business or politician, they will try to get as much money out of you as possible if you aren't paying attention.
The first one we went to is not one of my favorites, but you never know where you will find treasure, and I have gotten a deal or two there in the past. Today was certainly not one of those days. They had their usual assortment of crap and rip offs all marked up about ten percent more than you can pay anywhere else, including new. We leave that store quickly and head to the next pawn shop. It had better prices, but worse crap. We hit one more pawn shop today, which had decent prices but sub par crap, even for crap.
We also decided to hit the music stores. As predicted, I walk into my favorite, and hear my name yelled out. Even though they have plenty of good prices and lots of good stuff, luckily, I didn't need any of it. I say luckily, because I am still a broke, unemployed, cancer patient so it would have sucked to find something unbelievable and not been able to buy it, especially if it was an American made Paul Reed Smith with twenty four frets and double cutaways.
I did see something unbelievable, but not necessarily in a good way. A quick lesson for people not up on the latest 1980's music gear. The Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer, is a vintage drum machine that is pretty much useless today, but is still collected by some people who remember that the "808 kick drum makes the girlies get dumb". However, nobody really cares about the sister models such my TR707 (if you are, I will give you a great deal on one) or the one I saw today the TR727...at my favorite music store...WAY overpriced. The reason no one wants these drum machines is that they are old and outdated, hard to program, and most of all the 707 and 727 never made the girlies wanna get dumb they just made them airsick (the two people out there that are fans of Roland, Boeing, and early 90's rap are laughing their butts off right now...if they were reading this, which they are not, because they don't have access to the internet in their group home). The ironic thing about these drum machines is to use them correctly, you have to be able to read music, which to make a totally prejudice statement, I will ask how many people wanting to use a drum machine have any idea how to read music? So, as the owner of the music store came over and I saw the TR727, I immediately started laughing. He instantly set me straight in a way to say that wasn't his choice to purchase that item, nor would he have purchased that item, and yes he knows it is overpriced, but they paid way too much for it and are trying to recoup their money. I told him that the only person that is interested in old vintage 80's electronic crap like that is me, and unfortunately, I have one! He couldn't get mad at me because he knew I was right. I then offered to sell him my TR707 and he respectfully declined. We then left there and headed to the next music store.
This music store promised lots of equipment and arms...yes weaponry. We get there and it seemed to fall a little short on both. We look around the store at the sparse amount of music instruments and I am not sure if this is a music store or if we caught a high school garage band between sets. At least with my teenager mustache I would fit right in. We didn't look long for two reasons, he didn't have much of a selection, and if we actually bought anything, it would leave a gaping hole in his inventory display.
Finally, we decided to go grab some food to take home. The food my wife wanted was in the heart of campus. I decide to go the easy way...by the stadiums...not realizing the home basketball opener is tonight. After four hours of cursing at alumni that actually still keep up with the university, we make it past the stadiums and onto campus where the students are taught everything but what a crosswalk is and how a stoplight works. There were students all over the road, but I wasn't able to run over a single one of them, not even a fat sorostitute that is just there to make her "sisters" look better. It dawns on me that we are driving around in a glorified "mom-mobile" with out of state plates and two older guys (one with a cheesy pervert mustache), people must have thought we were a same-sex couple coming to school to pick up our daughter. I tried to pick up a few random daughters, and that didn't work either...not even the fat sorostitute. We get to the restaurant and I talk my dad into ordering his own stromboli, neglecting to point out that is it basically just a twelve inch pizza folded in half. The funny thing is, my wife pulled the same trick on my mother when they called us with their order. We got our food, picked a way off campus that was nowhere near the stadiums and got out safely.
All in all it was a good day. Going to some of my old haunts showed me that although chemo is still messing with my taste buds, the appetite is back with a vengeance and then some. And it also showed me that chemo still refuses to give me my energy back, although I feel I am getting stronger everyday. To celebrate, the family will gather tomorrow to eat even more than we ate today and then sit around and do nothing but argue over which of the six dogs to blame our farts on. I can't wait!
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