Man and Boy Shop, Eat
Midway through a shopping excursion this evening I had to stop and ask myself, “Am I in Wal-Mart or K-Mart? Or is it Hell?” My eight-year-old son and I were on a mission to purchase a power converter so that he can watch movies in the car on my laptop this weekend as we drive twelve hours to Vermont. I walked the store over a couple of times and finally resorted to asking a sales clerk for help. He did not understand me in English and tried to show me his Green Card (which made me think we were in Wal-Mart). I found a second clerk who told me that they didn’t have any power converters (which made me think we were in K-mart). At the point of giving up, I found exactly the power converter I needed in the automotive section, next to the cigarette lighter powered six-pack chiller with the Chevy monster truck logo (which made me think I was in Hell).
My son, Conor, and I finished our evening with dinner at the local Olive Garden. They have a motto: “When you’re here you’re family.” I had never eaten at an Olive Garden before. Yet, that motto popped into my head the moment we entered the front door. Such is the power of advertising. Our family made us wait thirty minutes for a table. After we were seated, Conor pulled out the toy I bought him at K-Mart/Wal-Mart/Hell. It was a Yoda figurine from the Star Wars movies. We discovered that when you bent his arms just right, he did a perfect headstand on the table. Very quickly thereafter we also discovered that while in the headstand pose, Yoda was perfect for playing “kick the action figure through the upright fingers for a field goal.” And so we played and played and the score was very close right up to the very end when the game was called due to antipasto.
Buona notte
10:56:57 PM 
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