Today's Shopping List

It's never a good thing when your mother is calling you at 6am. Especially when it's my mother. She never calls my that early, unless someone's lost and drunk, in jail or dead. Fortunately, none of those things were the subject her call this morning. Though I kind of wish it was so she doesn't get into the habit of calling me at 6am. No, Mommy dearest was calling about a shopping list she needed me to get for her. She lives in the middle of nowhere and is a teacher, so last-minute wal-mart trips are out of the question for her.

Item 1: a one-piece bathing suit, size 7-8.
Item 2: a single copy of 'Merchant of Venice' by Shakespeare
Item 3: three different sizes of rocket engines.

All to be gathered today and mailed up to her in hopes to get it there by Tuesday. At six o'clock in the morning, I'm not thinking clearly, so I just copy it all down and go back to bed. But upon waking and returning to the list, I'm struck with how odd all these requests are. Especially all together. What is my mother planning on Tuesday for her class? Blowing up bathing suits while reciting Merchant of Venice?

I shrug off my odd thoughts and get to work. First off, I start calling Hobby shops. No point in driving around town looking blindly. Well, out of the dozens of hobby stores in town, only two had what I needed, and only 2/3's of it. 'Don't worry, the other one you can pick up at wal-mart'. I thought that the day was shaping up to be pretty easy. So I get ready to go out and hit the town. In the rain. Of course.

First off, does any one make one-piece bathing suits any more? I'm seriously thinking that they don't. The only ones I could find were maternity suits. Not appropriate. So I spend about two hours going from store to store looking for a one-piece bathing suit and finding nothing. Finally I hit up Savers. Good ole Savers. But they only had one in size 7-8, so I snatched it. I hope it will work.

Next, getting Merchant of Venice was easy and painless. Thank God for Bookmans!

And finally get around to the Hobby Shops. Well, they have the sizes I need, but what KIND of size D do you need? Call 1 to my mother. Figure out the details and continue shopping. How many? Call 2 to my mother. Now, my Mom had alerted the front desk of her school to expect me to call in today and to bring her the phone even if she was in class. The first round of calling went fine. No problems. The second call, not so much. A man answered the phone, I gave him my info and that I was calling for my mother. He proceeded to inform me that she was in class right now and couldn't be disturbed. So I explained the situation and how when I called earlier it was no problem. His response: 'So you want me to take her the phone and disrupt her class? Is that what she would want?' Yes. You asshole. Yes. A few minutes later, talked to my mom and got the number of engines I needed.

I thought it was smooth sailing from there. Just needed to stop at Wal-mart then UPS and all would be well. Oh no, Wal-mart discontinued rocket engines six months ago. So I tried Target. Nope, nada. Finally I decide to go to another Hobby shop that initially didn't think they had what I needed. I explained the situation and they fixed me right up. For $77. So it's now been four and half hours since I left my house, all the items gathered and UPS is right across the street, perfect. Not so much. UPS doesn't mail 'flammable' objects. Neither does Fed-Ex or the Post Office. Short of doing it myself, I was screwed.

Call number 3 to mom. I meeting her half-way on Sunday. Four hour drive, round trip. Not too bad. But still, rather obnoxious. So, mom bought me lunch and I went home. To start another long task of doing the dishes. Go life!