The Car Gets Stolen - Part 3

So I am sitting in my newly recovered car and not happy. You see, the ignition is hanging from the steering column and I have no idea what to do. I am dripping wet and cold. I am out $110 and I know no one other than my sister in Bellignham I can call for help (and she's in classes). I think "rage" covers my mood. I cannot for the life of me imagine this day could get anymore botched than it was. Then I looked down at the gearshift and saw that indeed, the day could go even more bizarre.

Sitting next to my gearshift is, pardon the crudeness, a big, no huge pile of excrement.

A whopper. Huge. Gross. Beyond disgusting.

Something in me snapped. I was on the edge of a breakdown.

Not only had some bastard stolen my car, he had taken a dump in it. WTF?

So my spirit was dashed and my resolve was gone. I was lost. I sat there and despaired. But only for a few moments, because as my brain was un-shocking itself out of it's daze, it started to work the angles - literally. I thought to myself, given the interior of the car, how in the hell did Mr. Car Thief actually take the dump? I tried imagining myself doing this and no way did the angles work. More WTF? A dog perhaps? Big dog though. Still wasn't working for me.

A few moments pass and I realized that if I am going to get through this nightmarish day, I had to suck it up and deal. Working angles or not.

I did a quick priority list in my head and then started to execute to plan.

So I rummage in the back and find some papers that I can use to pick up the turd and chuck it out the door. Again, more WTF...

As I pick up the noxious waste, I realize both to my relief and absolute confusion, it is not real. It is a gag turd. A totally realistic, but very plastic gag turd. As I write this, I have no idea the how or the why of it, but gag turd it was. Okay one down, moving on.

I get out of the car and go into the office again to deal with the bimbette. I explain about the ignition and she says that "Billy Bob" or "Billy Joe" or some other "Deliverence" sounding name, could help me. She calls back and some portly yokel in denim overalls and a baseball hat motors out. We go look at the car.

He shrugs and says, "Why don'tcha just hot-wire it?"

I gape at him. "I don't know what they taught you in school, but I never had "Hot-wiring 101."

He spits his chew. "T'aint hard, you just get in and do this..." He proceeds to hot-wire the car. "That'll getcha back to Seattle." He looks at me like I am the stupidest city slicker he has ever met.

"Um, where is the nearest mechanic?" If Jethro thinks I am going to drive to Seattle in a recently stolen and now hot-wired car, he better switch up to a higher grade of malt liquor, clearly what he was drinking had him delusional.

"That'd be Roy's over on Something Street."

I thanked him and gingerly eased the car out of the lot. At one intersection, the car died and I had to re-hot-wire it. I was kind of pleased with myself, but also a little flummoxed because when in the hell would I ever need this new skill?

I got to the mechanic fine. Went in an told him my tale. He, out the the kindness of his heart and the grace of a true pro, puts me next in the queue, "We'll getcha fixed up and outta here in no time."

I sit and wait. As I am sitting and waiting, I listen to this guy do his thing. He is negotiating how to get some woman's car fixed on payments. I am shocked. He is like Mother Theresa of mechanics. He clearly owns the joint and is perhaps the nicest mechanic I had met, even today. Premium customer care. I'd bring my car to him in heartbeat going forward but I am tripped up by the fact I never plan on setting foot in Satan's backyard again.

Finally the car is done. Another $110. He takes the check no questions asked.

Yes, gentle reader, I am being lulled into a sense of the worst being over. But we know better, don't we?

So I am out of there. I hit I-5 going south and I am doing everything by the numbers. Best driving practices. No speeding, no recklessness. Just going to go home drop off the car and hit a bar and get blind, stinking drunk.

Five miles out of Bellingham, red and blue lights go off in my rear view mirror. I pull over and directions are blared at me over the bullhorn. Cop gets out of his car, gun drawn.

Next thing I know, I am legs spread, hands on the hood of the car. The cop is telling me I am under arrest for stealing the car. I respectfully wait until he is done telling me the computer has the car has stolen and I explain this is all a mistake and I can prove it. Well, the cop is sure he has got me and is very unresponsive to letting me explain my side of it. I finally convince him that the paperwork is in my coat pocket and if I can show it to him, it will explain everything. Very carefully, because I know he is completely ready to send me to Valhalla, I produce the paperwork. He looks it over and chuckles.

"Son," he says with a bit of a drawl, "do you know how many cars are stolen every year?"

I shrug meekly "Dunno, a lot?"

"Son," he continues, "do you know how many cars are recovered a year?"

Again meekly. "Dunno, not so many?"

"Son," he says with a bit of a grin, "do you know how many get stolen and recovered in less than 24 hours?"

I reply miserably, "Mine."

He hands me my paperwork and wishes me a nice day. If only my knees would quit knocking with the thought that the car could still have been hot-wired.

I drive back to Seattle and drop off the car, go to the bar and drink myself into a coma.

Epilogue

A few weeks have past and I get a call from my mother, whom I had been using as my permanent address.

"Ross, I think your car has been impounded." she said.

"Yeah," I told her, "that was a few weeks ago."

"No... I don't think so. This notice is dated a couple of days ago."

"Don't sweat it, Mom," I tell her. "It's just the system is slow."

Still unconvinced, she says, "If the car was in Bellingham, why is this notice from a towing lot in Madrona [a Seattle area]?"

That got my attention. I went down to the parking lot and the car was gone. I hadn't noticed because I had been bussing and hadn't needed to drive for a few days. Seems the Seattle cops were prowling the lot and ran my car plates that came up as a stolen car and they did me the favor of "recovering" it for me. Thankfully, Seattle at the time, didn't charge for the first five days of storage.

The first of many of "the Car From Hell" stories.

The Car Gets Stolen - Part 2

A technical point of clarification from Part 1, the car title had fully transferred but the cops had called my friend's parent's because I had no phone and they were the last known contact. So there, Wayland! Your memory is better than mine...

So the ride from Seattle to Bellingham was uneventful. I got to the bus station and my sister was there waiting for me to give me a ride to the police station.

"Hey, I hope this doesn't screw you up too much, " she said, "but I have a class in half an hour and I won't be able to stay."

"No problem," I reassure her, "I'll figure it all out and get the car and just head back. Not a problem."

Jinx.

I jinxed it right there.

So Bellingham is a smaller town and the cop shop reflected that. I'm not a cop fan, nor am I a cop hater. In fact mostly, my experience with cops have been about getting tickets. So when I go in I am surprised that this is like waiting at the dentist. The crowd is a little anxious, but resigned to it's collective fate. Finally I am called.

I go into a little office with four hugely piled on desks and people taking notes and typing stuff. It reminds me somewhat of "Hillstreet Blues" if the show was cast with people from rural America.

"Hi," said the cop I was assigned to. I sat down and told him my tale.

"Uh huh, uh huh," he said typing stuff into his IBM Selectric for his report.

"Well, seems easy enough," he finished. "All I need is your license, the police report and the car registration..."

I looked at him a little startled.

"Well, I have the first two, but the third is in the car," I tell him, thinking this sounded perfectly reasonable.

"Oh, well, I can't release the car to you."

"What?" My brain is locking up at this point. All this way and no Plan B.

"Wait a minute," I protest. Falling back to my previous cop experiences, "If you have my license and license plate number, you can run it on the computer to see if I own the car, right?"

He squinched his face, "Yeah, I suppose..."

"Well?" I shrug my shoulders. My options were limited. I should have brought doughnuts as incentive.

He walks over to the computer and after a few moments comes back satisfied.

I hand him over the i.d. and police report. He looks at both and then looks at me again.

"We've got another problem," he said somewhat sheepishly. "I can't release the car to you. The officer who filled out the police report in Seattle didn't sign it."

Officer Doughnut strikes again from afar. I close my eyes and count to ten.

"Surely," I soothed, "you don't think I have a stash of blank Seattle Stolen Car reports that I fill out and pass off to cops God knows where to get back eleven year old cars do you?"

Clearly this was a Miss Manners moment he has not planned for. He goes to talk to the dude in charge. He comes back.

"Now we don't normally do this," he says like he's just hooked me up with his supermodel sister, "but seeing as how you bussed up and all, we'll let this slide." I am both ticked and grateful that this copper is making the little people do the jig for him, but at least I can move on.

I put on my best "Gosh, what would I do without you, Officer?" mask and settle up the paperwork.

"Where is the car actually?" I asked assuming, like in the Rockford files, it'd be around back.

"Oh, yeah, you go out the door, walk down to Someplace Store on Something Street and go left until you come to Some Other Place Store and it's behind that."

"Thank you so much!" I gush.

So it is February. Cold and overcast. I set out on my little walk. Hmmn. Someplace Store is further than it sounded. So after many blocks, I reach Someplace Store and turn left. It is about this time that the Heavens open up and start dumping freezing rain. Within another few blocks I was soaked.

Even better, what the cop failed to tell me was that Some Other Place Store was actually across Belligham. I walked the breadth of Bellingham in the freezing rain.

I think it can't get worse. I was wrong.

I get to Some Other Place Store finally and find the building behind it. Sure enough there is a lot and there is my baby. At last.

So I go into the lot's office and there behind the counter is a vapid, bubblegum snapping wench looking bored.

"I'm here to get my car," I tell her and I hand over all of the paperwork.

She looks it all over, types something in her computer and looks at me with her bovine eyes, "That'll be $110,"

"No f-ing way! What?"

She rolls her eyes, "Five day storage..." Like she is explaining to a toddler.

"Fine," I say. Make this pain end.

"Check ok?"

She nods. I fill it out and hand it to her.

"Sorry, hon, " she hands the check back, "local checks only."

At this point all I have on me is my checkbook and ATM card which I would have gladly embedded in her forehead.

"Where is the nearest ATM?" I ask through gritted teeth.

"Oh, I dunno. I think the nearest one is Someplace Store on Something Street."

"Not far from the cop station?" I ask.

"Yeah," she says. Apparently ATMs are still a novelty in Bellingham in 1990.

So into the freezing rain I go. Every step I take I wish someone else dead. I get to the ATM, withdraw the money and trudge back to the lot. My mood is as foul as it gets. I am numb now I am so wet and cold. I get back to the lot and dripping water onto their floor I hand the woman there the money.

"Aw man," she says off-handedly, "Had I known you were walking, I coulda called the check in." She smiles as I feel myself want to lunge at and strangle her.

"Can I get the receipt, so I can get my car and go?"

"Here ya go, have a nice day!" She says. I look at her and if I had heat vision her head of bad, big hair would have been charred crispiness.

And again I think it can't get worse. I was wrong.

I go out to the car and open it. Slide into the car seat and stick my key into the ignition. Turn the key as the sense of something is horribly wrong strikes me. For you see, I am now looking at the various wires and parts of my ignition dangling from the steering column. This car is going nowhere.

And again I think it can't get worse. I was wrong.

The Car Gets Stolen - Part 1

Meh.

Ok, I get it already.

I have been chastised by my reader base (if a handful of people count as a base) that I am indulging too much in the snarky mockery of others ("smug" and "superior" were bandied around) and not staying true of heart to my blog, which is to explain why you should be happy you are not me. Even though I enjoy mocking others (as long as they are stupid and/or evil), I will rein it for the sake of the kinder folken and wallow in my own cautionary tales.

Clearly enough bad hasn't happened to me recently that I have enough energy to be cruel to others and I have been encouraged to look into my past for material to bring joy to others. I'll only snark regarding my own exploits.

In theory.

So, let me see... what can I write about?

How about the time my car got stolen?

This story is what I used to tell first dates to see if I could scare them off easily, or whether they had the "right stuff." You'll see why.

So to set the stage. It is early February, 1990, I have just moved into my Capital Hill apartment a few days earlier (not even a phone yet) and have my "new" used 1979 Toyota Celica (the "Car From Hell" as it will be to all in short time) purchased from my friend a few weeks earlier. Life is puttering along when suddenly a big, major snow storm hits Seattle. Pretty much shuts the town down for a week. We are talking snow drift quantities of snow in the parking lot. I'd have to shovel my car out and given the weather, I am perfectly happy to let it sit. This is winter in Narnia. Not the usual wussy inch or two of Seattle.

I live close enough to Aldus Corporation, where I am a software tester, that I can shuffle my way in on foot. Aldus is located in Pioneer Square and I am on the north side of the hill, so it is a bit of a walk, but do-able. So I shlepp into work.

After getting there, I am getting into the routine of things and I get a call from my friend whom I had bought the Toyota.

"Your car's been stolen and is in Bellingham, Washington," he said.

"Huh?" I replied.

He repeated his assertion.

"Naw, man," I scoff, "it's under like two feet of snow in the parking lot. The lot is an ice rink. There is no way it can be my car."

He went on to explain that the cops pulled over some guy driving my car and that since his parents hold the title (it was still being transferred to me), they got the call about 3 am letting them know the story. At this point, I am still unconvinced, but take down the contact number anyway. So I go home that night and visit the lot. All the cars were there with snow covering them and the lot a sheet of ice.

All the cars except for mine. To this day I have no idea how he got the car out.

So I go into work the next day and call the Bellingham cop who arrested the guy. Turns out that he's off-shift and I explain my deal to another cop who answers and he says don't sweat. All I need to do is come and collect the car. I do need to have a stolen car report filed in Seattle and bring identification. Not a problem I think and make arrangements to catch a bus up to Bellingham. My sister, who lives there can pick me up and she'll take me to the cop shop.

So the next day I shuffle back down to Aldus and during my lunch I walk up to the Municipal building (Cop Shop Central) and look at the directory for something like "Stolen Car Department", but alas no luck there. I ask a clerk and am told that I have to call "911" to report the car stolen. I am sort of confused because I think of "911" as something like life and death and well, my car is not a crisis. Annoying sure, but not an emergency. But clearly the Muni building is a non-starter. I head back to Aldus. I pass by a bakery and true to cliche there is a cop eating a doughnut in his prowl car. I walk up (probably a little too brazenly based on his rather "I have a gun" reaction) and after stepping back a few steps to appease him, explain my story.

"Sorry," he says, "you gotta call 911 so it can get into the system." He then rolls his window back up. I am stunned. Clearly the guy has the report and can fill it out on the spot for me. This 911 business is rather bizarre. I felt like the Riddler, from the old Batman show, "Riddle me this, Batman... When is a life and death emergency, not a life or death emergency? When it is a stolen car 90 miles away! Get it?" He looked at me bored.

"See you in ten minutes then, " I huff and stalk off back to Aldus. I make the call and sure enough this 911 thing is legit. I then go wait in the lobby. About ten minutes later, Officer Doughnut swaggers in.

"Oh, it's you?" He says somewhat un-engaged. "I thought you were a flake."

"Uh huh," I mumble. I then tell him the story. He decides this is best if we do this in his patrol car. So I find myself sitting in the back of the cop car and all my co-workers are streaming in and out of the building peering in and each registers "Hey, I know that guy..." in their faces as they pass. Yep, can't think of a better way to start rumors.

So he asks me a ton of questions about the car and where I live, etc. I tell him all the info and in the end he gives me a piece of pink NCR paper and wishes me good luck. "Thanks," I say and saunter back to work.

The next day I catch a bus to Bellingham, Little did I know this was only the warm up round.

Snow in Seattle - Ha Ha Mr. Dumbass SUV!

Ok, so I am sitting here in my living room. I am looking out the window. I live on a hill. My hill is a sheet of ice. This morning's entertainment is called "Watch the Dumbass." I have counted no less than ten SUVs in this hour alone, attempt my modest little hill only to lock their precious little ABS brakes and slide like a sled down the hill. Did I mention the hill has a bend and a big building one can slide into?

What is it about Seattle drivers? Why are you so stupid? Oh, yeah. It's the SUV. I forgot. It makes you invunerable. But really people, truly? Can you not work the ice angle? Ice is slippery on a hill and I should think your first choice would be to try the level backways?

It's not like the ice was invisible in the daylight. I could see it. "Hmmn, that's ice", I thought as I looked at the ice. I watched people walking on it stumbling and yet, the SUVs who would be king kept a coming...

Those are the downhillers. Another flavor of car fun is the uphillers. Those dumb bastards who gun it up the hill only to get stuck spinning their wheels on the ice and for extra points sliding backwards.

Thus we come to my favorite sporting event: downhillers vs. the uphillers. Oh the time I am having! Ouch, there is a good one! A downhiller has just slammed and locked his brakes and is sliding right into an uphiller who has swerved to the right. The downhiller has gone sideways as the uphiller has hit ice and is slowly drifting backwards. Both are SUVs and both are men.

Isn't that cute? One has a dog.

They miss each other (no SUVs were harmed in the writing of this blog) but I am betting a change of pants is in order.

A few minutes have gone by. Oh, this one is not a SUV, it is a minivan! Even better. It's not even slowing down much. Umm. Major arterial ahead. Better brake. There you go. Ooops, that pesky ice. Into the arterial you go! But no traffic. Ouch, 15 seconds later and you would have met a Metro bus on intimate terms.

Ah, the hijinks! This was good watching. But now I must try it (need food). So I inch the car out and do all the right things and ease onto the dry road from my icy hill. I go and get food from the Safeway down the road and whattya know? The parking lot is a sheet of ice. I manuver around the cars in the lot that are spinning wheels and otherwise being dumbasses to find my spot.

I smirk to myself that if Seattle could learn to drive like me, we'd all be better off. As I am thinking this, I take about two steps from the car and both feet go out from under me and I go down on my ass in front of all the SUVs and minivans. I even see one fat guy point and laugh and he gets into his truck.

As I've always said: "The gods get even with those that gloat..."

A Brief Reflection On Stupid Drivers

So Phil and I are coming back from Fry's Electronics (Mecca) and we're in the commuter lane zooming along when this Christmas tree goes flying by. Seems some dumbass strapped his tree to the top of his SUV like a moron and thought it would be a grand idea to do 75 in the commuter lane. So we watched as the tree bounced and rolled across three lanes of traffic causing cars to swerve and brake suddenly.

So here is the punchline - dumbass decides to exit and try to loop back and get his tree. Oh I would have paid money to see that rescue. I think the tree was definitely short of the shoulder and traffic was moving. Yeehah!

Thanksgiving Day Weekend At The Mall - Part 2

Previously on "Cautionary Tales":

"We give thanks on this Thanksgiving for all we have..."

"Wanna go to the mall?"

"It should be fine. Maybe a little crowded..."

"Look out, the minivan doesn't see us!"

"He's pointing to the ramp!"

"Up yours!"

"Now, Camden, don't walk in front of people..."

The Mall. A vast cavern of consumption and a portrait of civilization gone wrong. Young, old, stupid and slow mill through this mall. My friend and I separate as we each have our mission, His is to buy pans on sale and mine is a more dangerous cause for I am embarking on my quest to Verizon Wireless. There will be pain, there will be anger, there will be a reckoning because, well, you see, my phone is doing this blinky thing and it really annoys me.

I make my way to the directory to investigate the mall layout. As I approach there are these people staring blankly at the map muttering amongst themselves. They speak something not English and I dutifully wait for them to shuffle aside after grokking the magic concept of "You Are Here" and while I wait, I realize that, no, they are going to pitch camp at the directory and live out their days pointing at the pretty colored squares, speaking some eastern Eurpoean tongue and no doubt cursing the American interloper who just wants a non-blinky phone.

So I decide to wing it. Off I went. So having some sense that Verizon was close, I ambled along looking at the stores as I passed. Clothing, clothing, music, clothing, clothing, coffee, Victoria's Secret (oooooh shiny), toys, clothing, clothing. Hmmn. I sense a theme - clothing. I do pass a computer game shop, but one look inside and I see a sea of Melvins and I can't bring myself to stand hip-deep in overweight boy-men wearing "Hulk for president" t-shirts discussing which game console is better and could Wolverine kill Luke Skywalker with his adamantium claws if Luke had a light-saber. Sigh.

Then there was this store. A foul, unholy place. I don't even remember the name, but one look inside and I was mesmerized by the torture of the damned. This store that had only one purpose - the soul sucking corruption of tween and teen girls (10-19) and selling the affectations that turned normal girls into skanky, dim Hanna Montana's (I had to ask once - she is a fictitious pop-tart, who is played by a real pop-tart).

Purple, pink and glitter all swam before my eyes in a kaleidoscope of the worst of my junior high memories. It was awful. This was the womb of Mallrat girls. Ribbons and lip gloss were everywhere. T-shirts with rainbows and unicorns. The tackiest fake jewelry. Practice jewelry. Or training jewelry. This stuff no doubt lays the formula for a future time when little Timmy wants to get frisky.

Oh for a bookstore, or even something with manly tools. I forced myself on.

At this point, I want to say for the record, that nowhere in the Washington State driver's code does it state that baby strollers have the right of way. Yet, in this Audubon of a mall, all the maternals wield their carts of death with reckless abandon. Old people - they had full lives. People with lots of bags? Clip them and knock them off balance. Mallrats? Bowl them over. They are like rabbits anyway. Two $25 dollar gift cards to the Unholy Store and you've got a replacement.

It is not until one gets two entitled mommies with baby strollers, does one get a delicious game of Chicken. Neither gives as the gap narrows. The crowd looks on. Only at the very last possible moment does the smaller mommy slice away from collision with the bigger mommy. The laws of tonnage hold. A muffled "scuse me" from the loser as the bigger one smirks, "Pilates that, bitch!"

Well by this time I have ventured to the very heart of the mall, if heart is indeed the correct word. Center, perhaps? In this "heart" is a source of great entertainment for me. This is where the civilized shells are peeled away from homo sapiens and we are left at our most vile - The line to see Santa. This I am going to savor. In fact I regret there are no chairs to line up to watch the line. Hell, I'd buy coke and popcorn for this.

If the kid is not crying, the kid is hyper. If the kid is not hyper, the kid is bored. If the kid is not bored, the kid needs to go wee wee. If the kid wee wees, that is like a home run for me. I cheer, I do the wave. But if the kid holds it, they just complain and fidget, so there will be a home run at some point. The parents are there just as messed up. They want this year's picture to be better than last. It's always sad when one's distant great uncle Boris is grateful for the picture, but points out that he was unaware that little Timmy looked so much like his aunt Rita (the one the family compares her face to that of a sea bass).

Now Santa's little helpers are a desperate lot (listen/read David Saderis' essay about being an elf at Macy's for further reference) and they toy with the emotions of the line while Santa does his thing.

"What do you want to be little girl?" purrs the elf.

"I wanna be a doctor!" the girl beams with pride because her mommy, the Smith graduate stay-at-home told her she could be anything she wanted to be.

"How precious!" says the elf. "Not afraid of that pesky malpractice or easily contracted ebola, are ya! Next!"

I love this line. Especially when a mother/son duet has been standing in the line for what must be half the day passes in front of me. The boy huffs "This is stupid. Santa is stupid. I don't want my picture taken." The mother, who realizes how much quality shopping she could have been doing instead of standing in line to get a badly lit picture of her baby demon driving some old fart that much closer to a gun shop. "We’re almost there, honey." A total and complete lie. Then she resorts to bribery when he looks at her with hate. "I'll buy you " He makes a break for it. She grabs his arm and hisses at him like no one else can hear, "So help me, as God is my witness, I will beat your sorry ass and ground you until you qualify for medicare." This is nothing more than a blow-hard time out. He is not impressed. With extra-special venom, she hisses anew "I'll put the Wii on Craigslist, you little piece of crap." Whoohoo, score one for the mother. He folds like a napkin and submits to this heinous rite of passage.

I take it all in for a while and move on. More crowds, more evil. I finally arrive at Verizon Wireless. As I walk through the door I am greeted at the door by a cheery door-greeter. Kinda cute young blonde, but I know in less than four weeks, she'll be gray haired and eighty leaning against the door for support if I were to come back. I give her a courtesy nod.

Then as is the tradition in places such as these I scan for the head dullard. I know my luck will be to get the one with seeming brain damage, so I decide to cut out the middle steps and just seek him or her out. It doesn't take me long. I find him staring at his own hand somewhat mystified. I don't think I can find more dim.

"Excuse me, but I have a phone that is acting up..." I explain the problem. He stares at my phone in much the same way he stares at his hand. "Looks okay to me," says Forrest Gump.

"Don't you notice the blinky shimmer on the screen?" I say pointing it out.

"We don't fix phones, we swap 'em out. It'll cost you $50 for a swap."

"Say," I gasp, "the blinky went away..." I leave before he tries to sell me another phone.

To lick my wounds, I make my way to the Apple Store but once I get there, the goblin masses scare me away. It is a microcosm of the Mall itself. Instead, I gave up and find my friend. Strangely enough, only a few minutes away from the mall, it all starts to fade. Was it a dream? Auntie Em, Auntie Em!

Thanksgiving Day Weekend At The Mall - Part 1

It's like a card out of those personal board games that tries to get to your inner psyche. You know the ones, "Would you cheat on your wife/girlfriend for a million dollars (tax-free)", or "Would you rather be stupid and beautiful, or hideous and brilliant?" Only this card would read "Would you rather roll around in broken glass after drinking rat poison mixed with battery acid, or go to a mall Thanksgiving weekend?" Most sane people would take the drink and exercise. Me? I went to the mall.

Not just any mall. Not the nearby mall which I imagine I'll get caught at a few weeks later indulging in my Christmas Eve tradition of going to Toys R Us just before closing to see the devastation caused by the midget snot monsters and to watch the store staff wander the isles in the green aprons and Santa hats mutely pleading for a quick bullet to the skull.

No, nor is it the south end gang banger mall where I suspect Santa is packing and I am not talking a flask of Jack.

The mall I went to was the mall where the self-entitled and privileged go. In Seattle, we call it "Bell Square" short for "Bellevue Square" short for "I have more money than God and I drip bling and you don't..."

I hate Bellevue. I hate the people from Bellevue and for all appearance in both deed and song, they hate me back. Did I mention I was just tagging along to Bell Square because a friend had to go the weekend sale at William and Sonoma to buy pans? Don't ask, I don't pretend to understand.

Bellevue starts out as a place of over-compensation in everything. Trendy, spendy and totally unfriendly. I suspect it is a populace of men looking to ditch their bitchy women and women who are bitchy because their men are ogling the babysitter. I kid you not. My jailbait radar goes wild in Bellevue because the 16 year-olds look 21 and the 10 year olds look 16. I trust no woman in Bellevue unless I can see gray hair. Or, even safer, that broken and bitter look that only divorced women have.

First, let me point out that the closer you get to a mall, the more insane and dangerous the house fraus in minivans get. Turn signals? Ha! Right of way? Forget it. Mad Max would seem mild compared these horrid drivers. It is like driving in a sea of angry sheep. As we get cut off, I always debate whether they saw us and didn't care, or are the numbingly dumb. Then I remind myself the two are not mutually exclusive. So with zigging and sudden braking and swearing, the mall is near. Approaching the mall has all the joys of success as crossing the land of Mordor and escaping Orcs, just to find yourself in a more awful place - the parking garage.

By the time we get into the parking lot and garage, it has become apparent that this is a fight to the death. First thing is first, the parking attendants who are coming into their first real taste of power. They wave and posture and look really pissed. Well, I guess it beats asking if you want fries with that order, but I seriously doubt they know where the parking is, they are just trying to get you to the furthest spot possible from the mall.

Then there is the piranha parking. Let me set the stage. A man and/or woman approaches their car, notices the four or five cars jockeying to get into position up to three lanes away and they decide to move in absolute slow motion. They take minutes to load their car with their packages. I swear they take cell calls, re-arrange their cars, do make-up and any other noxious thing that consumes the minutes I have left to me on Earth. God forbid, there are small children. That can double the time. Car seats, placating the brat(s), and finding "Bonkie" for them so they don't scream all the way home and force the parents to drive into a telephone pole killing all in the car and taking out the homeless guy begging for money.

So while the leavers leave, there is the slow death dance of the arrivers. For starters, we've got the minivan closest to the spot. They have stopped dead-middle of the lane. No signal, no intent. Just stopped. Since we are behind them, we are stuck because there is not enough room to pass, nor can we make sense of what we see because the SloMos have yet to actually get their car lights set to reverse yet. So just about the time we are going to lay on the horn, we see the reverse lights come on and we think that we'll be going in a second, only to realize that some dumbass is coming down the isle the wrong way signaling for the soon (maybe) to be open spot. We stare hatefully because we know that the Minivan will take the spot and leave us with "Mr. Beamer" who thinks he can cheat his way in and who will then proceed to try to get around us even though it is not just us now, but two others that thought they could shark the spot. Fingers fly and horns honk. On to the next spot. We repeat variations on this behavior until we realize that with a little Jersey moxie, we too can cut off the guy in the Ford F-250 with the gun rack and get our parking spot.

The Mall itself.

Human words cannot describe it justly but I will try. It is a giant alien Petrie dish of everything I have come to hate in my life all in one place. The stuff of nightmare. Mallrats everywhere. Bubble-gum snapping, giggly stupid girls and the pouty poser boys that want to jump them and create future mallrats. When I make eye contact with these creatures, I am struck with the awesome emptiness in their heads and souls. They are the future. Kill me now.

Then there are the designer-dressed house fraus with the precious little "Berkely"s or "Hailey"s that will one day sign their parents nursing home papers with relief, bustling their evil spawn along. Extra points if the bobbins have matching outfits.

"Now, Camden, " Mommy chirps, "try not to walk in front of people..." as Camden toddles his way into much faster traffic. I think to myself "Now, Camden, walk in front of the really scary man wearing boots that will pretend not to see you and swing his extra heavy bag teaching you one of your first physics lessons. Did I write that? My bad...