(No, not an STD, that would be impossible, like the Immaculate Conception!)
Well, the raging waves of PMS have receded and I am back to normal. Whatever that means. I had a very relaxing weekend. Plenty of book/nap/cat/raining-so-no-outdoor-chore-time! And my father treated me to Chinese food and I treated him to Dairy Queen.
On Saturday, I did wake up at the butt crack of dawn to go to a “school sale”. This is where the school department of my town sells all the things they’ve put aside as outdated, no longer needed, no longer functioning, been replaced, and too used to keep using at the school. I think they save this stuff all year and then have a big sale in September. I went a few years ago and didn’t find what I wanted. Oh, they had plenty of easels, books, AV equipment, desks, chairs, tables, etc but not what I have wanted ever since my college days. An opaque projector. A REAL opaque projector. You education majors from the late 80’s to early 90’s know what I’m talking about.
I get there at 7:00am unshowered but teeth brushed, with my PJs under a sweatshirt, my hair in a pony tail, my glasses on, and a book. The sale didn’t start until 8:00am but earlier in the week, my mom had listened in to the School Board meeting and heard they were going to be selling an opaque projector. So my ass was there way early because I was bound and determined to get it. Being an early bird has definite advantages.
Finally at 10 of 8, I get out of the car and stretch and the seller guy told me I could look around while he went to put the signs up. He left and I browsed, never really leaving the vicinity of my OP. One of those families who home-school their kids, the females have to wear dresses and white hairbun doilies, the males have too short pants and I think suspenders, and they have their own farm showed up (the wife told the husband he would get whatever he wanted as “she had the farm checkbook”). So I held onto my OP as they were swarming all over everything and I was taking NO chances. The guy came back and I asked how much the OP was.
Guess how much this behemoth piece of equipment was….
Come on, you’ll never guess. I was expecting anything from $20 to $100 coz it is a major piece of equipment.
It was $2.00!!!
Color me flabbergasted, flummoxed, and extremely thrilled. I forked over a $20 bill and got 18 brand spankin’ new one dollar bills in return. He had me count them after giving them to me coz new bills tend to muckle onto each other.
I took my gift from the Universe back home and immediately set about de-dusting it. I even smooshed a spider (sorry! It wouldn’t let me catch it to put it outside, so it rained for the day, old timey superstition - kill a spider it will rain) that had made a home in there. I turned it on prior to dusting and the “hot” smell just encouraged me all the more to dust right then. It works and after the thorough dusting, no more “hot” smell.
So now I am a proud owner of a REAL opaque projector like the one I fell in love with at college and used to completely decorate my dorm room in a kick-ass fashion. Life-size Calvin and Hobbes, no one else had that. Oh, and plenty of sorority stuff too. I even used it to design one of our formals’ T-shirts-as-favors. Yeah, those were the days. Now I think I might do some big pics of something as my bedroom walls are very bare.
Well, the raging waves of PMS have receded and I am back to normal. Whatever that means. I had a very relaxing weekend. Plenty of book/nap/cat/raining-so-no-outdoor-chore-time! And my father treated me to Chinese food and I treated him to Dairy Queen.
On Saturday, I did wake up at the butt crack of dawn to go to a “school sale”. This is where the school department of my town sells all the things they’ve put aside as outdated, no longer needed, no longer functioning, been replaced, and too used to keep using at the school. I think they save this stuff all year and then have a big sale in September. I went a few years ago and didn’t find what I wanted. Oh, they had plenty of easels, books, AV equipment, desks, chairs, tables, etc but not what I have wanted ever since my college days. An opaque projector. A REAL opaque projector. You education majors from the late 80’s to early 90’s know what I’m talking about.
I get there at 7:00am unshowered but teeth brushed, with my PJs under a sweatshirt, my hair in a pony tail, my glasses on, and a book. The sale didn’t start until 8:00am but earlier in the week, my mom had listened in to the School Board meeting and heard they were going to be selling an opaque projector. So my ass was there way early because I was bound and determined to get it. Being an early bird has definite advantages.
Finally at 10 of 8, I get out of the car and stretch and the seller guy told me I could look around while he went to put the signs up. He left and I browsed, never really leaving the vicinity of my OP. One of those families who home-school their kids, the females have to wear dresses and white hairbun doilies, the males have too short pants and I think suspenders, and they have their own farm showed up (the wife told the husband he would get whatever he wanted as “she had the farm checkbook”). So I held onto my OP as they were swarming all over everything and I was taking NO chances. The guy came back and I asked how much the OP was.
Guess how much this behemoth piece of equipment was….
Come on, you’ll never guess. I was expecting anything from $20 to $100 coz it is a major piece of equipment.
It was $2.00!!!
Color me flabbergasted, flummoxed, and extremely thrilled. I forked over a $20 bill and got 18 brand spankin’ new one dollar bills in return. He had me count them after giving them to me coz new bills tend to muckle onto each other.
I took my gift from the Universe back home and immediately set about de-dusting it. I even smooshed a spider (sorry! It wouldn’t let me catch it to put it outside, so it rained for the day, old timey superstition - kill a spider it will rain) that had made a home in there. I turned it on prior to dusting and the “hot” smell just encouraged me all the more to dust right then. It works and after the thorough dusting, no more “hot” smell.
So now I am a proud owner of a REAL opaque projector like the one I fell in love with at college and used to completely decorate my dorm room in a kick-ass fashion. Life-size Calvin and Hobbes, no one else had that. Oh, and plenty of sorority stuff too. I even used it to design one of our formals’ T-shirts-as-favors. Yeah, those were the days. Now I think I might do some big pics of something as my bedroom walls are very bare.
8 comments:
cSAM,
Way to go on the projector. I remember them well. I thought those home-schoolers were going to snake it while you were looking around.
I've owned "The Game is Afoot" for many years now and have enjoyed many stories from it. But, my volume is edited by Marvin Kaye... I do have "The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" which was edited by Martin Harry Greenberg... At first I thought we owned the same book, but it appears that there might be two books of the same name!
My favorite story from "The Game is Afoot" is called "The Really Final Solution" by Nick Pollotta. Short, funny, hits the right kind of notes for me. Is it in your book?
I've lent a lot of books out to people and have been saddened to lose quite a few, including first editions. Recently, while picking up an old book to read, I found that it was rotting, falling apart due to cheap paper. This not only saddened me but made me realize that I would rather lend a book out with the chance of losing it than having it rot with no one else ever having read it. Now, I tend to give books away (unless it is very special to me), which gives me room to find new favorites and know there is at least one other person I can talk with about those books.
Who edited "The Beloved Dead"? I couldn't find it on Amazon. Though, they did have a Cthulhu plush and bust.
(sorry, I do not know where the c came from before SAM. it wasn't there when I click post. and I can not edit it. :(
They claim to have fixed the beta blog posting problem last week, will it still not let you post under your name? If so, I will fire off another email to them.
What is your take on parodies? I'll be interested to hear your view on "The Really Final Solution." I do not want to build it up too much, since that always leads to disappointment. I just thought it was a funny little 3 pager.
I like parodies when they aren't oozing amateurish efforts or are heavy. Parodies and Pastiches need to have a light touch. In fact, once I'm on a subject, I'm pretty thorough and will read ALL I can get my hands on regarding the subject. You should see my bookshelves. My mom keeps asking why I "need one more book on ---?" Well they all have something different besides the basic info and the writing is different. One person writes gossipy, one is hard hitting, one is factual, one is fact/fictional. It's like your favorite food with tweaking, good tweaks.
Each author brings a different point of view, so I understand what you mean. I tend to be obsessive about a topic as well, buying every book I can on it. Though, often, my means to gather exceeds my ability to read, so I have too many books on some topics, ones that once interested me once, but are now part of my past. At one point, I counted over 600 books that I owned but hadn't yet read. As long as purchasing matches ability, so I do not see the problem in your case - it sounds like you have a good collection.
Not to be pedantic (but I will be anyway)- the "Immaculate Conception" is Mary's conception- i.e., when Mary's mom got pregnant.
I think you meant Jesus' conception, which was the Annunciation. (Unless you're saying it would be impossible for you to be God's grandmother.)
Thank you Madpuppy for the clarification. I was trying to get the point across that an STD is as impossible as me getting preggers because the equipment hasn't been used in an extremely loooooonnng time.I don't know my religious stuff all that well, so thank you again.
I got the joke, it's just that the misuse of "Immaculate Conception" bothers me for some reason. It's one of those little things that gets me.
I once had a very long argument with someone over this- he tried to be very "I'm the real Catholic, so I know I'm right and you're wrong." Anyway, ever since then, I've been tilting at windmills with this.
One of the occupational hazards of knowing tons of obscure trivia, I guess.
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