DAY TWENTY: What th’ Devil?

“Satan is god! Satan is god!” This is what a 9-year old kid in my class was spouting today, mostly to draw attention to himself and draw a rise out of the other kids. At least I hope that’s why he was saying it. Working as I do in the public school system, I have to be tolerant of all religious viewpoints, so beyond trying to quietly shush the little devil-worshipper… well, what can I say? I was trying very hard, but somewhat unsuccessfully, not to laugh. Less than two weeks into the new school year, the Crazy Train – actually, a few years ago a friend christened it The Circus Train to the Twilight Zone – is already at full-throttle.

And I want off this ride!On the way home after Black Mass, err… I mean work, I stopped at Lowe’s to pick up some more house repair supplies. Actually I stopped at Home Despot first, since the store is pretty much right across the street from where the coven assembles, but for Home Despot to have what I needed in stock would be far too convenient. Remember, Satan is god, and taunting me personally seems to be one of his sideline hobbies, so for some reason Home Despot does not carry the Medium Walnut shade of Watco Finishing Oil Stain. Medium Walnut is only the most popular and most versatile of the Watco shades, and it also happens to be the shade I started using on the kitchen cabinets yesterday. Finding more at the most conveniently located store would have been too… convenient, so after hunting around in Home Despot for twenty minutes I drove twenty additional minutes out of my way to Lowe’s, paid $8.65 instead of $7.99 for the oil stain – hey, at least Lowe’s both carries Medium Walnut and had it in stock – and bought a few other things as well, including some 2×4 lumber and some patching plaster and somehow my oil stain stop ended up costing me $127.00. If I could have used my airline miles credit card I might not have minded so much, but the airline miles card is maxxed out at the moment, and now, after the Lowe’s stop, one of my other cards is, too.

I didn’t actually do any real work on the house by the time I got home, but at least I have the stuff I need, or most of it, anyway, and I won’t have to waste time this upcoming three day weekend driving around to buy supplies.

Except… at some point I’m sure I will have to anyway, because, y’know, that Satan thing; and also, that’s just how things work for me.

Oh, I looked up some more of my “hoarded” stuff on eBay today and realized that more of my worldly possessions have become even more worthless than they were the last time I looked them up. The upside of this is that I will be de-boxing a lot more space-hogging, mint-in-box “collectibles” over the next few days. Once compacted, this stuff should take up a lot less space; but it’s cool stuff that I like, so I’m not yet ready to part with it. Paring down the space it takes up, though, will be a good thing.

With summer winding down, it’s time to get serious about eBay selling.

In only tangentially related news, there’s a cool post on Joel Runyon’s Blog of Impossible Things today. Joel’s blog, and his very easy to follow How to Start a Blog guide, are a big influence on the very existence of what you’re reading right now. Almost as big as Satan himself.

Just kidding about the Satan thing. I doubt Joel would be amused to find his name professionally linked with that of Beelzebub. What I meant was – and I know that if you have to explain a joke then it’s not funny – that ImpossibleHQ and Joel Runyon’s journey of IMPOSSIBLE have inspired me to finally start posting my ramblings on a real – such as it is – blog.

(Another Corruptor of the Innocent valuable resource for beginning bloggers is Mike Wallagher’s How to Start a Blog: A Complete Beginner’s Guide web site – if anything, Mike’s site is an even more thorough yet equally understandable inculcation into the Dark Arts of web page building.)

Blogging. It’s, like, so ten years ago, isn’t it? I remember when a personal website was called a “web log,” before that term was shortened to “blog.” Hey, web rings! Can I join a Web Ring now? Is there a “whiny, self-absorbed ranting” Web Ring? Oh, wait, yeah: I think it’s called Facebook.

Anyway, all references to Satan in this post are for… what’s that disclaimer they use on South Park? For comedic or satirical purposes? Yeah, that.