Man oh man

How is the world treating you?  I hope better than it is me.  Things are looking better up here though.  Work has sort of gotten better.  It has a long way to go before it is good.  Enough about that. 

 I ride a lot of elevators, which are funny things.  I tend to arrive at work around 9:00 am.  Thats probably just after most people get there which usually puts me on the bottom floor of our deck.  No big deal, just a longer elevator ride.  My usual spot is a back corner for a couple of reasons.  First, chances are that I am going to get off after anybody else since I have to go the farthest.  Call it courtesy.  Secondly, I get to watch everybody else in their total awkwardness.  I have noticed that corners are a preferred spot in elevators for this reason.  People wear their thoughts twice as much in an elevator.  Like some guy got on the other day and stood right in front of me….we were the only 2 on.  There was another corner and he didn’t take it!  Why?  I was baffled and somewhat disturbed.  This guy had the nerve to stand in my personal space when he didn’t have to.  What was his deal?  I was the guy wearing his thoughts.  A lady got on and without thinking I gave her a look that said, completely nonverbally mind you (there is never any talking…unless its about weather) “Can you believe this guy?”.  She totally understood it and confirmed, still nonverbally, that this guy had screwed up.  I won’t forget his face either.  That 1 minute wrecked my whole day.  Be a good rider and line the perimeter and pray that we don’t have to fill the middle up.  Thats the worst, being the middle guy.  You never know the right way to stand.  Is it rude to put my back in this guys face?  Should I wait for another one?  People like to do things in the elevator to make it less awkward, like check blackberry’s, dig around aimlessly in a purse or briefcase, check that your floor button was pushed…for the 6th time, smile out of obligation due to unwanted eye contact, etc.  I look forward to my elevator rides, they are kind of like a social experiment everyday at least twice a day.  But people are always glad on elevators.  Most elevator conversations take place in the rare event that only 2 people are riding for longer than 2 floors of travel.  I can tell you every conversation I have ever had on an elevator too.  Ready?

“Glad its finally cooling off”  “Yeah, I can finally get some yard work done” or “Me too”

“Glad we finally got some rain” “Insert clever excuse for having to do something outside here (wash car, cut grass, etc)”

“Glad its 5 o clock” “No kidding, its been a long day”

“Glad its Friday” “Me too!”

“Morning” “Morning”

“What floor is company X?” “I don’t know, but we are on the 5th” – usually with a UPS/FEDEX guy

“Hi” “How are ya”

Some of the same applies to subway rides too.  Different things stick out though.  For instance, there is a minimum difference for hand space when holding the bars.  Seat ettiquette is a touchy thing too.  People don’t always spread out when given the chance, thats annoying.  People still flaunt ipods like they are brand new.  People read the expected novels and books.  My favorite is young professional who still wears his North Face fleece over a suit who reads, or should I say stares at, Jack Kerouac’s On The Road because he “doesn’t belong in the rat race”.  I won’t lie, I feel the same way, but I won’t play into that part.  I don’t do most of that, I usually forget to bring my MP3 player and end up playing brickbreaker on my blackberry.  People probably assume I am doing something businessy, but as would be expected I am playing for a high score baby!!!  Level 26 and 14601 points if anybody wants to compare.  Its amazing how clearly people communicate without saying a word.  I knew for a fact that a lady was furious with me because I sat down next to her yesterday.  But when a seat across the aisle opened up, I moved and she smiled.  Go figure.  DC people march to the beat of a different drum.  Anyway, I hope this doesn’t bore you too much.  Cheers.

Critical Mass

critical mass  
n.  

1. The smallest mass of a fissionable material that will sustain a nuclear chain reaction at a constant level.
2. The amount of matter needed to generate sufficient gravitational force to halt the current expansion of the universe.
3. An amount or level needed for a specific result or new action to occur

…as cited from Dictionary.com. 

I interpret that as a breaking point.  So much of my life right now is so unacceptable to me, I am almost to the point of quitting my job and selling everything I own…in one day.  I usually don’t care to indulge in the expected personal blog babble, but tonight I think I will give a short run.  I promise it will be short.

I just turned 25 and I think it was probably the worst birthday I have ever had.  Not because of anybody or the people that know me didn’t do anything.  I got plenty of calls and some nice gifts but lets take a look at the last 3 months as a whole and perhaps you can see why turning 25 for Mark wasn’t as good as he hoped.  I moved to Virginia pretty swiftly, new job, promotion, raise, new life.  Why not?  Well, I will tell you why not.

Never have I ever been surrounded by so many self concerned people. Not a single stranger has so much even acknowledged my presense in Virginia. I have yet to know what God has planned for me up here. I am anxious to find out and until it is revealed I will continue to struggle spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and socially. The people at work are neurotic. All chainsmoking red bull addicts. There is one who isn’t, but he is so unsure of himself that he can’t even answer my simple question of “How are you?” without a nervous laugh at the end of it. I am almost at the end of my line, I don’t know what to do. Its been 3 months and I don’t have a single person up here that I can talk to. I can’t ask somebody to meet me for coffee or lunch or dinner to talk. Nobody cares. I have never felt so detached in my entire life. When I do talk to friends, its always on the phone and most people are too busy at that to talk. Its times like this when you lose faith in everything. Its 3 o clock on Sunday afternoon and I have been crying for most of the day wondering what I have done wrong to deserve this and trying to figure out what I can do to fix it. Virginia is not the place for me. I actually hate it here. I actually regret the last 2 months completely and can’t wait to come home.

My whole life I have been a supporter to people around me. Always offering advice, courage, and anything else I can offer. Not once have I ever really opened up to anybody in fear of burdening them with my problems. Today is different, I am telling everybody who may read this how I feel. My life sucks right now. I have always been one to see the positive side of something. But there is nothing positive about laying in bed for an entire day crying. I am going to get a shower and go for a drive. God knows I have nothing else to do.

I actually wrote that a couple of weeks ago and I, being the forward thinking person that I am, thought I might regret it.  But I don’t and there it is.  Its actually friday night and today wasn’t good either, but not that bad.  I don’t mean to call anybody out, bash, or cut ties with anybody, just speaking my mind and heart.  But I guess with a new mentality of “Who cares?  Nobody!” I can find humor in it all.  I can’t really talk about that humor on here as I don’t know who may be reading this… 

I went home last weekend and contrary to what most would think the drive down was a million times better than the flight back.  I hate it that I am doing so much against my own will.  That in itself probably adds to the stress of my situation.  I truly didn’t want to get on the plane to come back.  In typical fashion, the guy I sat down next to complained right off the bat about having to share his row in the back of the plane.  I looked at him in disbelief and immediately asked the flight attendant to move if possible.  Not a doubt in my mind he was the owner of some uppity townhome in fairfax.  He probably was a consultant of some sort for some gov’t agency and was probably making just over 100 grand.  He probably thought he was awesome.  I have news for that guy:  you’re an a$$hole. 

Its friday night and I have a solid evening of video games ahead of me.  Tomorrow I may take my new car for a drive into the mountains.  I could use some fresher air.  Speaking of my new car, I bit the bullet and conformed to a DC way of life.  I sold my beloved truck and bought a Yaris Sedan.  Small car, not my first choice but I do like getting 38 miles to the gallon…  Besides, Colin and I decided that if you put some sort of a rack on the top it makes any car look cool.  I will hopefully have a valid reason for a ski rack come winter though.  I am only a couple hours from some good east coast skiing.  Come visit and you can go with me any time.  I will also take you to see anything touristy downtown.  More posts coming soon, there will be much to talk about for sure.

What do light does to the documents?

That title is the very question Murph and I were asked at the Rotunda in the National Archives.   To think that they would let a cop double as a tourguide blew my mind.  To think they let an illiterate cop/tourguide carry a gun in the National Archives was scary.  To let an illiterate man preface your experience with some of the most well written and significant literature in the history of the world is disgusting.  I digress.  We did see the documents that had been damaged by light among other deteriorating sufferings.  The Constitution, The Bill of Rights, The Declaration of Independence, in all their glory and beauty.  To see these is a truly unique experience.  Picture the most beautifully and stately room and fill it with the literal building blocks of our country.  It should give you chills.  I won’t even try to explain it more than that, come to DC and see it for yourself.  Its worth it.

 You did read that right, Murph came to visit.  It was good to have him too.  I miss having friends to hang out with. I almost didn’t know what to do with myself. 

Work is work, its somewhat exciting, busy and discouraging too.  I have realized that I am busting my tail for other people to make money.  I don’t like that, I never have and never will.  My entrepreneurial spirit is awakening…again.  Don’t know what or how, but something is going to change, sooner than later. 

 In other news, my inner geek is coming out too.  I am playing an MMORPG.  If that means anything to you, you can’t make fun of me as you are familiar with that subculture.  If you don’t know what that means, just know that I am still a dork.  Its 2moons, its free, and its a lot of fun.

Its late and I am sleeplessly tired.  I just drank a mountain dew and I will probably lay here in bed watching a TimeLife music collection infomercial until I fall asleep.  So until I can think of something funny, cheers.

Funny how that works

I was driving home from church this afternoon.  I had my windows down and was playing James Taylor on my radio…pretty loud.  Having just reread that, I suppose that makes me pretty weird: a 24 year old rocking out to James Taylor with the windows down.  I guess thats just the rebel in me.  I digress.  Anyway, I was on 66 East and I smelled barbeque.  I was overwhelmed with feelings, first of all I was hungry and bbq always tastes best on Sunday.  Second, it made me think of Milledgeville and going to pig in a pit and getting a pork plate with mac and cheese and fried okra.  I thought of how we always had 12 people go and they only had booths that were a tight squeeze for 6 people.  I remembered thinking about who I was going to sit with, how I was going to make fun of Chris Avirett, how long it was going to be before Murph made a fart noise behind Carrie Ann..  I remembered Hannah not ordering anything and scavenging other people’s plates.  I remembered the other after church groups getting there early and saving the only big table.  I remembered waiting for that slow ice machine.  I remembered parking my green pickup truck outside and 5 people getting in and out of the back.  I remember talking about going to play frisbee or dodgeball and how everybody said they were coming and only 5 show up.  I remember going back to the trailer and sitting on a back deck playing guitar talking with Avirett, I remember burning endless wood, garbage, hard drives, bicycles, golf clubs, and christmas tress.  I remember almost burning down that run down trailer…several times.  I remember making skate ramps out of plywood for avirett to skate on. I remember Avirett ollieing on purpose to hit his head, I taped it and still have it.  Let me know if you want to see it.  I remembered dance parties in my room…closet.  I remember playing with a darth vader mask.  I remember that mask being on a Peyton Manning cut out and scaring people at night when they turned that corner.  I remember that mouse that we never found under the refridgerator.  I remember going back up to the church to play music, on any instrument, as loud as you wanted.  I remember Karen coming too and singing…horribly.  I remember living in GA.  I remember that Milledgeville, or at least the people I knew in Milledgeville still have a place in my heart.  I miss them/it.  So the next time you eat barbeque, take some time to think about it.  Don’t take it for granted, Lord knows there isn’t a place in the world up here that could come close to the food down there.  And I am going to go insane and get fat(ter) because I have to go to McDonald’s to get sweet tea.  Well I am going to go play halo because that is the closest I can get to some of those people right now. 

If you wear a suit downtown DC, people think you are important.

What a day I had on Friday.  I actually went to the Capitol for a presentation and then a meeting.  I sat next to a representative and met with a CAO of the House in a congressional cafeteria.  That being said, I was wearing a suit the whole time and tourists saw me walking places they weren’t allowed and assumed I was important.  Well little do they know… 

Seeing the Capitol first hand was an awe inspiring experience.   The building is immaculate.  Not to mention it was filled with 100 of people that make up the cogs of this nation.  It makes me want to be a part of it… more on that later.

I had a post last week and wordpress lost it.  I will do my best to recall that and add what I can.  On second thought, I won’t because it was pretty much a depressing story about how lonely I am up here.  A few bad days here and there are very detrimental to a person that is very social and alone.  Things got better though.  Work got a thousand times better.  My coworkers have actually started treating me normal.  I never got the new guy treatment because I am a manager, but they were almost standoffish.  Not any more.  Secondly my boss and I had some breakthroughs in my eyes.  We went to the Capitol together and for once he was the man farthest from in charge.  This is a very different setting for him and rather exposing.  We gawked at all the pretty interns too.  Not really my style, but its hard not to in DC.  Every politician has a daughter, who is spoiled, who goes to Yale, Harvard, or Princeton, which every single one of them is gorgeous.  They all intern around Capitol Hill.  Its amazing.  I also got my computer at work this week along with a blackberry.  A true status symbol.  Instantly, the people at work started treating me different.  “GDIT is picking that up for you?”  You know it.  I am starting to embrace this office culture more and more each day.  I found out we had a coffee machine that makes cappucino and hot chocolate.  I apologize that I can’t add my witty insight on much else around work.  Most of the details I think are funny are also classified.  When I have a life outside of that, maybe things will pick up. 

 I saw the Simpson’s Movie tonight.  It was a good episode that lasted an hour and a half.  If it is worth it to you to watch TV on a movie screen, then see it.  If you like the Simpson’s and don’t care about seeing it on a movie screen, its nothing to write home about.  I give it a B minus. 

Sorry…

I had a long an awesome post, but wordpress lost it some how.  I will try again tomorrow.  Story of my life….

Homesick already

Hey gang, I know its been a while and boy, do I have some updates for you.  I am not sure who actually reads this or if anybody does at all really.  In a nutshell, I got a promotion/transfer to a job in Fairfax, VA, which is part of the Washington DC metro area.  I moved July 4th and have since settled and become lonely.  I have two roommates, James, he owns the place.  Really nice guy, helpful.  The other is Pat, I haven’t seen him much.   From what I can tell he keeps to himself for the most part.  I do share a bathroom with him.   Things are going pretty good so far.  Gary and Donna followed me up and helped me move and unpack.  I really appreciated that.  It wasn’t a whole lot unlike going to college.  I moved into a small room and then they took me to wal mart and target to get the essentials (storage stuff, organizing things, etc).  I like it here so far.  My apt is really convenient to a mall and a couple of shopping centers.  One is especially likeable because it has live music in the summers on Saturdays and whole lot of people go there to hang out.  There are several restaurants ranging from Potbelly’s to Ruth Chris Steakhouse.  I ate Potbelly’s today.  I also checked out a new church, it was alright, but doesn’t hold a candle to what I left behind in Loganville…. Hold on, I am experiencing a complete lack of wit and creativity in this post and will suspend blogging until I am not plagued with living 10 hours away from my entire family and friends.  Cheers, I hope this finds you in better spirits than me…

Rush Concert, Wheelchairs, Neon Lights, and too many baby boomers

You may have figured it out by now that every item in the title is related to the same night. Jim hooked us up with some sweet tickets for the Rush concert. VIP tickets, with a VIP pass to the Hooters lounge, and VIP parking. The Hooters lounge was a bust (no pun intended) due to the fact there were no Hooters girls. And you all know I love slouch socks. It was nice though, clean bathroom, leather couches, free finger foods. Jim got the tickets from a girl that works for his cousin who works for his dad. She is 20 years old and, uh, expressive. Tattoos, piercings, she was wearing a corset/lingerie type of tanktop. She smoked and drank and was extremely annoying to say the least. Hold on, my boss is coming. Alright. Right, but dealing with her and her 16 year old “rocker” brother who claims he can play every Rush song on guitar start to finish, and demonstrated so with his air guitar….all night and her BFF Steve (poor kid is in love with this girl and she wants nothing to do with him like that, I really do feel for him, I know what its like) who is still rocking a bowl cut was a small price to pay for the seats and royal treatment. The show was at Hifi Buys amphitheatre and if you have ever been there and seen how the seating is arranged, there are about 20-30 rows directly on the floor, then there are the box seats (us), then an aisle and then the rest of the seating followed by the lawn.

Well the handicap seating was right behind us. Hence “Wheelchairs”. There were several people faking injuries to get good seats and one kid who wasn’t messing around. Don’t get me wrong here, I have a heart for people with disabilities, but there was comedy oozing all over this. He had a wheelchair that was battery powered, joystick, clearly not mentally disabled, but physically from the waist down. First he had a fan hardmounted to his rig, I like it, useful, effective, necessary in Georgia summers. Well as the show progressed, the sun went down, lights went off, it was dark…except for him. There was a glow coming from behind me, too colorful to be a muscle flexing security guard using his maglite for checking tickets for the 17th time, but not bright enough to be an emergency light for the EMT’s picking up a passed cokehead. I turned to realize that this faint purple glow was coming from the wheelchair. That guy had neon lights under his wheelchair. Purple ones, much like you would see on a tuner import on Barrett Parkway on a Friday night. Straight pimpin. Neon lights under a wheel chair. He singlehandedly redefined pimped out. I was in disbelief. It was truly remarkable. Dude was pimpin a wheel chair that looked like X to the Z Xzibit got a hold of. I bet he had spinners that I couldn’t see. It made my night. It made my week. That was the highlight, but there were other honorable mentions.

At a Rush concert, you never know what to expect. There are normal people like me, then there are the washed up rockers from the 70s. That is a quite a range at a rush show. You have hippies…I saw my old friend Todd and next to him there was a guy who hadn’t cut his hair in probably 20 years, wrapped his forehead in a worn American flag bandana, no shirt, pot belly, he stumbled uncontrollably and was very friendly…and inebriated. You have the guys, forgive me for not knowing how to label them, who think it is cool to roll up sleeves on a t shirt and wear jeans and biker boots.  I would call them bikers, but they all drove Tauruses and minivans.  They’re usually the hard guys who are too cool to talk anybody because “Theres no way you can rock as hard as me! Just look at my boots and sleeves!!!!”. Then there are the dad’s trying to get their sons to “appreciate” good music. AKA “I love Rush, I’m a dork, and all my friends don’t like me because I like Rush so you are going to this concert with me”. After that, you have the washed up 80’s rockers. These guys like comic books, D&D, and think long hair under a buret is cool. They usually try to be condescending and you can usually find them in most internet forums accusing people of trolling and not knowing what L337 really is. A Rush concert is a special occasion for this type, they get to see the sun, and have actual interaction with people face to face, no keyboard required. For the record, that girl’s brother fits into this category. He missed his generation and will struggle with that for the rest of his life.

I love being a younger Rush fan, people are always prone to liking you at the concerts because, they think that you really appreciate what they are all about and might be able to “show you a thing or two about Rush”. Guess what, I am 24, I know how to use the internet. Besides that, my friend Jim knows more about Rush that most of those people combined. So you can’t teach me anything, Jim already did. Plus…its a concert. You go, you listen to the music, you scream and shout until you lose your voice. Just because you know all the songs and have an original T shirt from the 1974 tour doesn’t make you any cooler than me. Besides, I don’t care what it was like ‘74 because I was still 8 years away from birth. Its 2007, this Rush show is tonight.

Typical Banter

“You ready for the weekend?”… What kind of BS question is that? “I sure am.” Really? I wouldn’t have guessed, who the crap isn’t?! Since I have, I mean share an office, I mean cube next to a meeting room and the floor printer, I hear a lot of inane babble. That first question really urked me last week and this is the first chance I have had to write about it. My thought was of course she is; how out of touch are you with your employees that you can’t think anything else to say to her than to ask the most generic of questions. Its Friday at 2 o’clock at the government, it IS the weekend.  I think it would be funny if somebody came back with something like… “No I’m not actually. Two large thugs with guns said they were coming to kidnap my family on Saturday. I wish it was Monday!” That guy would immediately regret asking a ridiculous question. “Oh, uh, sorry about that. Did you call the police?” … Now you have some conversation.

“Where did my document go? Did you see anybody take my document” Me: Ma’am, I have seen 50 people take documents from that tray. When did you print it?” “Around 10 am” Me:”Well since it’s 3:30, somebody probably put it in the trash. When you print off 100 pages of nothingness to file away only to never be looked at again and it sits in a printer tray for 5 hours and people have to sift through the countless large print jobs, such as this one, that come through this printer, its gets old, its frustrating and its inconsiderate on your part to wait 5 hours to pick it up, as soon as you hit ‘print’, start walking to the printer and most likely it won’t get thrown away. Why do you print this everyday anyway? I know you aren’t going to look at it…ever. Thats why we have hard drives, and network drives, and other digital media such as CD’s or floppy disks or flash drives. Why don’t you reprint it and kill another tree and throw some more fuel on the treehugger fire and give people more reasons to hate our government. Really, its fine, I will watch for it this time.” Not really, but thats what I would say if I didn’t care about my paycheck.

“Have you seen person X?” Yeah, I saw him everyday for the last 9 months. But not today. Sorry. “If you see him could tell him I am looking for him?” Sure, or you could EMAIL HIM. Everybody who is being looked for around here has a blackberry and trust me, they love using them. They almost can’t contain their excitement when they hear that distinct buzz that doesn’t interrupt meetings… Ha what a joke, vibrate on a blackberry really means “Hey look at me, I am hot stuff with my new 8320, but I want to be considerate in this meeting so I will turn off the ringer. But don’t mind if I reply to something, its usually something important like ‘can we have a meeting to talk about that other meeting?’ or ‘did you hear what person X said? OMG!’ I wanted one for a while, and now I its kind of like a trend that is entirely way too old. Hold that thought, I just got a text message on my cell phone!

My job has its perks, my geographic location being one of them. If I didn’t sit so close to the “watering hole” I wouldn’t hear half the crap I do. I am fortunate enough to see the humor in it and have done my best to bring that to you.  Please share any “overheard” stories and reply with them.  Take care!

The search is over!!!!1!!1!ROFLcopter LMAO OMG WTF

Well I took personal day about two weeks ago.  Nice friday morning, overcast, high 60’s, slight winds out of the southeast.  I started my day with a breakfast meeting with a guy from church.  We ate at Atlanta Bread Company.  Not bad, I had a sausage egg and cheese croissant and some water.  He had coffee.  We discussed several things such as scuba diving, small engines, and God.  After breakfast, I called my friend David O. because we had made plans to drop my truck off at Fry’s to get a camera installed, hit up some music stores and then to eat lunch with some friends in Dunwoody, Dan and Dan.  They work at Edwin Watts…irrelevant.  We ate at Chili’s, I had ribs since it was Davids turn to buy me lunch.  *wink*.  We proceed to Atlanta discount music, David almost made an impulse buy on a G&L telecaster, it was sweet, but he didn’t get it yet.  We returned to Fry’s and picked up my truck and we went our respective ways.

So I bet you are wondering what the title is about?  Well there is a detail I left out for the fact that it deserves more detail than the rest and would look oddly out of place in the midst of that narrative.  But on my way to meet up with David O., I decided to try a new way to get to get to my destination via my GPS.  It took me up a highway that would lead right to his office.  It worked like a charm, in fact, it worked so well I beat him there by 20 minutes.  Since it was still pretty early, I decided that I would like some chocolate milk.  So I proceed to a gas station across the street. I am scanning the refrigerators and decided that I should go with low fat chocolate milk due to my current…physique.  I walk up the counter and get in line.  I am looking at the sweet novelty lighters that look like giant matches and the zippos with patriotic images of eagles and rebel flags when I glance down at the ice cream freezer.  I saw the normal treats, such as brown cows, bomb pops, fudgesicles, pushups, and then I set sight on the most glorious thing known to the frozen good industry.  I had been looking for 5 whole years, not an exaggeration, ask anybody, for this exact treat.  I even contacted the manufacturer to see where the closest retailer was (their response was Maryland, thankfully they were wrong).  I put in countless product requests at Publix and Kroger for these and here of all places in the world, Walnut Grove, GA, had them for the taking.  Choco Tacos.  CHOCO TACOS!  At last!

My face must have been revealing because the employee behind the counter asked while laughing at me…

Before I get to the dialogue, let me describe this girl.  She was probably 17 or 18 years old, rather healthy (chubby).  Tons of makeup caked on to the point to where you could see distinctly where it stopped on her neck or lack thereof and wasn’t necessary really, she was pretty in the face.  She had a pony tail that made her hair into a loop that hung downwith the spiky ends of her hair that point up and out of the rubber band.  She was wearing jeans that flaired out like JNCOs and a dixie outfitter t shirt that was strikingly similar to the lighters on display.  It said something to the effect “Only a southern gentleman deserves a southern belle”.  Translation:  I’m trashy and you better be too if you want to hook up.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes,  just the chocolate milk.”

“$1.19″.

I hand her my money and say “Do you guys normally stock Choco Tacos?”

“Whatsa choco taco?”

“This is a choco taco, they are incredible and ridiculously hard to find!” I held up one of the ice cream bars.

“I guess so.” in reference to stocking them.

“You guess so? I have been looking for 5 years for this exact thing and you can’t confirm whether or not you normally have them?”

“I didn’t know we had any, I just work here.”

Thanks for the update.  She clearly didn’t understand the magnitude of the situation.  This was nothing short of an epic.  I have been searching everywhere and she was the keeper of my proverbial holy grail.  Rather shaken up by expression of passion, she asked if I wanted a receipt.  I replied that I didn’t and that I would be back soon to purchase a choco taco.  Since it was 8:30 in the morning, I didn’t feel like eating ice cream that early.  So perhaps today, I will venture back down to Walnut Grove and purchase a little piece of heaven.  Let me know if you are in the same predicament.  I think UPS ships frozen goods for a fee.