Satisfied, WOFOS?

Nobody does schlock like New York does schlock.  Sure, you can find dollar stores everywhere, but for sheer merchandisical chaos, nobody beats the Big Apple.  Today, MOS and I went into a local schlock-shop (the preferred term for this type of emporium--olde-fashioned "pe" at the end of "shop," optional) in search of a pair of two-dollar slippers--slippers being the one thing I forgot to pack for my current vacation.  Sadly, the best we could do was $2.97 slippers (but marked down from $4.97!).

I was nevertheless struck by the sheer volume of merchandise cramming the aisles of this particular establishment.  Imagine the amount and variety of products available at, say, your typical Wal-Mart  packed into an area about the size of a typical Wal-Mart restroom.  We're talking white dwarf levels of density here, people.  And you could seriously find anything.  A sampling of the sale items in this one store: shirts, shorts, sundresses, the aforementioned slippers (actually flip-flops, but why quibble), underwear (men's and women's), socks, fans (electric and handheld), food containers, pie tins, clocks, lamps--and lampshades--bottle openers, soap, toenail clippers, mylar balloons, universal remotes, towels, toys, cabinetry (CABINETRY!)--and these are just the things I remember.

The cash register is at the back of the store, so one must navigate this Sargasso of consumer goods (or at any rate, consumer OK's) to pay for anything.  No doubt this increases sales by exposing the clientele to ever more stuff before they pay.  It also strikes me as a questionable security measure, though, as anyone could presumably grab a handful of--let's just say, matter--from near the front door and be halfway down 37th Avenue before anyone even realized a bunch of floppy hats was missing.  (Did I mention they offer floppy hats?)

Maybe it doesn't matter, though,.  When ringing up the  flip-flops, the cashier initially punched in a price of $4.97 (no supermarket scanners here!).  We protested that they were actually $2.97--marked down!  And without so much as a "Price check on aisle five!" the young lady at the counter promptly changed the charge to $2.97.  Really?  Um, OK, how about $1.98?

Publication Notice

Hello, Nation.

I'm off to NYC, where sidewalks are muggy and internet coverage is spotty.  (MOS really needs to become more technologically up-to-date.)  So I will be posting sporadically at best for the next couple of weeks.  If you find yourself needing a solipsistic fix, feel free to browse the archives.  There's over 1,500 posts there and, y'know, if you haven't read it, it's new to you!  As an added incentive, I have gone back and scattered randomly throughout the archive subtle hints about the secret location of a solid jade wombat, which I'm sure will fetch a pretty penny on eBay.  I personally have forgotten the wombat's location, so I'm counting on all of you.  Read carefully!

Talk to you soon.

Just Another Day at Solipsist Central (Workplace Edition)

"What are you doing?"

"I'm tying my shoe.  What does it look like I'm doing?"

"It looks like you just untied your shoe."

"Well. . . yeah."

"Why?"

"Oh.  Well, see the other shoe was untied.  And after I tied that shoe, this shoe felt. . . funny."

"'Funny'?'"

"Yeah. . .  So I needed to untie and retie this shoe so that I wouldn't be . . . unbalanced."

"Oh, I don't think you've solved the problem of being unbalanced."

Swamped

Sorry, everybody.   The summer semester is just about over, and I'm in grading Hell,  So, in lieu of a post, please enjoy this picture of a panda in a hat:

Wonder What Friday Nights Are Like at His Place

Went to Safeway to purchase Alka -Seltzer.  Purchased Alka-Seltzer--and ONLY Alka-Seltzer. As the clerk handed me the bag, he said, "Enjoy."

Mormon, Mo Problems

Pity the Mormons.  And not for the obvious reasons, either, like the fact that their Mecca and Medina is located in a strip mall in Utah.  No, pity the Mormons because they are confronting a crisis in their history.  An article in today's Times reports that Mormons are discovering the "interwebs." They're now learning things about their faith--things that just don't add up.  For one thing, despite protestations of latter-day Latter Day Saints, Mormon founder Joseph Smith apparently was, in fact, a polygamist.  And the church was for most of its history less than welcoming of black men! 

Damn interwebs!

Of course, some of the things that Mormons are discovering are, shall we say, on the silly side.  For example, devout Mormons are concerned by the apparent contradictions in church lore:

"Why does the church always portray Joseph Smith translating the Book of Mormon from golden plates, when witnesses described him looking down into a hat at a “peep stone,” a rock that he believed helped him find buried treasure?

"Why did Smith claim that the Book of Abraham, a core scripture, was a translation of ancient writings from the Hebrew patriarch Abraham, when Egyptologists now identify the papyrus that Smith used in the translation as a common funerary scroll that has nothing to do with Abraham?"

Look, folks, I know you're relatively new to this, but if you want to have a religion, you're going to have to resign yourself to some exaggerations, inconsistencies, and/or otherwise unpalatable truths.  I mean, we Jews have accepted the idea that Moses parted the Red Sea by whacking it with his stick--instead of just asking politely as God intended.  And if you Mormons wanted a religion with absolutely no history of violence or oppression, well then you should have just stuck with the mainstream Christian denominations.  I understand Catholicism has an utterly non-controversial history when it comes to things like tolerance for all humankind.

Of course, Mormonism's newness is largely to blame for these growing pains. 

“The Roman Catholic Church has had 2,000 years to work through the hiccups in its history,” said Terryl L. Givens, a professor of English, literature and religion at the University of Richmond and a Mormon believer. “Mormonism is still an adolescent religion.”

Mormonism is, in fact, less than 200 years old: I imagine there are still people out there who knew Joseph Smith personally!  At any rate, it's hard to build up a religious mythology, replete with supernatural events, when primary sources are still so readily available and made universally accessible through the Web.  In contrast, older religions can tell us anything, and we'll believe it.  A guy walked on water?  Why not!  Probably just trying to get away from the dragons.