This weekend I had to go buy new clothes. The last time I did this I went by myself for the purpose of buying a nice formal jacket and pants. This time I knew I really had to get some everyday stuff because…well…old navy khakis only have a life expectancy of a few months, and I was on year three with these.

I also knew that when I left to go shopping for clothes, there was a very real chance that I would come home with a plasma TV or a new flyfishing rod and not a single article of clothing. In order to avoid that, I did two things- I put about 75% of the clothes in my closet in plastic bags for the purpose of getting rid of them, and I invited a girl to go with me. She doesn’t have a real name, so I’ll call her KK.

KK- What are you going to do with these bags of clothes? Give them to the homeless?
Me- Yeah, I probably will…no…wait, won’t they be more motivated to get a job if they are cold? I’ll donate them to the kidney foundation.
KK- Yeah, you can write that off, too.

(KK thinks she’s liberal, but she’s just a pro-choice closet conservative ever since she started running a business of her own.)

So we went shopping and she successfully steered me away from home depot, circuit city, and the tackle shop. She did not keep me from acting like an idiot, though. She pretty much enables it.

Try this the next time you are shopping for clothes- Go into the fitting rooms where the lady is handing out numbers, but just bring four or five hats and a pair of socks.

At the end of it all I actually came home with clothes and a broad, which is pretty good for an old guy like me. If you see a dude walking down the street in his new threads, it’s me.

KK also brought me some stuff that is supposed to clean and seal stone tile (she sells stuff like that at her store). Now that I have a house of my own, I have to do things like clean it and seal the granite and tile every now and then. So last night I felt all industrious and decided to give the tile in my shower the what for. The instructions said “do not use on walking surfaces such as steps and floors.” It also said “do not concentrate and inhale the contents of this can”

Thank god the government is there to keep me from drinking all of my cleaning supplies. I was halfway through a six pack of Drano before I realized that my throat had dissolved.

The “walking surfaces and floors” part of the instructions played heavily into the following morning when I realized what they were talking about. This stuff, while leaving my tile soapscum free and shiny, also leaves a protective film of zero-friction polymers. My bathtub was now pretty much coated with the stuff, and it looked all innocent and non-skiddy like it always does. At 5:00 this morning I stepped inside and started bouncing around like a hockey puck. You know how Scooby Doo runs when he’s scared? Yeah, that, except naked and wet and definitely not meant for children’s programming.

My elbows and head hit every solid object in the bathroom before I regained my balance. It is nothing short of a miracle that I didn’t ruin my back and wind up in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, typing this crap with my tongue. The shower caddy thing that hangs from the showerhead was damaged from its attempt to support my entire weight, and my shower curtain (and curtain rod) were both on the floor. The curtain even managed to fall partly into the toilet, thrilling me beyond words.

After checking myself for injuries and throwing the shower curtain in the washing machine I got dressed and headed to work. I stopped on the way to get some gas and saw a kind of shady looking guy crossing the street near the gas station. Pretty much anytime you see a guy walking around at 5 am with a hood over most of his face and his hands jammed into the pockets of his sweatshirt, you want to keep an eye on him. In the part of town I live in, about the worst thing that can happen to you is to have your hair highlighted by a roving pack of gay men. But just in case, I wanted to keep track of him. As I was gassing up I had my back to where he should have been and was waiting to see him continue harmlessly up the sidewalk. Then I had this really bizarre and very noticeable spidey sense thing happen. It was like I instantly knew something was very wrong, so I turned around to see where he was. There was a big post/support beam thing next to the gas pump, and the guy was keeping it between me and him so I wouldn’t see him coming. Now he was about six feet away, moving much faster than someone who is just going to ask for change.

The guy was going to mug me, and I had about two seconds to react. He came around the post and tried to pull something out of his pocket, and at that moment I almost peed my pants for real. I mean I could feel it coming down the pipe. That would have really sucked because I was wearing brand new pants. I don’t think I have ever been that freaked out in my life. Killing the guy with my car keys would have taken too long, so I figured I’d hose him down with gas and hope for lightning. I pointed the nozzle at him and backed up so that I was in clear view of the station attendant. When I say backed up, I mean jumped about nine feet straight up and partially over the hood of my car. For the second time in an hour I was doing the Scooby Doo run.

I don’t know what I said to him, but I’m sure it contained a bad word or two and some kind of thing for him to do. I’d like to think I said something cool, like “You’d better back up before I set your shit on fire and laugh as you burn, motherfucker. I’ll be roasting marshmallows over your testicles till noon.” In a low gravelly voice…

But, in reality I’m sure I screamed “BAKKA FIRENUT SHITMALLOWS!” Like a twelve year old girl.

He never got whatever it was out of his pocket (probably a stack of those “I am a deaf mute” stickers that they sell for a dollar), and I think he changed his mind about the whole situation when he realized that I was going to be a big pain in the ass about being robbed. The attendant had seen me jumping around and she was looking at the situation from behind bulletproof glass. He glanced at her, back at me, and turned around and jogged away without saying a word.

She came out and said “You okay? That guy was trynna’ GIT you.” My mouth was completely dry so I responded with hand gestures and a fart.

The attendant called the cops and described the guy, and I’m sure they took it really seriously seeing as how nothing actually happened. I don’t know the penalty for attempted muggery or scaring the crap out of someone. Her description was way different than mine- “6 foot tall white male about 35-40 years old, grey shirt, black pants…” I guess if you work at a gas station long enough you get good at describing the suspect. My description was “Pallid skin, soulless blue eyes, whiskers made of bee stingers, smelled of death and poo, bazooka in pocket…Ever seen Tales from the Crypt? Like the cryptkeeper, except with more of a Jeff Dahmer thing going on.”

After I stopped shaking and sweating and had checked my pants for involuntary expulsions, I got in my car and headed to work. I almost turned around and went home when I realized that all of this crap had happened to me before 6 am.

I remember when I was a kid my parents used to tell me to always stay aware of what’s around me.

Um… thanks for that.

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