New York never sleeps my great hairy rump!

HEY! I got news for you people--I can do the same thing down here! And all that hoohah about being able to get anything anytime you want it ain't such a big deal!

Why, just last night, when we got home at 9 o'clock from church, and after 3/4 of the kids were bathed and put to bed about an hour and a half later, I was right in the middle of redoing my schedule of teachers and typing up a letter to e-mail to the church secretary this morning and was informed by the last un-sleeped child that she was supposed to get information off the Internet about the Creek Indians for class tomorrow, then only a few minutes later, I was informed by my good wife that her car needed precious, sweet Iraqi OOOOIIIILLLL, and that her mom wanted her to go to the bakery and get a coconut cake for her (something to eat for the constant stream of guests who come to stare at her in her post-operative state), and then I noticed that if some particular Middle Girl child wanted to take a paper copy of her assignment about Creek Indians with her tomorrow, she would need her daddy to pick up a pack of printer paper.

SO, along about 11, I was left to finish my work as everyone else did the sensible thing and went to bed. I finished part of my letter, redid my schedule, sent them to myself here at work so I could put the final polish on them this morning. I even managed to chat a bit with Mr. Schranck on the covered bridge thing, and I found a bunch of websites devoted to Muscogee history. It was time to print, and with no paper, it was time to embark on my sojourn, my quest to find out what all can be bought after midnight in the tiny village of Trussville.

A WHOLE HEAPING WAD, that's what! I dropped down to the foot of the hill and first went to see if Target might be open. You know, it being Christmastime, you would figure it would be open 24 hours, at least temporarily. Nope. The only thing open was Books-A-Million, and I came this close (imagine my fingers about an inch apart) to going in and shopping a bit. But I had to go fill up with gasoline, so on over to the RaceTrac for some good, cheap $1.289 gasoline to feed my profligate hunger for petrochemicals.

Having done that, I stopped by that beacon of get-everythingness, Winn-Dixie. Printer paper? Check! Coconut cake? Check! (although I will probably lose style points with the mominlaw since it didn't come from Marsh's Bakery). Take THAT! big city dwellers! Then it was back home to finish printing, and I was snug in bed by 0030. And up a 0455. Boy, am I sleepy.

The worst part of the whole deal was being aurally assaulted by quite possibly the world's worst rendition of "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Driving along, listening to the all-Christmas-music station, and suddenly I hear Bing Crosby start up with a pseudo-swingy, scat-like (in both the musical sense and in the sheer dreckiness of it) version that made me pull over and slam my head in the car door repeatedly. Imagine Bill Murray doing his lounge singer schtick with a dose of William Shatner after he has rummaged through the medicine cabinet. Feed that to a goose, then follow it around until it comes back out, then press it onto vinyl.

Yes, that bad.

"YEAH! You know Dash!er and Dancerrrrrrr, And that Com!et and Cupidddddd, but HEY! do you cats recalllll, THE! MOST! FAM! OUS! REINDEEEEEER OFffffaaaaLLLLLLLLLL?!" (Yes, I realize that the last word could be misinterpreted as "offal.")

Bingola sings Crapola. Bbuhbuhbuh-barf.

Oh well. At least I could sleep soundly knowing that I can go out at midnight and get anything I want around here, just like them big city folks.

As long as it's cake and paper and gas.
posted by Terry at 9:02:00 AM