The One About the Abyssmal Mall
Tuesday, September 4, 2001

hi kids, wow, september? you gotta be kidding me.  

so anyway, my leetle brahther was in town about two (2) months ago, and he needed some new shoes.  being the good beeg seester that i am, i took him to get those new shoes, of course i only know one place to get shoes and that would be The Mall.
*sigh*

The Mall reminds me a lot of that movie, the abyss. they are both long, with bright colors, filled with people you don't want to have anything to do with and is just, as laura has said on occasion, "abysmal".  

so my bro and i are walking in The Mall and we come up on a giant, shiny, red s.u.v. parked in the middle and of course i immediately think to myself, "how do they get these things in this place? and why didn't they take out the annoying beanie baby booth when they had the chance?"
because, well, the mass carnage of tiny, colorful animal dolls would just be the coolest, right?

anyway, there's a table next to this giant, shiny, red s.u.v. and it's got entry forms on it and pencils are all over the place and so apparently they're giving the car away. my brahther suddenly stops and and starts to fill out a form.

"uh...what are you doing?" i ask.
he gives me a "what does it look like i'm doing?" kind of look and says, "what does it look like i'm doing?"
i snicker and say, "so you really think you're going to win that car?"
and then he says, "it doesn't hurt anything to try." 

yeah so like, when did he get so smart-like? i mean, i can't argue with that.  so i did the only thing i could do.  i filled out an entry form. like, duh. then we bought some shoes.  

a couple of weeks later i needed something from the bookstore.  of course, the bookstore is in The Mall.
*sigh*

The Mall reminds me of that movie, the abyss. they are both convoluted yet boring and fill me with a dread that can only be described as "quite dreadful". in the same way that i'll never watch that movie again, i never go to The Mall alone. 
'tis a scary place. 

so this time my roommate, laura "can it get any more abysmal than that?" bentley, went to The Mall with me. once again i was face to face with the giant, shiny, red s.u.v. and without thinking i immediately started to fill out another entry form. 
LB stopped and looked at me and asked, "what are you doing?"

"i'm going to win this car." i said.

"you are going to win this car?"

"well, i'm trying to win this car.  and it doesn't hurt anything to try."
"good point." she said.  but laura did not fill out an entry form. 

she doesn't "enter contests" and she's not the type of person to "fill out" an "entry form" and maybe she doesn't want to "win a car" and hey, that's ok, because she doesn't "need" a "free car" and wouldn't you like to be in a position where you could "turn down" the offer of a "free car"?  

so anyway, i pretty much told her that i was going to win that car, which is probably why she didn't enter, right?  i mean, what's the point, it's my car. it has nothing to do with the fact that she has no luck at all. i mean, the poor shemp's never even one a coin toss much less a huge free car.  and at this point she knows not to enter because, well, first, it's mine, second, no luck and third, it's mine!
it really had nothing to do with the fact that as soon as she picked up a pencil and an entry form i smacked them out of her hand and screamed, "back off! that's my giant, shiny, red s.u.v. you ungrateful peasant!"
or maybe that didn't happen.  i can't remember.
 

then we escaped the clutches of The Mall. and i haven't been back to The Mall since. which is ok by me 'cause The Mall reminds me of that movie, the abyss. they both have the ability to suck away your precious time and when it's over you wish you had done something worthwhile and constructive and gosh, don't you wish you had your money back too?  

so anyway a couple of more weeks go by and i'm sitting at home and laura comes downstairs and is all, "well, you've done it."
and i'm all, "i have?"

and she's all, "yeah, you just had to win something didn't you?"

and i'm all, "yeah, it's like, sometimes you just gotta win and so...i uh. er, what are we talking about?"
 
and then she refreshes my memory of entering the contest to win the big honking s.u.v. and "oh yeah!"

"cool! so i won the car?!"
"no." she said. "you won a cruise for two."  

curses!  

so yeah, i win this cruise. 
and it's like, a cruise y'know? something like, 3 days and 4 nights in the bahamas or some other imaginary place like that.  and well, bummer right? because
#1. i don't have time for a free cruise and
#2. i can't afford a "free" cruise and
#3. aren't the bahamas under some sort of tyrannical dictatorship at the moment? no wait... that's indonesia, oops.
 

the deal with the "free cruise" is that it's gonna cost me and my cruisemate at least $400 (each. got that?) to get to go on the "free cruise" and then whatever other expenses it would take to keep us alive for four days on foreign soil.  and gee, let's give 'em a cruise during hurricane season right? sha, isn't it always hurricane season in the bahamas?  

yeah so great prize and all, i mean, this "free cruise" is starting to remind me a lot of that movie, the abyss.  it's got all this water and whoa, like, slightly famous people!  but hey, this is kinda dragging on and i'm finding it hard to identify with the "romantic" relationship and why do the russians always have the guns?  is he breathing underwater? is that an alien or what? are the aliens good guys or bad guys? so technically, is ed harris dead or is it just from the neck up?  cool, so the alien saved him...so the aliens are good guys.  oh for crying out...you mean there's a moral to this story? somebody kick me in the head please. *sigh* don't you hate it when they make the aliens more "human" than the humans? whoa, whoa, whoa, now  the aliens are going to destroy the world? bu...h ... i...thought.... so now they're bad guys?  shouldn't it have ended when ed harris "died"? free cruise? feh. how abysmal.  

now, in case there are any die hard abyss fan out there, i was forced to watch the director's cut version of that flick and well, sheesh, it was 2 days and 9 hours long and it was confusing as all get out (what do you expect from James "Titanic" Cameron though, really? i'll let Terminator 2 slide.) and even the people who liked the regular version of that movie seemed to think that the director's version was bad.  so you know, if you must send me hate mail telling me how shallow i am and that i just "don't get it", well, ok.  please send it to laurabentley@likeicare.com

right well, onto the weekly then...  

hi kids,  
thursday is my leetle brahther's b'day!  tell him happy b'day!
mrbnatural2@hotmail.com happy birthday justin.    

next week's epitomb: T1000 vs. the Golem  

jaimie "i'm a driver. i'm a winner. things are gonna change i can feel it." pickle

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