Here's St. Teresa of CVS and the good ol' Green House where I lived senior year. I hear the life-size Mike Singletary poster no longer guards the top of the stairs; he was a victim of the fall cleaning we missed out on before we moved in. But I believe I discussed him in the last post. How about... ooh, when we got Lucas Paducas neutered in October, we held a Halloween Ball to celebrate the end of his potential for propagating his species as well as his impending desire to spray the walls of our house with his feline juices. (No, but really, get a cat. They're great animals. Amie knows what I'm talking about.)But anyway, to expand on the theme, we served cheese balls, meatballs, mixed nuts and other vaguely testicularly named foodstuffs. Even though it was thrown in his honor, I think we had a better time at the party then Lucas. But even he had a better time than some anonymous cat from the anatomy lab whose one, two kitty testicles were left on our porch in a jar of some sort of fluid. Hooray for theme parties!
And boo to Kohl's. Yes, I realize that all Kohl's look alike and that this could be any of the no-doubt hundreds of extant Kohl's stores. You'll just have to trust me when I tell you that this is the Kohl's where I worked at P.O.S. and didn't really enjoy it and only two people came to visit me ever, so friend points go to you, Tara and Christine. I remember during orientation (a series of horrible, horrible videos from the 80s) we learned about the name tag incentive program. When customers filled out comment cards and mentioned you positively, you earned points. Everyone started out with a maroon name tag, but as you earned points you progressed to a silver and then a gold tag, and then you started earning stars to add beneath your name. I decided my goal was to be nice until I earned the silver tag. After that the name tags just got ugly, so I'd end the nice routine to maintain what was clearly the most aesthetically desirable tag. Did I achieve my goal? The maroon tag on my bulletin board mocking me to this day will be more than happy to answer your question.
It is also the very same Kohl's where a woman was piling clothes out of her cart while talking to her friend when I scanned a pair of baby pants. They rang up for twenty-two American dollars. They then began a debate on whether the pants were cute, and once they decided that they were they began wondering if the pants were twenty-two dollars worth of cute. "Well," said the woman who was planning on buying them, "If I don't like the price that comes up, you can offer me a lower one, right?" "Uh, no, sorry. This isn't a Venezuelan flea market. You pay what the tag says." I only said the first part out loud, but I think there was a tone that implied the second part. Maybe there's a reason I wore a maroon tag for the entirety of my employment.
New intersection in front of the aforementioned Kohl's, leading to countless venues of commercialized splendor. A twenty minute drive to Merrilville is no longer a necessity, which saddens me until I think of that time my stupid car started choking on its own radiator (or something... I don't know cars) and the 'check engine' light came on halfway home. Later that day on my dad's advice Catie and I bought some radiator fluid see if that would solve the problem. We successfully located the radiator cap and even opened it, only to find that it was mostly full. We opened up the new radiator fluid and poured some in - and holy crap, have you ever seen radiator fluid? I honestly believe it's the prettiest liquid that exists on earth. Like molten emeralds! It glittered in the late afternoon sun and Catie and I exclaimed over its beauty for an almost embarrassing amount of time, and then we wondered why there aren't more female mechanics. We bounced my car around by jumping on the bumper to, I don't know, settle the fluid in or something. Then I took it to a real mechanic and had to pay about four hundred bucks to really fix it. Memories.
More stores, including a dress barn for all your dress needs. Somehow I managed to survive four years at Valpo without this store. I had to bring a dress from home for the Sophomore Year Christ College Christmastime Gathering of Pretentiousness (or CCCGoP to those in the know) when I played first chair kazoo. I think that was the high of my Christ College career, too. Wait- no it wasn't. End of freshman year, a certain CC dropout and me filled out our evals in fluorescent gel pen. My favorite part was where we ranked the books we had read using a crudely drawn bar graph. I think our input really helped the program.
Okay last one before bedtime. I'm not sure if you can read that sign if you don't know already know what it says, but Mayfield Apartments hosted much stupidity over the first half of senior year. Like when we went to go see Tara's brand new apartment and during the ensuing celebratory drink, Laura spilled her red beverage across the beige carpeting. Whoops. The first time I ever saw the original Star Wars movies, and then watched them again for some reason, because even though there's apparently no black aliens the phrase "We got stheparated!" just gets funnier and funnier the more you say it.
And then that night after the Travis the Horse party we walked back to the Green House. There was frost on the cars and I spent way too much time using the side of my hand to make what looked like tiny footprints all over the car. I spent the whole time giggling over the fact that when the owner found it the next morning they'd undoubtedly wonder what baby had clomped barefoot all over their car, defying gravity by walking straight up the side of it.
There was another night where I came home from Mayfield to be alone in my house save for a bat fluttering around the ceiling of my bedroom and how the VUPD sort of saved me. But that's a story for another time, even though I'm sure you've all heard it before. It was a tale of valor and tiredness and utter embarrassment, and I milked it for all it was worth at the time. All right, I'm out. You behave yourselves til I get back.
