So as per usual every couple of weeks, cleverthylacine and I went on a shopping run. We arrived at the final leg of the tour all caffeinated and ready for entertainment, so we naturally stopped through the Halloween section. The first part we looked at was the part with the colored hairspray, and I grabbed a bottle of the blue and silver glitter, because, hello, blue hair + Azz = yes.

We made a double circuit of the section, first chattering about the lovely Spider Girl outfit that was totally age-appropriate and cute and neither "sexy" nor OMG PINK (though there was also a pink Spider Girl outfit, but together with the red and blue one that meant, you know, CHOICES) and then looking at the other costumes, trying to figure out where the cutoff was where the women's costumes were all SEXY VERSION WHERE MAN'S COSTUME IS NOT SEXY. Pirate, sexy pirate. Ninja, sexy ninja. Doctor, sexy nurse. I saw a "vampiress" (sexy) costume and pointed it out to Tif, who was righteously disgusted. "You know what, if I dress as a vampire this year, I'm going in FLANNEL," she said. "Flannel and GLITTER." We agreed that Halloween in the Castro is no time to be wearing one's good clothes. "And if someone asks you where Edward is, you can say 'I divorced his ass twenty years ago and went to college'," I added.

We swung back for a third look at the shelves, this time with intent, looking for vampire teeth. Flannel is relatively easy to come by, Tif has sensible shoes she can wear, she already has plenty of glitter, she just needed teeth, and maybe -- maybe -- some fake blood. I spotted the party favor kids' teeth, $2~ for a 10-pack, but those wouldn't work. "I saw the makeup over this way," I said, and we examined the shelves. I eventually did spot one pair, in a package with some grease paint, but those were not satisfactory. I stared at the shelves while Tif poked around in more detail, and suddenly my eye caught on the colored hairspray display.

I did a double-take. I stared. I could not believe my eyes at first. I was struck by the absurdity of it all first, and then horror as I imagined the inevitable end result.

"Tif, can you spot what's problematic about this display?" I asked, pointing.

She looked. "Wait, is this the [social justice] kind of problematic, or the LOL FAIL kind of problematic?" she asked.

"The latter."

"There's ... pink paint on the shelf?" she hazarded.

So there was, and some was blobbed on one of the cans, but that wasn't it.

I will now share the pictures that I took, so everyone at home can play along. (I shared this in #dreamwidth and on Twitter earlier.) For those without images, there are six images; the first five are incompletely described, and the sixth is a repeat of the first image, with annotations drawn on the picture and also described fully.


( Full Shelf )


( Medium close )


( Close-up: blue )


( Close-up )


( Close-up: Side-by-side )


( Full shelf: annotated with explanation )


Tif did not actually register the real problem until I pointed it out, at which point she joined me in alternating between horror and snickering.


( I located an employee. )

Sunday:

• Too tired to move. Called in from work.
• Napped.
• Spent time with Figment, including some Really Weird Shit^TM.
• Figment went off to try and have dinner with his parents.
• Figment picked me up to go shopping because he was too late and missed them.
• The place where I was headed to shop was closed early, because duh, Sunday.
• Figment and I scoped out a discount movie theatre still showing Phantom of the Opera and A Series of Unfortunate Events; we made plans to see PotO on Monday.
• Figment and I finally went shopping, as I was too wound up to actually relax and see a movie. We dropped my groceries off at my place.
• Figment showed me the subliminals in The Wizard of Speed and Time (I swear, the guy is a walking glamourbomb) and then proceeded to run A Midsummer Night's Dream and Agent Cody Banks past me.

Monday:

• I zonked out on his living room couch.
• We slept in.
• We slept way in.
• He called plumbers and electricians while I read some of his late wife's old magazines and made the usual faces over some of the columns. (I wasn't raised in TV America. This magazine is for TV America.)
• I felt grungy, so we went to my apartment to each take showers. (His hot water is still broken.) This took a significant amount of time, which worked out ... poorly ... later on.
• He dropped me off at the plasma place.
• He went to go get the oil change he needed.
• He failed his oil change roll, as all the places around were closing.
• We went to get the shopping I hadn't been able to do the previous day accomplished.
• We dropped the groceries off at his place and got something to eat.
• We set out for the movie.
• The car began making a funky noise. We pulled over. (8:15 pm)
• He went and got oil.
• The car failed to restart.
• We waited for the car to cool down.
• The car again failed to restart. (9:50 pm)
• We walked to a nearby pay phone (for 1/2 mile definitions of "nearby"), but realized that the only two useful local numbers we had memorized off the tops of our heads were a) his parents', and b) Darkside's. (I have work's number memorized as well, but that would not have worked.) (Neither of us have a cellphone.)
• He tried to pull his brain back together enough to try and remember dustraven or trystan_laryssa's number; I supplied the last 4 digits of her number but he couldn't remember the first 2. (He got the 3rd dead on, though...) He explained why calling his mom wouldn't work so well.
• He decided to give starting the car one last try.
• We went over to a nearby grocery store to get water. (11:00 pm)
• The car failed to restart.
• He found his AAA card. (11:30 pm)
• We walked back to the pay phone and called AAA. They said it would be about 1:30 am before the tow truck showed. (Neither of us had a watch either.)
• We waited.

Tuesday:

• We waited some more.
• We called AAA again. (1:45 am)
• The tow truck showed up. (2:10 am)
• The car got dropped off at an approved repair shop a short walk from his place; we got dropped off at his place. (3:00 am)
• We crashed hard.
• He called all sorts of people about the car and the water repairs.
• The car needs a new engine.
• We cleaned, sorta.
• I left, and dragged my groceries with me on the bus home.
• Now I am home. Yay.

The carpet stinks. It's partially dried now, and it's stinking severely. My brain has taken Godsmack's "Voodoo" and is trying to filk it into something called "Mildew."

My back hurts like fuck from yanking the buckets of water the wrong way. Neighbor owes me a backrub. I think I'll hit him up for it soon.

Nephew, upon going to school this morning, announced to the world at large, "It rained in my house yesterday!" He's going to have a story for a lifetime with this. I don't begrudge him the experience.

They say they'll be doing the cleaning relatively soon. I hope so. We have company coming on Friday.

Votania and I kept lugging water from the downpour to the bathrooms, listening for a knock at the door. "I hope they get here soon," she said, as she staggered under the weight of a 13-gallon trash can full to the brim with mucky rusty water.

"So do I," I said, and shoved another bucket under the uncovered leak.

"The carpet's going to be ruined," Votania observed.

"They have a steam-cleaner."

"They're going to need it. I'm glad this is an apartment -- stuff like this is their responsibility, thank the gods."

"Yeah."

"Do you think we should cancel the Yule party? The apartment's going to be thrashed."

I glared at her. "If it doesn't stop the US Postal Service, it's damn sure not going to stop us," I told her.

"Point. ...Are you sure you paged them?"

We waited for a very long time, dragging increasingly heavy buckets of water through inch-deep water in Votania's bathroom to dump them. Finally the phone rang. Votania barely heard it over the pouring water; I was singing "Flood" too loudly to hear it at all.

Having gotten the flood more or less under control, we began to think of things other than the immediate danger of having our living room and bedrooms thoroughly swamped by noxious water.

I lugged buckets. "It's the fucking air conditioner again!" I shouted above the splashing roar of the downpour. "The pipe must have blown, and now all the hot water from the A/C for the entire fucking apartment complex is draining into our apartment!"

"Dammit!" Votania said. "What should I do?"

"How about a fucking anti-rain spell for just this bloody apartment?" I said, stomping and splashing, still wearing only my glasses and my underpants.

Votania collapsed in laughter.

"What?" I demanded, schlepping the next bucket, a tiny three-gallon one about to overflow.

"Oh gods," she said. "It's my fault. It's my fucking fault. I knew I shouldn't have done that ritual. Shamash spilling the water on the VCR was a warning, and I completely missed it!"

"You low-down, no-good, bow-legged, bald-headed, two-bit daughter of a bleep bubble out of your bleeping mother's bleep-infected bleep during Bitchy Witchy Week," I cursed at her good-naturedly, mindful of the eagerly listening ears of Nephew, who was perched safely out of harm's way on the top bunk of the bed in Votania's room, cheering and clapping. "Bleep you!"

Normally I like to wake up to my alarm clock, the happy loud siren sound that generally wakes me within the first instant, or within the first minute.

This morning, I wake up half an hour before that to the sound of Votania screaming, "Azz, get out here RIGHT NOW!!!" It's the sound she reserves for natural or unnatural disasters: hurricane, fire, invasion of ickies from another dimension, kid unconscious and not breathing, earthquake. I barely grab a blanket (I'm wearing underpants and perhaps my glasses, I'm not sure) and scramble for the door --

-- to be confronted with one of the more mundanely appalling disasters I have ever seen.