dianaschnuth

Aaron and I were driving out to the University Parks Trail for a pleasant autumn walk when we spied a large wooden sign with red spray-painted letters: COMIC BOOK SALE.

“…Did that just say ‘Comic book sale’?” Aaron asked me. I answered him that, yes, it did.

We drove up McCord Rd. in silence for another block or so before Aaron turned onto a side street to head back the way we came. I checked the funds in my wallet: $7 cash. We figured that would be plenty for whatever we found — and, if it wasn’t, we’d just ask the seller to hold our loot for 15 minutes while we located the nearest ATM.

As it turned out, we didn’t have to make an emergency ATM run, but it wasn’t for a lack of things to buy. We pulled up to the sale to find several large tables lining the perimeter of the front yard: one side was mainly figures, one was larger books and collections, and one was filled with longboxes of single-issue comics. The proprietor of the giant comic sale promised us a good deal on whatever we found. He just wanted it gone.

I’m admittedly not the biggest comic fan. OK, I’m not really a comic fan at all, but I don’t dislike them by any means. I just never really started reading or collecting on my own. So, I followed Aaron around the sale, looking at what he looked at, and ponying up my $7 for a set of Sandman figurines he found.

As we completed our transaction and did the requisite haggling, we learned that the man responsible for all these comic goods actually used to own a comic shop in Sylvania (just northwest of Toledo), and that it had gone out of business. He’d been trying to liquidate his figures and comics for a few years, and the packaging and boxes were starting to show wear and age, and were no longer suitable for collectors. We told him we’d spread the word about his ongoing sale (weekdays and weekends, as long as the weather holds out).

We departed the comic book yard sale with our booty and headed back northward to hit the trail.

Until we both started to smell something. Something… shitty.

One of us must have stepped in dog shit at the damn yard sale.

I checked my shoes, carefully. I was clean. Then, as he drove, Aaron pulled up his left foot to check his shoe—

And got dog shit all over his right hand.

I located a napkin in the glove compartment and wiped the shit off of his palm and fingers while he drove one-handed. Meijer sounded like a good, close place to clean up, so we took yet another short detour from our original agenda to take care of business.

Turned out that Aaron had barely glanced the dogpile with his left heel, so he had it up the back and side of his left shoe, and up in his treads a little. There was also a righteous smear on the floor mat. So, the floor mat got carefully folded up and put in the floorboard of the back seat, and we both went into Meijer and cleaned up. Then we turned right back around and went home to put the shitty floor mat in the washer before it stunk up the whole car permanently.

So much for our pleasant autumn walk.

Let this be a lesson, I suppose, to all yard sale goers: watch where you step, or you may go home with more than you bargained for.

At the Providence Airport, after you check in and get your boarding pass, you have to take your own luggage to the x-ray machine and stand there as it’s scanned and inspected. Aaron and I only had one large bag for the two of us, so we both took it down to the x-ray machine and handed it to two TSA gentlemen, who fed it through. We walked to the end, where our bag emerged and was tagged, then we turned and went back the way we came, bidding adieu to our luggage.

As we passed the first two TSA agents on our way out — young men, probably in their mid to late 20’s — one of them called out to us.

“I was telling him,” one guard said, pointing to his partner, “that he needs to watch Serial Experiments Lain. He hasn’t seen it.”

After a moment, we realized that they had seen Aaron’s Serial Experiments Lain shoulder bag. We cordially agreed that, yes, this guy really needed to watch Lain. It’s a great show.

Then the guy who hadn’t yet watched Lain saw my Mr. Spork shirt. “Great shirt!” he called out, grinning. “Is that from Woot?” I answered that, yeah, I got it from Woot.

At that point, we excused ourselves with the normal pleasantries — “Have a good weekend!” — and made our way to Security. But we found it pleasantly strange to discover fellow geeks as TSA guys in an unfamiliar airport.