active_apathy

Today, I went shopping.

My mission was accepted for me, by ~~the vile curse of a consumerist society continually driven to greater and greater excesses as corporations try to suck the disempowered populace dry~~ one of my shoelaces snapping. So, I went for a little quest throughout the shopping centre, my eventual aim being the location and retrieval of a pair of black round shoelaces of an appropriate length and thickness.

Three. Hours. Later, I arrive at the very last of the shops in the building likely to carry any kind of shoelace, let alone the ones that I want. And there, before my eyes, they hang! On a top shelf! It's like Joss was protecting them, just for me. So, I collect them and take them over to the counter.

Pretty Shop Assistant™ scans them, reads the price off the computer screen, and looks at me. "They'll be $79.95", she declares; her voice is that even, neutral tone of 'you must give me money to take goods from this shop'.

You know River's OMJWTFidjit‽ expression? That's exactly the face I pulled. She blinked, looked back at the screen, and facepalmed. "$7.95", she corrected. Her colleague looked, gave one of those odd little male giggles, and shuffled off to do his job.

Thus shoelaced, I went on with my second quest item - plastic dinosaurs. So, I go to a shop that I know has plastic dinosaurs there for the purchasing.

...

And they've been discontinued. Browncoat Shop Assistant™ walks over, and asks if I need help. I start to explain what I'm looking for, stop, rethink, and ask if she's seen Firefly. And... she has! Wheeee!

I explain that I'm looking for dinosaurs like Wash is playing with at the start of the pilot episode. I get a blank stare in return. So, I pick up an Albert Einstein Action Figure (I kid thee not!) and a plastic cow, and re-enact, right there, in the middle of the shop.

Complete with voices and actions and expressions.

ALBERT: Yes. Everything looks good from here. This is a fertile land, and we will thrive. We will rule over all this land, and we will call it... "This Land"
COW: I call it your grave!
ALBERT: Ah, curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!
COW: Ha ha HAH. Mine is an evil laugh. Now DIE!
ALBERT: Oh God! Oh dear God in heaven!

At this point, I have a little audience to whom I give an equally little wave, and a giggly shop assistant who knew exactly what I meant but wanted to see how I'd explain it. She suggests trying a toy shop; I may do that when my Serenity store arrives.

And that's about it for the narrative. So, now, I have pretend letters. Whee!

Dear "Goth",

Please take this advice from the person writing in her notebook with a black felt-tip calligraphic pen: carrying a cane and wearing a collar and leash while feeding a chronic tic-tac addiction doesn't make you look all goth.

No, not even a little bit.

It makes you look like Gregory House going to a fetish party. Please, please reconsider.

With hope for your dress sense,

active_apathy

Dear Stationers,

Putting 7mm lined notepads right next to 1mm black felt-tip calligraphic pens is pure genius, especially when I am in need of a notepad. I now have a use for lined paper, since the line height is canonical for those using a 1mm pen in this particular hand.

Yours consumerishly,

active_apathy