New series of posts on the way

my phone doubles as a spur-of-the-moment capturer of memories, i.e., it has a crappy camera built in. i've got pictures on it dating back to the summer and as soon as i get a data cable for it, i'm going to dump them onto my PC and share them with you. it promises to be a lot of fun for me, and i can delete the pictures as i go freeing up much needed space.

here's a taste:

Andrea and I were in Dothan, AL over Thanksgiving visiting my family. Mom offered to watch Oscar one afternoon so we went and caught a matinée (Fantastic Mr. Fox, which we both loved) and did a little shopping. we both think Oscar would enjoy this toy, or one very similar, but they're a bit pricey new. i have never said "you can't put a price on happiness", b/c i can and it is less than $70.

on the way home, Eagle Eye Andrea spotted the toy out in front of a small shop. but this post is not about the toy and whether or not we bought it (we didn't). nor is it about all the great bargains we found in that shop (lots and lots of very inexpensive toys for our boy)...it's about my trip to the bathroom there.

by the time we left the movie theater, i had to go #1 pretty bad, but for whatever reason i chose not to go. maybe i very mistakenly thought we were going straight back and not to Toys-R-Us. well, i sure wasn't going to go there, all the kid germs and what not, so i resigned myself to holding it in. i barely made it back in the car and thought "Finally...we're going home"...when Andrea had me turn into the used toy store.

the first thing i wanted to know when i got in there was directions to the bathroom. the proprietor looked a little flustered and said, "Oh...umm....well, yes we do have a bathroom, but...well...", which did nothing to reassure my bladder. "OK, come all the way around here and go back to the back and then take the 1st right and the bathroom is on the left there". she then very awkwardly broached the "#1 or #2?" topic by saying "i don't think we have any toilet paper back there, but....."

"That won't be necessary", i interrupted.

the bathroom was relatively tough to access. there was barely enough room for me to squeeze through, sideways, due to all the racks of old clothes and broken, discarded toys everywhere. when at last I reached my destination, this is what awaited me:

I was afraid to touch the toilet seat

i don't know what the cleaning stuff was doing in there,

other than collecting dust.

eww

this sums it up

these camera-phones don't do very well capturing unbridled filth, b/c i'm telling you: i needed a shower after stepping in there. i can only imagine what the shower, had there been one, would have looked like.