Day two of my Albuquerque trip started on a delicious note with Jessica cooking a nice late-morning breakfast with wheat pancakes, scrambled eggs, sliced strawberries and veggie sausage patties. Again, YUM! After that, the plan was for Jessica and I to do some thrift store shopping, but first, Jess needed to go to the car wash. Jess paid for a car wash, along with vacuuming and polishing. Well, later, we discovered that they failed to clean the pumper, which caused Jess some fits of annoyance and irritation lasting for the next several hours. There's nothing worse than not getting what you paid for.
What's a good way to follow up an evening of shopping? Yes, you've guessed it - another day of shopping. I mean, what else is there for a gay guy and his "not so fag-haggish" fag hag to do on a warm sunny afternoon in Albuquerque (oh, and it also being a holiday weekend)? Apparently, unlike in the mighty city of Seattle, there’s not a whole lot else to do. The agenda was to get a couple pairs of shorts for me and some inexpensive hiking boots for Jessica. So, we set off to one of Albuquerque’s finest strip malls and arrived at an Old Navy sandwiched between a discount shoe store and a Skechers superstore. Woooowee! I wasn’t so sure I could handle the multitude of choices.
So, we walked into the discount shoe store, not Famous Footwear, but a local version of it. I found a pair of black suede Converse All-Stars high-top sneakers, which I totally loved, but wasn’t sure that I could afford them. Ultimately, I made the reluctant decision not to buy them, thinking that I could always go back before the end of the trip to get them. Jessica, on the other hand, wasn’t having such luck. Her quest for women’s hiking boots was more arduous than anticipated. So, we left. Our next stop was Old Navy.
Under normal circumstances, being that I am normally surrounded by Capital Hill’s Bauhaus coffee-guzzling Hipsters from Hell (I love Bauhaus, actually), I’d be embarrassed to admit that I wear Old Navy. However, being that I don’t have Mommy’s money to spend on a regular basis, I am on a budget. So, therefore, if I want to buy my shorts at Old Navy, fuck it, I will buy my shorts there. Since Albuquerque doesn’t have ridiculously overpriced hipster clothing stores such as Zebra Club, Urban Outfitters or Ian, Old Navy is the natural alternative. Besides, for the price of a XL t-shirt only an anorexic 95 pound gay “boi” could fit in, I got TWO pairs of cargo shorts! Count em, TWO PAIRS OF SHORTS! Imagine that. To complete my newly-acquired suburban mini-wardrobe was a nice looking Madras shirt and two worn-in v-neck shirts. Jessica found a cute sleeveless crocheted blouse for $2.97, which I purchased for her. Success!
From there, we skipped Skechers and walked over to another discount shoe store so that Jessica could continue her quest for new hiking boots. Right before I arrived into town the day before, at last minute, Jessica filled in for a sick day camp instructor on an overnight trip to Los Alamos, NM, approximately three hours from Albuquerque, with a group of 2nd and 3rd graders. By the way, Jessica works as an Education Coordinator at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. There, she organizes and coordinates educational programs facilitated through the museum, including annual summer camps for children of all ages. Anyway, when they got there, while setting up their pup tents and gear, the clouds rolled in and suddenly, the frightened children were pelted with hail and soaking wet. Fortunately, Jessica had another person with her to help gather the kids together to seek shelter. Aside from that, the trip went fine, but Jessica accidentally left her soaked hiking boots at the campground where they were staying. Since getting her boots would require a six-hour roundtrip, she decided to leave them there, which spawned her shopping for a new pair. Besides, that would totally suck ass if she traveled three hours to end up not finding them. So, we arrived at this other shoe store, but no luck. Women’s hiking boots must be hard to come by in Albuquerque.
From there, we hit Starbucks for some chilled drinks. But, Jessica, being health-conscious, opted against their choices of frappucinos, so she just got a decaf coffee. She even asked the barista, who apparently was fairly new, what process they use to decaffeinate their coffee beans, to which he responded blankly. Fortunately, the woman who was making the drinks, saved the day, explaining that they used the Swiss process of decaffeinating their beans, which apparently is the better option. The other option apparcks.comently uses formaldehyde, which definitely doesn’t sound very good. YUCK! In the car ride to our next destination, Jessica explained the difference between the two processes, which inspired me to nickname her Debbie Downer, after Rachel Dratch’s character on Saturday Night Live. I’d follow it with the sound effects of the “Charlie Brown’s school teacher.” But, you can’t fault the girl for being health-conscious, but I personally prefer the “oblivious avoidance” technique for dealing with those issues. “La, la, la, la….La, la, la, la…”
After Starfucks (as I like to call it from time to time), we headed on our way to check out some thrift stores. Earlier, when we got the car washed, we passed two small thrift stores, but they were closed (assumedly because of the holiday and that they were owned by local churches.) We hoped we’d have better luck at Thrift Town, a locally-owned thrift store, like Savers or Value Village, which moved to a new location since my last visit in November 2002. Back then, I found a cute short-sleeved shirt for $3.50 or $4, which I still wear to this day, so I figured that I’d find something again. I literally only spent three to five minutes in the men’s section before I decided that there wasn’t anything I liked. I think I found one shirt, but there was a stain on it. Damn! On the other hand, Jessica found a couple sun dresses to try on and a funny looking white fuzzy vest. I told her to try it on with the white frilly Mexican sun dress that she also found just for kicks. Even though, she looked silly in this outfit, nonetheless, the look provided a perfect photo-op. The look screams “Bjork wanna-be from Albuquerque.” Do you like the rhyme? Ha ha!
**Geez, suddenly, he thinks he’s Tupac!**
Jessica raiding Bjork's closet, as
envisioned by Thrift Town in ABQ
After Jessica’s fashion show in Thrift Town’s fitting room, we ventured to Savers. Again, we didn’t have any luck. We only spent maybe fifteen minutes. Our thrift store shopping left us slightly hungry for a snack, so we decided upon Taco Bell for a quick bit to eat for a late lunch. Paying for my baja beef chalupa and steak soft taco made me realize how expensive eating fast food at Taco Bell in Capital Hill is. The difference is clearly in the sales tax. I saved at least a $1. $1.25 could get me an extra apple fritter at Bauhaus. To me, that’s a big deal. But, that’s Seattle for you. I just need to get over it.
From there, Jessica needed to drop by her grandparents house so I waited in the hot and stuffy car, thinking that she’d only be a few minutes. Well, over a half-hour later, I figured that I better go inside, otherwise, I’d pass out from heat exhaustion. Besides, we wanted to try and check out Kaufman’s, a local military and uniform gear shop, and figured it’d be closed early on Sunday. Lately, the wannabe disciplinarian in me wants some military-looking clothes for Halloween, or dress-up nights at the Eagle. As it turns out, Jessica was recounting her Los Alamos story to her grandparents, which reminds me that I failed to mention that fearless leader Jessica also has a run-in with a hungry skunk. So, we left, but discovered that Kaufman’s was actually closed Sundays in general. We were foiled again.
Then, we finalized our trip with a stop at Big 5 Sporting Goods to make one last attempt at finding hiking boots for Jessica. We arrived there, and Jessica found some boots that were okay, but ultimately decided to wait to buy them. Jessica and I think alike. We bitch and bitch and bitch in frustration when we can’t find what we’re looking for, but when we do, we think in dollars and cents and the balk at buying the thing that we were just complaining about not finding. Ha ha! But admitting that you have a problem is half the battle right there.
**End of Part One**
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