You know, it's one thing to let the person at the pharmacy (or Guest Services, AAMOF) to ring up a couple of items in addition to the medicine, but deciding to treat the pharmacy clerk as if one is at an actual check-out line is something else again:

There was an elderly woman ahead of me, and we waited close to ten minutes for the clerk to finish checking out that woman, largely due to something not ringing up correctly so the clerk had to go find a current circular, find the relevant ad, then make the correction.

Every three minutes or so the clerk would brightly assure the elderly woman and I that she'd be with us in just a minute or two.

Grrrrr....!

This afternoon I took Dmitry to Carolyn's house, as she was going to visit her brother today prior to leaving for Washington D.C. tomorrow and invited him to come along.  Naturally he agreed.  ;^)  After dropping him off I decided no more nonsense.  The time for action is now! 

Went to Hulen Mall and made for the Verizon store, upgrading my phone to a wickedly cool LG 8700 (which boasts a 2.0 megapixel camera and now sports a 1G MicroSD memory card), getting a not-as-cool-but-still-pretty-darn-nice LG 8300 for Dmitry and putting him on my account, which was itself changed up to that America's Family Share w/ Unlimited Messaging.

Dmitry does a lot of messaging, and Carolyn's phone is also a Verizon so the minutes he talks to her will be free.  Sweet.

He and Dennis spent last night in Cleveland, TN, and had a grueling 13 hour drive today.

The "short cut" didn't work out precisely as planned, as short cuts often don't. 

The Car, photo taken from the good side:

The Car, photo taken from the side messed up when a jerk ran him off the road up in New York last summer:

Nothing brings the guys out like a classic Corvette. 

.....and is having a vacation in St. Petersburg, which impressed Dmitry
no end.  She says she's taken hundreds of photos but hasn't got 'em
whipped into shape just yet.  She promises she will soon.  In the
meantime, she sent Dmitry a few pix of herself (they do enjoy getting
photos of each other, as you may imagine):

I agree with Dmitry, who insists she should be a model, she's so lovely. 

This is a cool story in any case, but it holds special interest for me since Dan is at Marine boot camp and his father, Bill, is a police chief;  from a story at the Boston Globe:

Hayden, a 65-year-old former police commander, had enlisted a
gray-haired gentleman sitting next to him to assist. The man turned out
to be a former US Marine.

"I had looked around the plane for
help, and all the younger guys had averted their eyes. When I asked the
guy next to me if he was up to it, all he said was, 'Retired captain.
USMC.' I said, 'You'll do,' " Hayden recalled. "So, basically, a couple
of grandfathers took care of the situation."

Hayden said the unruly man's behavior upset some passengers. One
told Hayden the man had said, "Your lives are going to change today
forever," as he shouted and refused to take his seat before takeoff and
at various times during the nearly three-hour flight. He said that at
one point the man lay on his back and was screaming, moaning, and
thrashing on the floor.

"Some people were crying," Hayden said.
"I thought it might be a diversion. I kept scanning the back of the
plane to see if anyone was going to rush forward. The flight attendants
did a great job, literally surrounding the two guys who were making all
the noise. I told one of the flight attendants I was a retired police
officer and would be willing to assist, so we agreed on a signal."

When
the captain announced preparations for landing, the man jumped up
shouting, the flight attendant held up the handcuffs, and Hayden and
the Marine came bounding down the aisle. Hayden said he and the retired
Marine, whose name he never got, received an ovation from fellow
passengers, and "some free air miles."

Hayden's wife of 42 years,
Katie, who was also on the flight, was less impressed. Even as her
husband struggled with the agitated passenger, she barely looked up
from "The Richest Man in Babylon," the book she was reading.

Don't you love it?    I was composing a letter to Dan and included that bit, figuring it would interest him too.

Did y'all see the fluorescent purple frog discovered last year in Suriname?

That is one neat looking frog.  What worries me, however, is the thought of someone deciding "Oh, that'd be a hit in pet shops!" and going to try to capture a male and female for breeding purposes, smuggling them into the USA, where they'll get into the wild (such as it is around here) and immediately cause problems.

I must say, if I were going to have a pet frog, that's the frog I'd want. 

On the 2nd was the Imperia Vodka (which I bought once when it was on sale and dang, it was good) Hair Competition in Manchester, New Hampshire, raising money for breast cancer research.  This is the third year the competition's been held, and so far it's scored $100K for the cause.  The more eccentric and exotic the better, and real hair, artificial hair, braiding, weaving, and chicken wire were all permissible.  Here are a few choice entries:

This is the Medusa, followed by the Elephant:

That'd make quite the stir at SuperTarget, wouldn't it?  Carrying forward the wildlife theme, here's the Dragon:

The paws or claws or whatever it is dragons have, draped over the model's shoulders, are a nice touch.  At least the model seems to think so, and she should know.  Here's one that looks to be 3-4' tall, and which I dubbed the Tower:

Her parents must be so proud.  ("Fifty-eight thousand bucks for college, Helen, and this is what she does for a living?") 

This morning I've been a good deal busier than is my wont on Monday mornings, getting up and out early to head up to Haslet to clear stuff out of the Skylark and take photos:

The front bumper, partially seen lying down there on the lower left, was in good condition.  We can't figure out how that happened. 

The same cannot be said for the rear bumper, which is definitely the worse for wear.

After leaving the towing place I drove Charles to the airport so he can catch his flight to Groton (okay, actually Providence, RI), meeting up there with his friend, Dennis, who kindly and generously flew up ahead of him early this morning, and will drive back with him.

Having dropped him off I went to our insurance agent, who confirmed that claims follow the vehicle, so doubtless the girl without insurance will file a claim on ours.  Isn't that jolly?  At least our coverage will pay for an adjuster going out to the towing place to inspect the car and give an official damage estimate, which the police want for the purposes of building their case against the illegal alien who started the unfortunate series of accidents (along with running away with his beer, he also had with him a stolen radio).

Mercy Maud.  Could it BE any more Monday? 

So far's I'm aware the next presidential election isn't for almost a year and a half, so what's up with candidates' debates NOW?  The Repubs had a couple last month, IIRC, and tonight EIGHTEEN Demos are due to verbally duke it out.  

Eighteen?  How the deuce can there be any sort of viable debate between eighteen people?  That's insane.

I remember when the presidential race didn't really get geared up on a national basis until the start of the election year.  If one lived in New Hampshire or one of the states with an early primary one heard from the candidate-wannabees but at least the rest of us were spared. 

The bad news is, the Skylark is toast.  

So it's a few minutes after midnight and I'm curled up in the recliner, reading, when the phone rings. It's Charles.

"I've been in an accident!" he....what? Stated? Stuttered? Cried? Said shakily?

I forget. There's something about hearing emergency vehicle sirens in
the background that snags one's attention. Clearly agitated, he
repeated he'd been in an accident...the car's totaled...he's okay,
though. I pressed him as to where he was and he managed to tell me,
"121 south, at 35!"

Took me a moment to place it but I finally did, assured him "Mama's
coming, Charles! Mama's coming!" then ran into the bedroom, flipping on
the light as I made the terse announcement to Don, who'd been asleep.

Did I mention a strong thunderstorm was pounding us at the time? Well, it was.

We drove in grim silence through the pouring rain, lightning, and
thunder till we exited I-35 onto 121. Immediately we saw a plethora of
emergency vehicle lights on the opposite side of the freeway. We exited
and came back around, to see flares, multiple police cars, at least one
fire truck and an ambulance, along with three damaged cars, including
the most damaged....our
Skylark. The front end was completely demolished and the rear wasn't
looking too spiffy, either. It was stopped sideways in the middle of
the freeway, with the other two cars somewhere behind it. Don carefully
pulled up in front of the ambulance, in the inside lane of the freeway
(no one could get through to it, as that was the lane with flares, one
of the cars, police cars, etc.), and I hopped out into the rain
(neglecting to remove my glasses, which was really dumb) and began
running and calling "Charles! CHARLES!!!" A policeman came up to me, I
gripped his arm and pleaded, "Charles? My son? That's his car!" and
pointed to the Skylark. "Omigod...was anyone hurt? Look at these cars!"

Blessed, blessed words from the reassuring officer: "Ma'am, he's fine. They're all
fine. They're sitting in the ambulance," and so saying he led me to it
and opened the door. Charles was sitting there, closest to the door,
along with four or five other young people.

Turns out the girl was American, but the three young men were from Australia.

Charles had been in Carrollton visiting a friend and was driving back,
below the speed limit due to the heavy rain, staying in the lane with
no other traffic so as to avoid backsplash, when he suddenly realized
there was a car ahead of him, stopped on the freeway. He slammed on his
brakes, spinning out, and apparently hit the concrete divider and was
in turn hit by one of the other cars who'd been behind him. The airbags
deployed, causing the interior of the car to fill with smoke, scaring
the living daylights out of him. Due to the damage he had a hard time
getting out of the car, all the while terrified it was going to explode
(apparently it wasn't the engine though...just the airbags, according
to the fireman).

The guy in the stopped car was drunk, and - still carrying his beer -
began running away from the scene, with the Australian men in hot
pursuit. They caught him.

It must have been quite the scene. Those Aussies will certainly have a tale to tell when they get home, won't they?

Eventually the wrecker showed up, Don arranged with him to have the
Skylark taken to his establishment instead of the city pound (where
we'd have to pay), and we left, arriving back home a bit after 1 a.m.

That's the second weekend in a row that Don and I were on that stretch of freeway shortly after midnight because of Charles.  Hope this trend doesn't continue. 

Hot dogs, that is to say.

Yes, this evening he's concentrating upon hot dogs, and right this minute he's making what was standard fare in our house when I was growing up, i.e. hot dogs stuffed with cheese and wrapped with bacon.

This is new?  You'd think so, based upon the groans of appreciation from the audience.

To be fair, he is putting a different twist on his bacon-cheese-dogs, which is cooking them on a griddle, then putting them on a hot dog bun that was grilled on the griddle in the bacon grease. 

Hideously bad for you, of course, but yuuuuuummmmm!  They look delicious. 

Still, it's the first time I've ever watched Emeril and recognized the dish as one I've eaten times out of mind, pretty much as he made it.  Pretty much.  I broil them in the oven, but am planning upon trying the griddle idea.

Emeril and the lowly frank....who'd have thunkit?