March 17, 2001
Fighting crime and shopping
Lael and I were saving the world, and we told people that too--I added "before bedtime" like the Powerpuff Girls. We found a bomb hidden in chicken and dumplings in an old butter tub. As we drove on the highway, we were sure there were more bombs hidden in the basket of flowers that had fallen off a truck.
We then went to a garage sale, and I became interested in an old (1930s era) yearbook from WSU. The price on it was *$1.95: a little blond girl came up to me and said, "All books are three dollars." I asked her if that included those books that had lower prices listed on them. I put the yearbook back--I wasn't too interested in buying it for $1.95, much less $3.00--and found Norton's Anthology of English Literature (Vol. 1). I put it back, praising myself on not buying yet another anothology. Under the anthology were tons of romance novels (it was pretty blindingly pastel pink with all the flowery covers), and I immediately doubted the seller's tastes. The kid came back up to me and handed me a note that read, "Yes! The prices with an * by them are to be ignored. $3.00 is the correct price." I went inside the garage and found two Seventeen magazines about dreams. They were analyzing teens' dreams based on which celebrities were in their dreams. I didn't really recognize any of the names, but Lael definitely didn't. We left.
Then I was in a hotel, riding with three people up to the sixth floor in a very shaky elevator. Rebecca (from the preschool) was waiting in the lobby, trying to get all the energy out of her system before returning to her room where her husband was fast asleep. At the sixth floor (which looked like the Kendall/MIT stop on the red line in Boston, minus the bells), they started complaining about their rooms. I told them it was better than the second floor (the orange floor). I got off the elevator and decided to take the subway home. I was the only one though, and was surprised when it started going down the stairs, especially since there was no track. It took me to the fifth floor where a whole bunch of children were sitting in multicolored sofas that would whisk them places.
I got an email for Grandpa with two broken images:
1.) hot-water-heater-no-answer.gif
2.) water-pump-no-answer.gif
The only text in the email gave the phone number to call for a status report.