Seattle birthday

So I'd like to spend the week of my birthday (November 11) in Seattle.

I used to have a big Kibological following there, and some college buddies. Of these, I think only sunburn remains. I've lost touch with Lleah (a Kibologist) and Ellery (a college buddy). And w_b_yeats moved away I think.

I selected it because it's on the west coast, so fuel prices won't make traveling there all that expensive. But lodging for that long might cost more money than I want to burn, and I'm a bit tired of hostels. Think a bed and breakfast might be better?

An empty store

The CVS Pharmacy on Broadway and Rural is selling all its fixtures.

I walked into the store, and it's exactly the way it was a month ago, but there's nothing on the shelves. But there are so many display cases with logos and price tags on them, that it doesn't look quite as empty as it could. The photo counter is still there bearing prices, the pharmacy counter is still there. There's even music playing over the public address, and that was probably what made it seem the most normal.

I saw just one guy working there. I couldn't resist. "Do you have any milk?" "No." "Do you have any pie?" "No." "Can we take it as read that I kept this up for an hour, and it kept getting funnier, and I never ran out of nouns?" Actually, there was some milk, and some other products in a single freezer case. The gallon I checked expired in August.

He said that I could go anywhere, because everything's for sale. He didn't tell me that excluded the area behind the pharmacy counter, because I tripped an alarm when I went in there. But I did go into a lot of places that were new to me because I never worked retail before. The warehouse in back, which turned out to have an upstairs I never suspected it would have. I went into the freezer, which was still cold. There were a lot of signs and notices left over. There was a second upstairs loft with some offices and security monitoring equipment, and a few filing cabinets that were still full of files.

And in that loft, there were two pairs of binoculars, which I assumed were used to spot shoplifters, in addition to the sixteen security cameras. I bought them both for $15 each. They're pretty good. I bought them just as someone else was approaching the liquidator, who seemed very intent, as one might be if they were actually shopping for their own retail equipment.

Anyway, I recommend that everyone stop by there and just look around, if for no other reason than the experience. Just walk through. Push a shopping cart around. And see if they'll let you play your own music on the public address system. The guy said they'd be open for the next week, maybe ten days.