Emerald City Blues
My book has arrived. Huzzah! One of my few Internet purchases, it is called "Midnight Graffiti", and is a collection of short stories from (I gather) a magazine of the same name. When I originally purchased the book in its paperback form, it was because it contained a then-unpublished-elsewhere short story by Stephen King ("Rainy Season"), and I was going through a must-own-everything-Stephen-King-oooh-is-that-his-laundry-list phase. I lost that book, or loaned it to someone who I forgot I loaned it to and they forgot they had borrowed it from someone1. "Rainy Season" has since been re-published in one of Mr. King's numerous anthologies (of which I own the lot), but my reason for re-acquiring Midnight Grafitti is that I got lucky and discovered what became (and remains) my very favourite short story of all time, "Emerald City Blues", by Stephen R. Boyett. It describes in loving detail the effect of a Soviet "ground-pounder" cruise missile impacting in Oz. Poor Munchkins. Poor Winkies. Poor Dorothy. Toto, too. If you get a chance, find it, and read it. Sincerely.
At any rate, I bless both e-Bay and PayPal for re-acquainting me with my long-lost love, this book. The book was $5, the shipping and handling about 4 times that much. Wacky Internet shopping.
I mentioned that this is "one my few" Internet purchases: it is only recently that I do any sort of shopping online. Long ago, I got a Visa card and an Amex card "to use for emergencies only", and it turned out I was a pretty panicky guy. I racked those babies up so fast they caught fire. It was years before the various credit-watching-over computers had calmed down enough to let me have a credit card again, but I continued to decline any offers of such cards. I knew they were trouble, and I knew I'd use 'em.
It took a couple of emergencies2 (which would have been made much smoother with the inclusion of a credit card into the mix) to make me finally crack down and get one. I only have the one, and I try to pay it down as soon as the bills come due, so it actually will be free and clear should an emergency arise. But man, it's hard. I surf to thinkgeek.com and I am instantly within an ace of buying about a thousand dollars of stuff (my wife had to actually talk me out of spending $120 USD recently on a light sabre that Made Real Light Sabre Sounds).
Clearly, I cannot be left alone with plastic.
1I confess to owning more than one book that I likely acquired in this same manner: I look at books on my bookshelf with no clear memory of ever having purchased them, nor seeing anything on the cover that would have caused me to purchase them. Either someone has loaned these to me and we have both forgotten1.2, or there exists an invisible fae creature along the lines of the Car Key Gnomes or the Remote Gremlins, except that instead of hiding things so you will never find them, they actually steal books and place them on someone else's bookshelf, perhaps taking something off their shelf and putting it on yours by way of exchange.
1.2This seems the more likely explanation.
2Each emergency was, in fact, named "Max", which not coincidentally is the name of one of my two cats (the other is named Dave). Both cats cost us $50 to initially acquire. The sum total of Dave remains at $50, whereas the sum total of Max is hovering closer to the $2,000 mark. How one cat can catch so many things and require so much attention only on national holidays so that we must go to the emergency vet clinic which costs you about $100 for simply walking in their door is beyond me.
At any rate, I bless both e-Bay and PayPal for re-acquainting me with my long-lost love, this book. The book was $5, the shipping and handling about 4 times that much. Wacky Internet shopping.
I mentioned that this is "one my few" Internet purchases: it is only recently that I do any sort of shopping online. Long ago, I got a Visa card and an Amex card "to use for emergencies only", and it turned out I was a pretty panicky guy. I racked those babies up so fast they caught fire. It was years before the various credit-watching-over computers had calmed down enough to let me have a credit card again, but I continued to decline any offers of such cards. I knew they were trouble, and I knew I'd use 'em.
It took a couple of emergencies2 (which would have been made much smoother with the inclusion of a credit card into the mix) to make me finally crack down and get one. I only have the one, and I try to pay it down as soon as the bills come due, so it actually will be free and clear should an emergency arise. But man, it's hard. I surf to thinkgeek.com and I am instantly within an ace of buying about a thousand dollars of stuff (my wife had to actually talk me out of spending $120 USD recently on a light sabre that Made Real Light Sabre Sounds).
Clearly, I cannot be left alone with plastic.
1I confess to owning more than one book that I likely acquired in this same manner: I look at books on my bookshelf with no clear memory of ever having purchased them, nor seeing anything on the cover that would have caused me to purchase them. Either someone has loaned these to me and we have both forgotten1.2, or there exists an invisible fae creature along the lines of the Car Key Gnomes or the Remote Gremlins, except that instead of hiding things so you will never find them, they actually steal books and place them on someone else's bookshelf, perhaps taking something off their shelf and putting it on yours by way of exchange.
1.2This seems the more likely explanation.
2Each emergency was, in fact, named "Max", which not coincidentally is the name of one of my two cats (the other is named Dave). Both cats cost us $50 to initially acquire. The sum total of Dave remains at $50, whereas the sum total of Max is hovering closer to the $2,000 mark. How one cat can catch so many things and require so much attention only on national holidays so that we must go to the emergency vet clinic which costs you about $100 for simply walking in their door is beyond me.