Shop Til U Drop

Somebody asked me the other day, "Hey Lee, you ever do anything except watch TV & baseball and listen to music? Like, hang out with your family?!"

Of course I don't just watch TV & baseball and listen to music! I just don't write about other stuff-- it's usually a little boring. But since you asked...

Me, Mizz and LJ headed out to P-Wash LI for the annual Brisket party on Sunday. We're usually among the four or five deadbeats without kids at the event-- now we've been upgraded to the "deadbeats with only one kid" group.

Anyway, Mz Mazz set us up with a Zipcar for the day. I've always insisted we rent strictly from the Hicksville Hertz, which is the cheapest major chain rental within 50 miles. I guess it's a tad impractical at times, but we all pinch pennies somewhere, right?

Zipcar is pretty good. You get free gas, an EZ Pass (which you pay for), and you pick up your car within blocks of your apartment. As we corralled LJ for the epic journey Sunday morning, I stumbled outside to find our car. I'm not even sure that "car" accurately describes our vehicle-- it looked like a prop from Logan's Run. It had enough pickup to get me across the Whitestone Bridge, so good enough.

We decided to take the boy to Babies R Us and Target in Queens on our way out to Nassau Co. There were more babies in the Babies R Us store than there were baby products-- everything was either sold out or damaged. We almost purchased a bathtub stool with no feet. All I found was an Eli Manning mesh onesie that was big enough for Eli himself to wear (calm down, ladies!). I guess we found a few things, but it felt like a bust.

I nearly forgot one of the immutable laws of New York travel:
Nobody in Queens knows how to drive. This includes those of us that are not from Queens and actually know how to drive, because we instantly forget how to drive upon crossing the county border.

It didn't help that our second stop was a Starbucks/McDonalds hybrid-location situated inside a triangular traffic circle. LJ was nearly crushed by several drivers mere feet from the entrance. I used the last of my energy to crawl over to Mac's for a giant Diet Coke.

I actually like the CDs for sale at Starbucks. They do a pretty good job (I'm currently negotiating a one-off for my "Krautrock 1972-77" to be released on their label) most of the time. Their new James Taylor album (Covers) is barely a "grande", however. One is immediately and fairly warned by the cardboard display at the counter, which says something about being recorded over "ten blissful days in a Berkshires barn..." Hmmm.
Things start off on the right foot, with a nice version of "Wichita Lineman" done the JT way. The Berkshires barn musta had Espresso spigots in the back, 'cause James revs up an absurd Vegas-style horn-schtick for most of the record's remainder (awful covers of "Hound Dog" & "Summertime Blues", for example). I hope paramedics were on call.

No amount of caffiene could prepare us for the horror known as the College Point Target store. Narrow aisles + giant carts + 10,000 people + nobody working the floor = mass confusion. I was stuck in the clock department for at least ten minutes at one point. Eleven minutes, to be exact.

The College Point Target is almost indistinguishable from Shea Stadium, except that the thousands of kids at Target start crying after only 30 minutes instead of the end of the 7th inning.

The fact that we weren't then going to Ikea to buy bedside tables didn't need to be said out loud. Not sure we would have made it anyway, as I missed two exits and almost trapped us in long-term parking at JFK on our way out east (!). Who needs bedside tables when you don't sleep, anyway!