bxmar1@maila.wm.edu
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I had a wonderful weekend over fall break. Dana came to visit and I spent Friday through Monday with her. Saturday, we made the ceremonial pilgramage to the holiest of Shopping Meccas...The Pottery Factory Outlet.
For those of you ignorant of the shopping experience of Williamsburg, let me start by stating that no simple written explanation can do justice to exactly how absurd "The Pottery" is. You arrive midday to a crowd of tourists from all of the country. All of them are like sheep; none of them can drive properly. You park in one of numerous lots around the grounds, then find your way into one of an infinite number of shitty looking buildings, all of which contain mountains of merchandise appealing to the most decadent consumer and only 2 of which contain anything even remotely useful. While "pottery" includes houseware, gardening implements, and the like, it also consists of the most vile lawn ornaments on the face of the planet. My personal favorite is the small white plaster elephant which Craig purchased on an outing we made over two years ago. He said he needed somewhere to put his alarm clock. Dana and I were there for something useful; she bought glasses, salt and pepper shakers, and a Looney Toons juice pitcher for the apartment she's moving into next month.
Next in the list of moderately useful items is food. They supply a wide selection of hot sauces (mmmm...tasty), jams, mustards, spices, and other, far more esoteric condiments (My favorite Brand Name: "That's some Bone Suckin' Sauce"). Off to one side is a snack bar, much like one would find at the community swimming pool, minus the chlorine smell and small, wet, barefoot children with earplugs and there trunks hanging halfway down there asses (thank heavens for small favors). On another side of the food room is a candy counter like those in department stores. Not bad...just not really "pottery". On the trip two years ago with Craig and his roommate Roger , Roger purchased a FIVE POUND BAG OF GUMMY WORMS. What the fuck do you do with five pounds of gummy worms, you ask? Eat them, obviously. I'm not sure I can anymore though.
The winner for...some Pottery award as yet undesignated: The Broken Chunks of Colored Glass. I have a little trouble with why this one gets its own section of the grounds. On the trip with Craig and Roger, Craig bought a hunk of orange glass that looked like someone had frozen bourbon. We wanted to put a miniature mountain climber on it and name it "Mount Beam". We never got around to it though...
Miscellaneous buildings contain cheap sports memorabilia, small shrubbery, plaster Buddhas, decorative suits of armor anywhere from desktop size to 15 feet tall. If anyone reading this has a fifteen foot tall suit of medieval armor made out of lower quality metal than that used for Spam cans, please let me know. I want to know where you put it. Do zoning laws allow it in residential areas? Does it frighten small children? Do pigeons poop on its head? I wanna know...
That about covers it. We shopped other places. We watched some movies. Even saw "Glimmer Man" with Steven Seagal and Keenan Ivory Wayans. Not bad for a Seagal film.
New Phish album is out. I bought it tonight, but haven't gotten a chance to listen to it yet. What does everybody else think.
For all you Orioles fans who obviously read the site, my condolences about the Orioles loss. But then, the South lost the Civil War, Clinton got the White House in 1992, the United States are no longer colonies of England, and Ivory liquid soap is clear now. These things are in the past and will not change. Move on!
Sorry. I lost my head there for a second.
Bill
P.S. If you go fishing using Gummy Worms for bait, can you catch Swedish Fish
bxmar1@maila.wm.edu
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