Hello again, and welcome back for the second (and final) installment of “The Best of The Essential Mighty Shop,” a collection of tales plucked from the depths of the L&M Mighty Shop log books. For those who missed last week’s column, what follows is a list of entries from a series of activity logs kept by the L&M Mighty Shop.
Though originally intended simply to track things such as gas drive-offs, shoplifters, and the like, the collection (which has come to be known as “The Essential Mighty Shop”) also offers an interesting insight in to the unusual world that exists on the edge of downtown.
Ladies and gentlemen, once again the best of the Essential Mighty Shop.
7/13/08 — Girl came in and bought blunts while wearing a D.A.R.E. T-shirt. Clearly this is a program that is working.
7/18/08 — Misreading the “Giant Barricade” portion of the sign [on the barricade blocking the path to the bathroom] tonight, a girl thought we had a “Giant Barracuda.” At this point she asked, “What’s a barracuda?” Her friend, clearly an avid “National Geographic” watcher, informed her that it was a tiger, or a, “bear-tiger thing,” one of the two.
7/18/08 — Old couple sat outside for an hour. We have two theories. 1) They are professional thieves waiting for their window to strike. 2) They are looking for the right place to die and our lot won.
9/4/08 — Some girl asked me what unleaded was and if “that’s the kind you put in cars.”
9/6/08 — Young lass regaled her friends with a story about her grandmother’s tendency to store money in the space between her breasts. Apparently, upon needing to retrieve money from said location (at, say, a McDonald’s or something) the old woman would enthusiastically proclaim, “Time to go to the Titty Bank.”
1/15/09 — Got a call on the ol’ mighty phone where all the person on the other end did was breathe heavy, groan a little, then hang up. All in all one of the better conversations I’ve had on that thing.
11/14/08 — On Freshmen: “Dude, the way I see it, this town is like Nam, and then you get some new guy that doesn’t known to throw a grenade down the hole before he pokes his head in and the whole platoon gets killed. That’s freshmen.”
10/07/08 — A man informed me he just made a huge mistake by sleeping with his ex-girlfriend. I’m glad the L&M guy is who you go to tell these things.
12/08/08 — I just wanna tell you how I’m feeling. Gotta make you undersand. Never gunna give you up, never gunna let you down. Never gunna run around and desert you. Never gunna make you cry, nevergunna say goodbye, never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.
10/26/08 — ALL bills must face Mecca. ALL of them.
11/15/08 — Girl offered to show Jake and I her tits in exchange for 2 AA batteries.
11/20/08 — Guy came in for change and revealed to me that he needs to get a vasectomy. WHY DO PEOPLE TELL US THIS STUFF?!
10/21/08 — There is no God; Only Dave.
10/21/08 — There is no Dave, only ZOUHL!
1/22/09 — Lady came in yacking about some knitting class she was taking later that day and then purchased some High-Grav. Stuffing her hobo-hooch in her purse she remarked, “better hide that. I get in trouble for drinking in the afternoon.” Which, given that I believe she was on break from work AND had a pair of giant knitting needles on her person, I could see why people might feel the need to reprimand her.
11/13/08 — Drunk Girl: Where’s the bathroom? Me: (Points) D.G: Oh yeah! I had sex in here!
There you have it, tales of the bizarre brought to you by the brave men and women who captain the good ship Mighty Shop through the boozy, miasmatic haze of Iowa City’s downtown. If you decide you’d like to read more of these little tales (or if you want to see some that didn’t make it to print) you can check the official Mighty Shop log blog at http://essentialmightyshop.blogspot.com, where (with luck) some future tales of Mighty Madness may be found.