Talk of the Town Ernie Anderson

Affordable home furnishings and liver damage
So, while I was on vacation (I was on vacation, you know) I survived a trip to IKEA. It was north of Boston. Or south of Boston or possibly in Pennsylvania, I don’t know. I get confused when I’m forced to stop at these weird mega stores and I complain about it so much I get winded so it’s all a blur. And anyway, I spent most of my time there hanging out in the parking garage with a bunch of other grumbling husbands. By the end of it, we were practically shooting dice to keep ourselves entertained. For the life of me, I don’t understand why they don’t put a bar down there. Serve up some hooch in the dank, subterranean depths beneath the ginormous store and most of us will happily stay until closing time.

New dollar store coming to Lisbon Street
Phew, huh? Just in time. I mean, things were getting so dire, a poor soul would have to drive nearly three blocks to find himself a dollar store, and that’s just too far when you need to get your hands on a hundred packages of ramen, a bag of zip ties, a tube of itch cream for that weird thing on your foot, 10 cans of Vienna sausages, four pairs of sunglasses — two of which you will break or lose before you even get back to your car, a get well card for your miserable aunt, a bag of faux Doritos or three, and about nine other things you spot at the checkout line. Of course, if this is one of those dollar stores that charge significantly more than an actual dollar for stuff, you’re gonna be broke.

A knotty affair
I was just in the middle of complaining the other day about the fact that we never get any of the really big thunderstorms around these parts. A few seconds later, CRACK! BOOM! BAM! A tree came down in the yard next door. A trash can went flying off into another county. Thunder crashed so hard and loud, I jumped three feet in the air and the shrieking wind carried me off into a neighbor’s clothes line, so I spent the bulk of the storm trying to extricate myself from a mad tangle of lady underthings. Kind of a fun way to top of a vacation, now that I think of it.

Presidential pardon
A bunch of you yahoos wrote while I was on vacation (I was on vacation, you know) to ask if I regretted that I wasn’t around last week to meet President Biden during his visit to Auburn. I was going to prepare a list of people I’d rather meet than a U.S. president but that list would be much longer than my dollar store list and would, in fact, include some of the very same items.