The slippery slope

Now that Donald has moved in upstairs and lets me drive his car whenever I want to, I feel like I’m becoming one of those dreaded suburbanites who drives everywhere! I’m already doing all my grocery shopping by car, so I can go to the locally-owned greengrocer with lots of local produce, instead of going to the yuppie lifestyle conglomerate, Whole Foods (which I could get to easily without the use of fossil fuels … but I digress). Today I had to buy flat silver sandals for a wedding in early September, and instead of taking public transportation downtown, I drove Donald’s car to the Burlington Mall. A big mall in the suburbs, where no one takes public transportation. A big mall with free parking.

My excuse was that it would have taken me at least an hour to take public transportation downtown. Each way. It’s less than 30 minutes to drive to the mall. I simply didn’t have the extra time to spare. I needed the sandals. I was on a deadline.

But that’s always how it starts, isn’t it?

Fortunately, I did find silver sandals. I also found a nice pair of brown sandals that I liked, that seemed quite comfortable. And an umbrella, because my last one broke well over a year ago, and I still hadn’t replaced it yet.

And, finally, the piece de resistance:

They sat on a shelf at Sears, right in the middle of the main aisle down the center of the store, and virtually demanded that I buy them. As it happens, I didn’t have any rain boots either, and had been thinking that I should get some. Aren’t they special?

In Japan, pretty much every major tourist destination sells themed Hello Kitty souvenirs in the gift shop: key chains or cell phone charms or the like that show Hello Kitty dressed in the local costume, or in a local setting. They’re very cute. You could probably travel much of Japan on a Hello Kitty pilgrimage, picking up special local Hello Kittys everywhere you went.

You could probably do it by public transportation, too.