Bargain Hunting

I thought it would be hard to top yesterday’s excess, but we stopped at our local box store on the way home today. For a mere $150 you can have your own automated howling werewolf! If you find it hard to imagine how to fit this into your life, perhaps you’d appreciate the animated pumpkinhead scarecrow instead. Or just skip the whole thing and segue into the Christmas season—it is mid-September after all and time’s a-wastin’. 

We are both exhausted from the football game yesterday. The noise, the heat, the overstimulation at every turn, and then we stayed overnight! I truly do not remember the last time we stayed in a motel; we usually have the van, or an air b&b, but here we were in a motel, less than an hour from home. It was fun, and surprisingly quiet and comfortable. They offered breakfast in a room filled with instant machines that are probably familiar to everyone else on the planet, but I am from Mars and was duly fascinated with the waffle gadget that made four donut-sized treats at one time. You had to get the batter from another machine with tiny pictures and tinier instructions, which I couldn’t decipher. Finally a Young Person showed me what to do. I noticed that you weren’t really supposed to make just one waffle; the batter came out with one press of the button into a paper cup, with enough to fill the entire machine. I made only one, and left the batter there for the next person, but I doubt anyone touched it except to throw it away. Later my son said “You only made ONE‽ of those little waffles??” Amazement as he piled his plate high against the coming workday. There were the standard steam trays of “eggs” and “meat” and “potatoes” (all in quotes to indicate they were not necessarily in an identifiable state), a case of pastries, a revolving toaster for the pastries, a machine to dispense dollops of yogurt, a collection of bins of toppings for the yogurt, a juice machine, an enormous coffee maker with a good dozen choices of beverage, several selections of cold cereal (none of which was familiar; “Oh, look, they have dog food,” said Mr S, pointing to a brown lumpy variety. And then there was a separate case for gluten/dairy free stuff. Altogether a remarkable way to fill up an undetermined number of people without much fuss. All the tables had plugs for your devices. And there were two giant tv screens recycling the news in bright vibrating colors. You could see the shimmer of the swimming pool through the white shutters. 

We took a walk around the neighborhood, probably something no one has ever done since the opening of the motel. It was all two-story apartments or condos, nothing too big or too new or too clever, just comfortable spaces for people to live. The main drag is filled with interesting mini-malls: ethnic groceries, nail salons, haircuts, little restaurants, tutoring, coffee. We couldn’t cover it all, but the highlight was an Indian bakery, full of handmade sweets (“We make our cheese fresh every morning,” the proprietor said, offering us a taste). I could have spent all day walking on El Camino Real, checking out the Indian, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese places. When you think there’s nothing to do, just get out of the car and walk around—you’d be amazed.