Sweltering weekend… Summer in St. Louis always seems to do this. It’s fine for weeks, and just when you’re used to the idea of shorts, flip-flops and tank-tops. Then the “REAL” heat kicks in and you’d happily trade your summer wardrobe for an environmentally controlled space suit.

I’m starting to feel like maybe we “are” some strange flavor of Amish. A pattern has emerged over the last year, but I didn’t become aware of it until this weekend. Once, and only once, a month we’ll take a Sunday and “go to town” (read as 5 minutes down the street where there’s a huge cluster of suburban commerce) – and go look at them there big pretty stores. We’ll go to Target, usually with an item like a “hose sprayer nozzle” in mind, but take our time just milling around the store and looking in every isle – almost like it’s a carnival spectacular. It’s strangely consuming – and oddly feels like an “event” for us.

Chad will vanish in the CD section, Kevin goes off to the garden area and I roam and look at packaging and observe people.

Most folks it seems must be desensitized to the pageantry which is retail. I’ll tail Women with bath-towels under-arm march through the store as if they had blinders on…

I make shop lifters nervous.

From there we’ll zap across the street to Frank’s Nursery to look at plants and ponder perennials. Then we’ll eventually wind up at Best Buy where we’ll get lost for over an hour… looking… touching, pressing buttons… I don’t ever remember stores being so much fun… so stimulating. Maybe it’s because we’re not going with the intention to buy anything. Although we’ll inevitably pick something up… and it’s always seen as a treat… like treasure.

Yesterday’s treasure: MST3K Volume 5 Box Set and that “Team Talk” thing for XBox Live. Thanks to a surplus of Best Buy Reward-Zoneâ„¢ coupons I keep in my wallet – our tab came to $5.00.

Not a bad day in town.

This would however probably make a bad blog entry, rambling on about something folks take for granted… I may as well talk about the mystery and wonder of sidewalks.