Yeah, so it was an unofficial theme, but it worked out alright. I read through Nathan’s telling of the convention days, and I really didn’t find a whole lot to comment on there. We told a lot of the same stories, but from different perspectives.
I guess a couple of other odd details. Nathan still has my towel! Ok, it’s not that big of a deal, as I do have another that was clean and has been washed since. But it misses its sibling. Not a lot mind you, but it does miss it.
The reason I brought the towel was because Nathan noted that the morning dew was accumulating on the boxes and tubs and he wanted to be able to dry them. I noted to Nathan that even my towels are black. Laundry is easy for me. I separate the black clothes from the black clothes, and then put them all together to wash them.
Speaking of Black. Neither of us discussed Paul Black, a sci-fi author we met years ago at Comicon. The truth is that we had a very short conversation with him before the doors opened, and we had another short conversation with him after. He was leaving in his black car (how appropriate) The Blackmobile, and Nathan and I joked that we were going to follow him around the country on his book promotion tour. So Paul Black takes a left turn, and I jokingly pointed and said, “That way Nathan! Paul Black!” Well, Nathan actually turned. Luckily, I didn’t get us in a wreck or anything. I think it’s possible that that was the way we were supposed to go anyway. Anyway, I guess Paul Black wasn’t coming back on Sunday.
Speaking of wasn’t coming back on Sunday. I guess I should clarify why I didn’t go to bed immediately upon arriving home on Saturday night. First, I’d originally asked off that night to go see bands play. Second, I shouldn’t have been that tired, because I was supposed to be off at midnight the night before. Third, I just finally decided that I wasn’t going to let a botched work schedule get in my way of having a good night off. Because, fourth, I was planning on being a little tired on Sunday night, but not as tired as I was going to end up being if I went Sunday.
What I’d discussed with Nathan was that if his wife didn’t want to go hang out with him and the rest of the Fort Worth/Dallas geeks that I would set my alarm and go out there for a couple of hours. I did do that, but I didn’t seem very convinced about it when I woke up that afternoon, and went quickly back to sleep. For the record, since Nathan couldn’t understand what I said when he called me, here is an exact account of our conversation.
CHRIS: Nnnnllo.
NATHAN: Hey partner in business! How are you this fine Sunday morning!
CHRIS: Nnnnn gack innnnnfuhuh ssss.
NATHAN: Really? Well, I hope it was worth losing sleep over.
CHRIS: Fffflllla jijui nnnnun ssszzz.
NATHAN: You should probably sleep then. That’s not enough hours.
CHRIS: Aaahhhffff ingop ooognnnin. Ippinno, alright?
NATHAN: Yep. Just call me if you make it out there.
CHRIS: Ok.
Speaking of being left alone at the table on Saturday (provided any of that actually had to do with that). I think the worst part of being left at the table on occasion while Nathan took a bathroom break, went on hunting expeditions for plastic bags, and gathering expeditions for hot dogs, is that it seemed like every time he left someone came up to the table and started asking me questions that Nathan knew the answers to, but I certainly didn’t. One of these days, I guess I need to learn about our product. It’s an odd thing, but even in the shop days, Nathan handled posting the model kits, so I never knew anything about them. I knew about Magic cards, and all things thrift store and garage sale, but not the models. A friend of ours actually came into our shop one time, and knew more about the models than I did… and he didn’t buy anything.
Speaking of didn’t buy anything, we didn’t seem to have that problem. As Nathan explained, he marked everything half off, and when he did, he really did. The great part about that was that no matter how we wrote it on the sign, people still kept asking if that was half off the price on the box. The thing is that I think they were looking at the prices going, “Clearly that’s the half off price. That’s pretty low as it is.” Then we’d be like, “Yeah, half off of the price on the box.” That’s when wallets came out. I guess there is something to be said for an occasional real liquidation.
Speaking of liquidation. I finished a soda a few minutes ago. I’m going to just wrap this up here. I hope you enjoyed Convention Week. Be sure to join us tomorrow for the start of “Ugh, What are we going to Write about Now!” week.