sweaters, sea bass and the bird lady

Yesterday, three strange things happened to me.

One. My new black sweater had a hole in the armpit area. Strange, since I've only worn it once or twice. I hopped in the car, went to the Gap only to find that they are completely sold out of small black sweaters.

My saleswoman gets on the phone calling other stores looking for my size, all to no avail. And this takes an extremely LONG time, I'm talking 45 minutes. Normally that would make me crazy, having to wait that long but I was so caught up in staring at this extremely HOT salesgirl--Caroline--I probably would have waited forever.

And 'hot' doesn't really do justice to Caroline. More like 'eye candy.'

Anyway, no sweater. Not exactly strange but how do you run out of black sweaters? Surely there's ONE someplace in California. Seems like they'd have more small ones, doesn't it?

Two. My buddy Reid and I were going to do sushi last night but the sushi bar was closed. Also strange. Closed on a sunday night? Then I remembered this new Chinese place I've been wanting to try.

Walking in, we decided to eat in the bar and watch the Oscars. I love Salma Hayek. And that blue dress she was wearing nearly stopped me in my tracks.

We ordered vodka tonics and food--pepper steak w/veggies and chilean sea bass. In between I went to the men's, which should have been the tipoff: bad smell, badly worn carpeting. Kinda nasty. That was the time we should have just gotten the hell out.

Our bartender was this Iranian guy, Jimmy. I ordered a Tsing Tao to wash down the bad taste of the world's worst vodka tonic and when Jimmy was out of earshot we laughed about an Iranian bartender working at a chinese restaurant.

The food arrived about the time Reese Witherspoon was giving her acceptance speech. She's the cutest thing, even with those weird teeth. Jimmy mentioned that he hoped 'Brokeback Mountain' would win Best Picture to 'piss off George Bush.'

The beef was excellent. But the sea bass was...strange. The consistency was strange and stringy. It seemed undercooked, but it wasn't. It came with this mayonaise sauce, which I thought would help the fish, but it didn't. It tasted like lobster, kinda, which normally would be a good thing, but...Strange. I'm still feeling nauseous.

I just got an email: 'Dude, that fish is still killing me. Ouch.'

Third. My Mom bought an area rug for her newly remodeled bathroom but she decided she doesn't like the small pattern. Since the rug place is on the way to the office, (and I'm an exceptionally wonderful son) I offer to take the thing back.

Walking into this place you'll notice that it's an animal-friendly store. The owner has pictures of his black and yellow labradors all over the showroom, which I love. In fact, over the years, Pepper and I have gone in there a bunch of times.

Anyway, I walk in with the rug and the receipt and I hear this bird chirping sound. 'He's got a bird now,' I think to myself. I give the receipt to the lady and tell her--'SQUAWK!'--the rug is wrong and hand her Mom's--'SQUAWK!!!'--credit card.

'Is your bird okay?' I ask. She smiles. 'That's no bird. That's Cindy.'

Cindy is another saleslady and apparently she just walks around chirping and squawking and talking to herself. She has a normal voice. I heard her speaking to someone but then she suddenly swerved back into making her retarded bird sounds.

The 'Bird Lady' could easily be the strangest thing I've ever seen in my life. I'm thinking about going back to the rug place with a video camera because nobody believes me.