The Quest
So while the ladies are downstairs doing horrific things to fiber with poisonous chemicals in lobster pots in the kitchen, the mighty Badger finishes wiring in my new turntable so I can start doing things like ripping my late grandfather's much-beloved record collection. Also, my extensive array of pre-Hogarth Marillion 12" singles, but that's neither here nor there. However, when the dust settles, there's something missing, because, well, there's always something missing. Odds are, if you're putting together IKEA furniture it's the Allen Wrench, but since this was a turntable and designed for putting records on, it's the pad - called a slip mat - that sits between the hard, unforgiving metal of the turntable itself and the aging, brittle vinyl and shellac of the records in question. "Don't sit on my Jimmy Shands" sang Richard Thompson; what he left out was "if you do, the damn things will snap and you'll be walking around with a literal buttload of pointy polka bits."
Badger and I discuss going out to get a slip mat, and check the clock. There's some time time before my evening appointment at the ballpark. He says "How much time do you have?" I say "How much time are we talking?" We go back and forth on this a few times, ultimately deciding to see if the nearby Best Buy has slip mats. They should, after all. Turntables are cool these days. Lots of people are buying turntables. Surely they will have turntable accessories.
[For those of you who don't speak Rich-and-Badger, the actual conversation that was being had (as opposed to the spoken one) was "Do you have enough time to make a run to the audio specialty store, which will almost certainly have the equipment we require and at high quality, but which will take a while." "I am uncomfortable with the indefinite notion of 'a while' when I have another appointment this evening, and cannot in good conscience agree to sojourn so far afield without a more specific estimate of how long we may find ourselves indulging in the picaresque"]
We go to the Best Buy at the unnamed, largely unfilled strip mall next to the named-but-not-memorably-so strip mall with the Buffalo Wild Wings in it at Brier Creek, which is across the street from the named-but-best-known-for-its-abominable-parking-lot strip mall across the street from actual Brier Creek, which is, well, Brier Creek. I hate going to this Best Buy, in large part because it is the only store open in this particular strip mall. The rest of the storefronts just sit there in cheerful, ghoulish yellow with nobody inside, their backs turned to the road so that even if there were anything there, passersby would have no idea what the hell they were looking at, and anyway, the traffic patterns leading into and out of that lot that only the Best Buy and drunk teenagers looking to cut donuts in a parking lot sure to be empty ever use.
Also, that particular Best Buy has a lousy selection.
Badger and I walk in. We are greeted by the greeter, because really, what you want when you're about to drop a ridiculous amount of money at a big box electronics store is to be greeted by someone whom you've never met before. The greeter gets about a third of the way through her canned spiel before Badger interrupts with a question as to where we might find slip mats.
"What are they?" she asks.
Badger explains that they are for stereos.
"Oh," the greeter says. "Those are in Home Theater." She points to a very noisy cave on the corner of the floor that is filled with televisions. It is not, near as I can tell from this distance, filled with turntables, or useful turntable-related equipment.
We walk over there. The employee responsible for that department is grooving out to some very loud television. Home theater indeed. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a demo loop playing on a giant plasma HDTV over in the television department. It's Ken Jeong with his double golden Desert Eagle paintball guns from the season 1 finale of Community. This is not a good omen.
He starts into his spiel. Badger waits to the point where all useful information has clearly long been disseminated, then gently interrupts with "Do you have any slip mats?"
The guy blinks. "What are they?"
"For turntables."
"Uh, no. We don't have any. Best you're going to do is maybe the Guitar Center on 15-501, or there's one over on Capital Boulevard." I do a mental calculation. Half an hour to either of those. Alarm bells start going off.
"Thank you," says Badger. We turn to go.
"Did you find everything you needed?" the greeter asks as we head out through the main doors. Clearly, this is a question she has to ask, for fear of being marked down by some malicious mystery shopper whose every scribble carries the weight of Solon's memoirs in a personnel file. Obviously, we did not find everything we were looking for, or we wouldn't be skipping the checkout line.
"No, we didn't." says Badger. "You don't carry them."
"We don't?" gasps the greeter, shocked.
"No, you don't. That's why we're leaving." And we walk out, and debate whether to go to 15-501 or Capital Boulevard. I suggest that we try the HH Gregg across the street in the strip mall two levels of fractal up from the one we're currently in, since we're already there, more or less. Steve concurs.
We pull out of the parking lot. Make a left. And then a right. And then a u-turn. And then a right. And then a left. And then another left, at which point we've finally parked at the store that's just across the street.
We walk in. One of the floor employees greets us. There is no official "greeter" here. Badger introduces himself and me. The employee introduces himself. Badger asks if they have slip mats. The employee says, "I don't think so, but let me ask to be sure." I look around. There is absolutely no other stereo equipment there. The guy we have talked to hails another employee. "Do we have shift mats?"
"Slip mats," Badger corrects him. "For turntables."
"No," the other guy says. "None of that stuff. You might want to try Guitar Center, on Capital Boulevard."
We leave the store and head for Capital Boulevard. En route, Badger suggests we try Sam Ash, which may well also have turntable equipment and which is across the street from Guitar Center, so we'd be passing it anyway. That makes sense.
My phone rings. It's Melinda. She notes that Luna is feeling peckish and wants to know if she should feed her or wait until we get back. I tell her that we are on a Grail-like quest, have been mercilessly taunted and distracted by a grail-shaped beacon, and have no idea when we'll be back except that it will be in time for me to leave again. "So I should feed Luna," she says. "Yes," I say.
We pull into Sam Ash's. It's in one of the innumerable tiny shopping centers along Capital in between the Inner and Outer Beltlines. We walk in.
Inside, someone is trying out a guitar. Someone else is trying out a drum set. There is also music. Somehow, over the din, an employee approaches Badger and asks if he needs help. Badger replies that we are looking for slip mats. The guy nods and points at a dark, noisy cave off the main show floor. "In there," he says. We thank him and go.
The cave is dark. It is loud. It is filled with music going "Nnn-CH Nnn-CH Nnn-CH" at high volume and higher speed. There are turntables under glass in the counter at the front of the cave. Deeper in, there are strobes, and fog machines, and cables, and things I cannot identify. There are no slip mats. There is, however, an employee, who is helping a customer who looks sixteen and wants to get his hands on every piece of equipment in the joint. I go into the next room, which is better lit, looks to be full of stereo-type equipment, and does not have anyone shouting NN-CHH NNN-CHHH in it.
The other room holds cables. Lots of cables. Lots and lots and lots of cables, really. I wander back, to discover that the sales guy has dealt with the 16 year old and is now standing next to Badger, staring at an empty product rack on the wall.
"We....we don't have any left," he says. "I could check in back, but if we did, they'd be out here, and...you want me to steal one off something in here for you? This sucks."
"No thank you," we say. He introduces himself, apologizes for nothing the part we need, allows that he hopes he can help us another time, and suggests we might as well try across the street at Guitar Center.
Which also has a cave full of Nnn-CHH NNN-CHH NNN-CHH. And it has slip mats, which are in a locked cabinet. Pretty much every one they offer for sale glows in the dark.
I note this. I also note that I'm going to be playing Pinetop Smith records from 1923 or so on this turntable, that Pinetop Smith wasn't a big fan of scratching and wouldn't have known a DJ from a diplodocus, and that the number of Nnn-CHHHs on the records I own is somewhere south of zero, because I am a cranky old fart who likes actual instruments. Employee gives me a look of pity similar to the one the mammals gave the dinosaurs toward the end of the Cretaceous, and opens the cabinet. Badger and I look at the contents and pick one. The employee shuts the cabinet. I note that these slip mats do in fact glow in the dark. I also note that I don't give a rat's ass, so long as they do what they're supposed to do, and if there's a record on the turntable we won't be able to see any damn glow anyway.
Steve, wisely, concurs. I pay. We show our receipt to the nice man at the door and leave.
Ten minutes later, I ask Steve to check the back seat to make sure that the slip mats are still there. Because, well, it's been that kind of day.
Badger and I discuss going out to get a slip mat, and check the clock. There's some time time before my evening appointment at the ballpark. He says "How much time do you have?" I say "How much time are we talking?" We go back and forth on this a few times, ultimately deciding to see if the nearby Best Buy has slip mats. They should, after all. Turntables are cool these days. Lots of people are buying turntables. Surely they will have turntable accessories.
[For those of you who don't speak Rich-and-Badger, the actual conversation that was being had (as opposed to the spoken one) was "Do you have enough time to make a run to the audio specialty store, which will almost certainly have the equipment we require and at high quality, but which will take a while." "I am uncomfortable with the indefinite notion of 'a while' when I have another appointment this evening, and cannot in good conscience agree to sojourn so far afield without a more specific estimate of how long we may find ourselves indulging in the picaresque"]
We go to the Best Buy at the unnamed, largely unfilled strip mall next to the named-but-not-memorably-so strip mall with the Buffalo Wild Wings in it at Brier Creek, which is across the street from the named-but-best-known-for-its-abominable-parking-lot strip mall across the street from actual Brier Creek, which is, well, Brier Creek. I hate going to this Best Buy, in large part because it is the only store open in this particular strip mall. The rest of the storefronts just sit there in cheerful, ghoulish yellow with nobody inside, their backs turned to the road so that even if there were anything there, passersby would have no idea what the hell they were looking at, and anyway, the traffic patterns leading into and out of that lot that only the Best Buy and drunk teenagers looking to cut donuts in a parking lot sure to be empty ever use.
Also, that particular Best Buy has a lousy selection.
Badger and I walk in. We are greeted by the greeter, because really, what you want when you're about to drop a ridiculous amount of money at a big box electronics store is to be greeted by someone whom you've never met before. The greeter gets about a third of the way through her canned spiel before Badger interrupts with a question as to where we might find slip mats.
"What are they?" she asks.
Badger explains that they are for stereos.
"Oh," the greeter says. "Those are in Home Theater." She points to a very noisy cave on the corner of the floor that is filled with televisions. It is not, near as I can tell from this distance, filled with turntables, or useful turntable-related equipment.
We walk over there. The employee responsible for that department is grooving out to some very loud television. Home theater indeed. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a demo loop playing on a giant plasma HDTV over in the television department. It's Ken Jeong with his double golden Desert Eagle paintball guns from the season 1 finale of Community. This is not a good omen.
He starts into his spiel. Badger waits to the point where all useful information has clearly long been disseminated, then gently interrupts with "Do you have any slip mats?"
The guy blinks. "What are they?"
"For turntables."
"Uh, no. We don't have any. Best you're going to do is maybe the Guitar Center on 15-501, or there's one over on Capital Boulevard." I do a mental calculation. Half an hour to either of those. Alarm bells start going off.
"Thank you," says Badger. We turn to go.
"Did you find everything you needed?" the greeter asks as we head out through the main doors. Clearly, this is a question she has to ask, for fear of being marked down by some malicious mystery shopper whose every scribble carries the weight of Solon's memoirs in a personnel file. Obviously, we did not find everything we were looking for, or we wouldn't be skipping the checkout line.
"No, we didn't." says Badger. "You don't carry them."
"We don't?" gasps the greeter, shocked.
"No, you don't. That's why we're leaving." And we walk out, and debate whether to go to 15-501 or Capital Boulevard. I suggest that we try the HH Gregg across the street in the strip mall two levels of fractal up from the one we're currently in, since we're already there, more or less. Steve concurs.
We pull out of the parking lot. Make a left. And then a right. And then a u-turn. And then a right. And then a left. And then another left, at which point we've finally parked at the store that's just across the street.
We walk in. One of the floor employees greets us. There is no official "greeter" here. Badger introduces himself and me. The employee introduces himself. Badger asks if they have slip mats. The employee says, "I don't think so, but let me ask to be sure." I look around. There is absolutely no other stereo equipment there. The guy we have talked to hails another employee. "Do we have shift mats?"
"Slip mats," Badger corrects him. "For turntables."
"No," the other guy says. "None of that stuff. You might want to try Guitar Center, on Capital Boulevard."
We leave the store and head for Capital Boulevard. En route, Badger suggests we try Sam Ash, which may well also have turntable equipment and which is across the street from Guitar Center, so we'd be passing it anyway. That makes sense.
My phone rings. It's Melinda. She notes that Luna is feeling peckish and wants to know if she should feed her or wait until we get back. I tell her that we are on a Grail-like quest, have been mercilessly taunted and distracted by a grail-shaped beacon, and have no idea when we'll be back except that it will be in time for me to leave again. "So I should feed Luna," she says. "Yes," I say.
We pull into Sam Ash's. It's in one of the innumerable tiny shopping centers along Capital in between the Inner and Outer Beltlines. We walk in.
Inside, someone is trying out a guitar. Someone else is trying out a drum set. There is also music. Somehow, over the din, an employee approaches Badger and asks if he needs help. Badger replies that we are looking for slip mats. The guy nods and points at a dark, noisy cave off the main show floor. "In there," he says. We thank him and go.
The cave is dark. It is loud. It is filled with music going "Nnn-CH Nnn-CH Nnn-CH" at high volume and higher speed. There are turntables under glass in the counter at the front of the cave. Deeper in, there are strobes, and fog machines, and cables, and things I cannot identify. There are no slip mats. There is, however, an employee, who is helping a customer who looks sixteen and wants to get his hands on every piece of equipment in the joint. I go into the next room, which is better lit, looks to be full of stereo-type equipment, and does not have anyone shouting NN-CHH NNN-CHHH in it.
The other room holds cables. Lots of cables. Lots and lots and lots of cables, really. I wander back, to discover that the sales guy has dealt with the 16 year old and is now standing next to Badger, staring at an empty product rack on the wall.
"We....we don't have any left," he says. "I could check in back, but if we did, they'd be out here, and...you want me to steal one off something in here for you? This sucks."
"No thank you," we say. He introduces himself, apologizes for nothing the part we need, allows that he hopes he can help us another time, and suggests we might as well try across the street at Guitar Center.
Which also has a cave full of Nnn-CHH NNN-CHH NNN-CHH. And it has slip mats, which are in a locked cabinet. Pretty much every one they offer for sale glows in the dark.
I note this. I also note that I'm going to be playing Pinetop Smith records from 1923 or so on this turntable, that Pinetop Smith wasn't a big fan of scratching and wouldn't have known a DJ from a diplodocus, and that the number of Nnn-CHHHs on the records I own is somewhere south of zero, because I am a cranky old fart who likes actual instruments. Employee gives me a look of pity similar to the one the mammals gave the dinosaurs toward the end of the Cretaceous, and opens the cabinet. Badger and I look at the contents and pick one. The employee shuts the cabinet. I note that these slip mats do in fact glow in the dark. I also note that I don't give a rat's ass, so long as they do what they're supposed to do, and if there's a record on the turntable we won't be able to see any damn glow anyway.
Steve, wisely, concurs. I pay. We show our receipt to the nice man at the door and leave.
Ten minutes later, I ask Steve to check the back seat to make sure that the slip mats are still there. Because, well, it's been that kind of day.
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