Weird Places

**Buster Highmen** · 04-10-2019, 04:09 PM

Not the overtly weird places like sado doggiy style parlors (NTTAWWT) or minimarts at 3:30 in the morning but places that are ostensibly normal but just have that subtly peculiar David Lynch kind of atmosphere.

My first choice is a supermarket at 1:30 in the afternoon.

It's brightly lit with cheery colors and all the right kind of touches that make us want to buy buy buy. Ads, balloons, aggressively styled sales pitches. Consumerist smells. Grocery personnel restocking, watering the produce department, clinking in the arrays of bottles of juice, beer or sodas, clunking cardboard boxes of breakfast cereals, detergents or hygiene products.

But then there's the legions of older men who seem to have given up, schlumping around in sweat pants, peering at cell phones or dozing in the chairs they put by the Starbucks stand. And old ladies with gobs of poorly applied makeup, leaning heavily on the shopping carts seemingly wheezing in quiet utterances to phantoms only they can see. Plus the guys that are skipping out from work or on the run, grabbing a quick pint of shitty vodka or cheap beer plus some dorts or puffed corn snack, tattered cap pulled down, skittish eyes. Much more the heart of America than Lassie or the Cleavers would have us imagine.

Yours?

**rideit** · 04-10-2019, 04:11 PM

Anywhere on a hit of liquid?

**PNWbrit** · 04-10-2019, 04:17 PM

Overly cheery dentist's office receptionists...

**Buster Highmen** · 04-10-2019, 04:17 PM

Originally Posted by rideit

Anywhere on a hit of liquid?

Yeah, OK, that's weird, but it's expected to be weird. So it's kind of not. BTW, where can I get clean lsd these days?

**Buster Highmen** · 04-10-2019, 04:19 PM

Originally Posted by PNWbrit

Overly cheery dentist's office receptionists...

bingo. with the old magazines whose ink is smeared from nervous sweat, tattered in jittery thumbings.

For those of you of a proper vintage, the proctologists office, eh?

**mall walker** · 04-10-2019, 04:22 PM

the little after-hours ATM vestibule at some banks, the type you need to unlock with your card. super well lit, muzak playing, small/useless space...

**Buster Highmen** · 04-10-2019, 04:23 PM

Anyone ever been in a creamed corn factory?

**riser4** · 04-10-2019, 04:25 PM

Originally Posted by mall walker

the little after-hours ATM vestibule at some banks, the type you need to unlock with your card. super well lit, muzak playing, small/useless space...

Fart. Hot. Box.

**PNWbrit** · 04-10-2019, 04:27 PM

Originally Posted by Buster Highmen

bingo. with the old magazines whose ink is smeared from nervous sweat, tattered in jittery thumbings.

We were discussing the mathematics of this creepy dental friendliness the other day. Our dentist has three chairs, usually two are occupied at any one time. let's say 20 mins per patient so six patients an hour, 8 hour working day, 5 days a week 48 weeks a year.

6 x 8 x 5 x 48

That's 11.5k patients a year.

How the fuck do they remember where I went on vacation last year? Did I even tell them? Did I tell them yet where I'm going this year? Will they know anyway?

Is it my nervous sweat that is making them so cheery?

Do they use similar software in HR department employees?

Originally Posted by mall walker

the little after-hours ATM vestibule at some banks, the type you need to unlock with your card. super well lit, muzak playing, small/useless space...

Scarier than a plain old ATM on the sidewalk.

**PNWbrit** · 04-10-2019, 04:28 PM

Originally Posted by mall walker

the little after-hours ATM vestibule at some banks, the type you need to unlock with your card. super well lit, muzak playing, small/useless space...

Scarier than a plain old ATM on the sidewalk.

**mall walker** · 04-10-2019, 04:29 PM

Originally Posted by PNWbrit

We were discussing the mathematics of this creepy dental friendliness the other day. Our dentist has three chairs, usually two are occupied at any one time. let's say 20 mins per patient so six patients an hour, 8 hour working day, 5 days a week 48 weeks a year.

6 x 8 x 5 x 48

That's 11.5k patients a year.

How the fuck do they remember where I went ton vacation last year? Did I even tell them? Did I tell them yet where I'm going this year? WIll they know anyway?

Is it my nervous sweat that is making them so cheery?

I'm a fan of the classic dental office move, when the hygienist is knuckle-deep in your mouth with some sort of medieval torture implement but keeps asking you open-ended questions about your life: "so, how was the trip? tell me all about it"

**Cruiser** · 04-10-2019, 04:32 PM

The parking garage at work provides parking for a few business but 2 that share a corner where I usually park are a hair salon and a Mexican food restaurant. The smell in the evenings when I'm heading out to the jeep is the most unusually appealing mix of dryer sheets and hot lard. Closing my eyes, I can smell it like I'm there. It's weird for sure.

**mall walker** · 04-10-2019, 04:32 PM

also very surreal are the store locations of delivery/takeout only pizza places, the sort where you walk in and there's noplace to sit, just a counter and 5000 pizza boxes stacked behind it

**Buster Highmen** · 04-10-2019, 04:34 PM

Originally Posted by Cruiser

The parking garage at work provides parking for a few business but 2 that share a corner where I usually park are a hair salon and a Mexican food restaurant. The smell in the evenings when I'm heading out to the jeep is the most unusually appealing mix of dryer sheets and hot lard. Closing my eyes, I can smell it like I'm there. It's weird for sure.

Dryer sheets and hot lard. I think you're onto something. Franchise NOW!

KQ · 04-10-2019, 04:35 PM

Underground parking garages always creep me out esp. at night. The worst one in Seattle is Freeway Park/Convention Center IMO.

**Cruiser** · 04-10-2019, 04:38 PM

I don't use dryer sheets as a rule (we've got a couple of those wool baseball things instead) but I've always found that smell kind of invigorating. Kinda like Irish Spring, right? And then there's the hot lard, gently laced with Mexican spices, in all its wholesome, comforting perfection. It really is quite a thing to behold...

**Buster Highmen** · 04-10-2019, 04:40 PM

Originally Posted by KQ

Underground parking garages always creep me out esp. at night. The worst one in Seattle is Freeway Park/Convention Center IMO.

Would it be improved by a Dryer Sheets and Hot Lard franchise?

I remember not being particularly fond of the ones under the 99 viaduct where any night one could watch people shooting up and police hassling some completely zoinked junkies.

**Buster Highmen** · 04-10-2019, 04:42 PM

Originally Posted by Cruiser

I don't use dryer sheets as a rule (we've got a couple of those wool baseball things instead) but I've always found that smell kind of invigorating. Kinda like Irish Spring, right? And then there's the hot lard, gently laced with Mexican spices, in all its wholesome, comforting perfection. It really is quite a thing to behold...

I'm with you. Franchise NOW! You can charge extra for the Irish Spring, though Colgate-Palmolive may want a percentage. I'm ignorant of wool baseball things however.

**PNWbrit** · 04-10-2019, 04:44 PM

Shopping malls. Especially the older slightly down at heel ones.

And the Walmart in Aberdeen Washington. Actually I think they were filming a David Lynch movie the one time I went in there.

**Norseman** · 04-10-2019, 04:47 PM

Abandoned dwellings.

PNW campground, made inaccessible to cars years ago by flooding... slowly retaken by moss and ferns but still recognizable. Water pump, concrete picnic tables, site numbers.

Desert southwest grainaries and cliff dwellings, perfectly preserved by climate. Art on the wall shows figures both familiar and bizarre... desert bighorn, a snake... a horned shaman descending on lightning with spear in hand, perhaps the result of a fasting vision quest or a bad Datura trip. Beautiful Juniper wood frame still supporting sandstone... three-inch corncobs still on the floor, tiny kernel roots still showing blue and red and yellow, 700 years after it was picked from the humble field in the silty canyon bottom, perhaps the last harvest before the up-and-gone exodus. Beautifully painted pottery, zigzagging patterns crossing fingerprints in the clay.

**Cruiser** · 04-10-2019, 04:47 PM

Don't the casinos pump smells into different parts of the floor in order to illicit different reactions from their guess? I'm kinda thinking this could be similar. Maybe a carnitas joint where, upon entering the anteroom, you get one of those grocery store entrance in the winter vents that is spiked with dryer sheet smell. I imagine you could charge pretty much whateverthefuck you want for the carnitas once someone smells the warm, lightly seasoned lard smell after passing through the dryer sheet / Irish Spring scented hostess stand.

**Buster Highmen** · 04-10-2019, 04:49 PM

Originally Posted by PNWbrit

Shopping malls. Especially the older slightly down at heel ones.

And the Walmart in Aberdeen Washington. Actually I think they were filming a David Lynch movie the one time I went in there.

The Redmond Towne Center with the defunct REI and huDge empty Borders Books space is notable.

Walmarts too, especially with the old style greeters.

**Skidog** · 04-10-2019, 04:50 PM

Originally Posted by PNWbrit

We were discussing the mathematics of this creepy dental friendliness the other day. Our dentist has three chairs, usually two are occupied at any one time. let's say 20 mins per patient so six patients an hour, 8 hour working day, 5 days a week 48 weeks a year.

6 x 8 x 5 x 48

That's 11.5k patients a year.

How the fuck do they remember where I went on vacation last year? Did I even tell them? Did I tell them yet where I'm going this year? Will they know anyway?

Is it my nervous sweat that is making them so cheery?

Do they use similar software in HR department employees?

Scarier than a plain old ATM on the sidewalk.

My dentist told me a story of a patient that cancelled saying his mother died. Doc put it in his file on the computer and a couple years later same guy cancels again. Mom died. Really huh? What's she a cat? Find another doc.

He says he used to deal with that type shit early in his career, just doesn't need bs anymore.

For deep cleaning I pay $75 out of pocket and he bills insurance about 200. Takes 20 min max.

11.5k x $200 = 2.3mil

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**Buster Highmen** · 04-10-2019, 04:51 PM

Originally Posted by Norseman

Abandoned dwellings.

PNW campground, made inaccessible to cars years ago by flooding... slowly retaken by moss and ferns but still recognizable. Water pump, concrete picnic tables, site numbers.

Carbon River, eh?

Desert southwest grainaries and cliff dwellings, perfectly preserved by climate. Art on the wall shows figures both familiar and bizarre... desert bighorn, a snake... a horned shaman descending on lightning with spear in hand, perhaps the result of a fasting vision quest or a bad Datura trip. Beautiful Juniper wood frame still supporting sandstone... three-inch corncobs still on the floor, tiny kernel roots still showing blue and red and yellow, 700 years after it was picked from the humble field in the silty canyon bottom, perhaps the last harvest before the up-and-gone exodus. Beautifully painted pottery, zigzagging patterns crossing fingerprints in the clay.

was it an exodus or a slow wasting away? But yeah, the desert is an unexpectedly weird place.

**Buster Highmen** · 04-10-2019, 04:52 PM

Originally Posted by Skidog

My dentist told me a story of a patient that cancelled saying his mother died. Doc put it in his file on the computer and a couple years later same guy cancels again. Mom died. Really huh? What's she a cat? Find another doc.

He says he used to deal with that type shit early in his career, just doesn't need bs anymore.

For deep cleaning I pay $75 out of pocket and he bills insurance about 200. Takes 20 min max.

11.5k x $200 = 2.3mil

Sent from my Pixel 2 using TGR Forums mobile app

I haven't owned a dentist. How much is care and feeding?

2.3 mil? Jeez that's a hell of a lot of RP112s