Christmas shopping is down they tell us, as Americans worry about the economy (and Tiger Woods chasing blonde white women), so in these times I am willing to share a secret. Cheap souvenirs are to be found here, not in t-shirt shops of Duval Street. 
Cheyenne likes the car but she always likes to try it on and go for a stroll. Walgreens is not pet friendly.
This chain store is clearly not located in Old Town. When the Conchs sold their rickety wooden cottages and moved out to the wilderness of what became New Town, after World War Two they built ranch homes and around 1965 Searstown appeared, a proper shopping mall as was. It all looks rather quaint these days but box stores proliferated along North Roosevelt Boulevard. A few years ago Home Depot arrived next to Walgreens, after Scotty's chain left the Keys. And so we modernize. 
Twenty four hour shopping- what a concept! Albertsons is also open 24 hours a day so if you time it right you can be a perfect hermit. Though who needs to buy fishing tackle at 2 am I don't know. Easier? Really?
Snowmen, Jesus, Yule logs, sparklers, what the hell, it's all grist for the commercial mill.
This is what we are after: 
Be still my beating heart, every useless stereotypical image in one souvenir:
I am the world's worst shopper. Do you really need this? If you do now you know where to find it.
They were annoyingly short of bumper stickers but Key chains they had by the dozen:
This happily is the only snow you will ever see in Key West. And yes the actual beaches are about that big and no bigger:
There is absolutely no limit to how far Mammon will stick his camel's nose under the edge of the tent, is there?
I took these pictures before the advent of the recent cold front but I have no doubt this woman will wear this style of winter clothing through most of the next few months:
Lines are endemic to Walgreens. Note to self: next time shop at 2am.
Doesn't this look modern and bright and anywhere USA? Tourists will stay away in droves so if you want to meet locals you know where to come:
This essay is a reminder that you have not many hours left to shop for Christmas so get your snow covered asses over to your own local friendly Walgreens and be patient in line. I hope your souvenir aisle is as interesting as ours.
Cheyenne likes the car but she always likes to try it on and go for a stroll. Walgreens is not pet friendly.
This chain store is clearly not located in Old Town. When the Conchs sold their rickety wooden cottages and moved out to the wilderness of what became New Town, after World War Two they built ranch homes and around 1965 Searstown appeared, a proper shopping mall as was. It all looks rather quaint these days but box stores proliferated along North Roosevelt Boulevard. A few years ago Home Depot arrived next to Walgreens, after Scotty's chain left the Keys. And so we modernize. Twenty four hour shopping- what a concept! Albertsons is also open 24 hours a day so if you time it right you can be a perfect hermit. Though who needs to buy fishing tackle at 2 am I don't know. Easier? Really?Snowmen, Jesus, Yule logs, sparklers, what the hell, it's all grist for the commercial mill.
This is what we are after: Be still my beating heart, every useless stereotypical image in one souvenir:
I am the world's worst shopper. Do you really need this? If you do now you know where to find it.
They were annoyingly short of bumper stickers but Key chains they had by the dozen:
This happily is the only snow you will ever see in Key West. And yes the actual beaches are about that big and no bigger:There is absolutely no limit to how far Mammon will stick his camel's nose under the edge of the tent, is there?
I took these pictures before the advent of the recent cold front but I have no doubt this woman will wear this style of winter clothing through most of the next few months:Lines are endemic to Walgreens. Note to self: next time shop at 2am.Doesn't this look modern and bright and anywhere USA? Tourists will stay away in droves so if you want to meet locals you know where to come:This essay is a reminder that you have not many hours left to shop for Christmas so get your snow covered asses over to your own local friendly Walgreens and be patient in line. I hope your souvenir aisle is as interesting as ours.
It started out as a rant in my head. "Why does some stupid Chinese middle manager in the Special Economic Zone think he's doing anyone any good by forcing his slaves to wrap these bloody chairs in miles of stupid plastic?" You know the thought. It goes round and round in your head as you struggle with some impossibly recalcitrant inanimate object.
And then, squatting in the heat under the house waving your Leatherman around you focus your unreasonable, unreasoning ire on the human who must have been responsible for your predicament.
And still the stupid plastic unravels inch by precious inch and gets caught in the screw heads and forces, forces I tell you, your Leatherman blade to scrape the painted metal thus causing the scratches the stupid plastic was supposed to prevent. And it's not my fault my hands are a bit greasy from fiddling with the motorcycle, is it?
Which is when one realises one is being bloody stupid and the rant trails off into self conscious incoherence. Actually the new outdoor recliners look quite nice, at $69 apiece remarkably so. Even with more of that stupid ineffectual plastic clinging to the legs.
And they look a lot nicer than the old plastic ribbed cushioned things that are mouldering and ready for the dump. Out with the old and in with the new.
Somehow in the lottery of life I got to be born on the rich side of the blanket, the part that buys new chairs on a whim, that gets to toss out the old ones, too old and funky even for Habitat, and then I, the lucky one gets to test the new chairs on the dock, and gets to check out the sky and the clouds and the passing boats and the impossibly still waters of the canal that reflects the stormy summer skies.
Hmmm. Life could be worse.