Valentine's Day with Donald

Had a few incredibly busy weeks and today we finally got to reap the reward: A balanced-out bank account. And with all the bills and debt out of the way, we had a little bit extra on top, so we went to town. Literally. Well, by our meagre standards, anyway. We didn't have a chance to do anything on Friday, so today was our belated Valentine's Day out.

Nottingham is awesome, because people around here simply don't give a fuck. In a good way. I've spent most of my teens in the richer places around Germany. Königstein, Kronberg, just google that shit. It's where people buy a BMW as a tertiary car, so their maids and butlers won't have to do the shopping on foot. Our house had two fully functional kitchens, industrial refrigerators and everything. For six people. Disgusting stuff.

My point is, I'm used to people getting dressed up for grocery shopping like they're going to some kind of beauty contest. I'm used to my parents wanting to force me into dancing lessons so I could be "presentable" in public. Fine dining in a five star restaurant with so much cutlery on the table, you won't know where to begin without proper training. Proper etiquette. When you kiss the back of a lady's hand, your lips never actually touch the hand and you're not supposed to make any kissing noises, either. Yes, I had to learn that kinda shit. You don't wanna know. I did mention I've been schooled by nuns, right?

Nottingham is a bit filthy. It's grey, it's too crowded, traffic is insane and it's been in the top ten of the UK's ugliest cities for as long as I've lived here. And I love it. Today I saw a kid in town, no older than five years old, who carried around a massive battle axe. I assume it was made of plastic, but who can really tell with these things? Basically, you could have put a beard on the little guy and he would have been a perfect dwarf. What a fucking cool kid! What a fucking cool parent! Grab your axe, son, we're going out to buy potatoes! Hell yeah!

There was another guy, tall, in his early twenties, all by himself, with the most massive Lego boxes under his arms. I think one had a castle and dragons and knights on it, the other one was pirate-themed. I like to believe he bought that stuff for himself. He didn't look like a dad to me, seemed a bit young to have a kid who is into the more advanced Lego stuff. Did he hide his trophies away in a plastic bag? Did he care what anyone might think? Fuck no! He was out there, in public, carrying what's arguably one of the most awesome toy products and that shit was his. He bought it all for himself. Good for him. It made me happy.

And you know what? I love toys. I love having a bit of money and being able to go to any shop I want and buy all the cool shit I wasn't allowed to have as a kid. So we went to Forbidden Planet. A bit like an RL version of the Android Dungeon. It's a fascinating place. See, we looked at it from the outside and were absolutely sure it was closed. Dim lights, not a soul inside. But I pulled the door handle and what do you know, the place was open! And the moment we set a foot inside the store, the staff just materialised around us. Crawled out from under the shelves, trickled into the room like black clouds of magic dust, which slowly took the shapes of unkempt emo kids with little staff tags. Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't mean to sound disrespectful at all. They're my favourite kind of people, because they understand.

Claire wore her N7 hoodie. They knew. We were kindred spirits. Nobody approached us, stared at us, talked to us, did all the shit we all fucking hate when we go to a shop. "Can I help you find something? Are you being served?" That kinda stuff. Nothing. We knew our franchises, we can tell our Enterprises from our Millenium Falcons and they knew that we knew. No communication necessary. That shop sells things from within our wettest dreams. We bought some cheap Street Fighter tat, because Street Fighter. I was hoping to find some decent P&P RPG adaptions, but they only had novelty Monopoly boards, which was disappointing - and good for my bank account. They had Minecraft action figures, which seemed a bit weird, but not remotely as fucked up as their Minecraft swords and pick axes. Fortunately for us, all their Mass Effect merch was sold out, save for a couple Ashley action figures.

Seriously, who the fuck let Ash live in ME1? The only reason people used her in the sequels was because they sexed her up! She was a horrible, annoying bigot. I'm glad they didn't have Garrus, Wrex, Liara or Femshep. I'm running out of space on my desk as it is. Which is, in part, related to our new friend here:

The paintjob looks a lot better when not highlighted by a bright flash.

Of course Claire had to go hardcore. You know, she could have gone for the incredibly realistic Seven of Nine action figure. The model Enterprise. The life-size Predator (which I still kinda want). Or the Arnie action figure from the same movie. She's a girl, she has needs, I can appreciate that I'm getting older, we're all adults here.

But no. Not a chance. She wouldn't settle for an action figure. Or a ship, a comic book, shirt, poster, plushie, bobblehead... it had to be him, of all things:

I call him Donald, because he looks like Donald Trump's hair.

I like it. She could have gone for something out of Gear of War. Halo. Even Call of Duty- yes, they have an official CoD line of toys now. She went for an authentic Tribble. Fucking cool. I still kinda want a Garrus and a FemShep. Hmm...

-Cat