Last evening, as often happens on a weekend, some of the kids invaded. You probably haven't heard of the kids. They're a precocious group of local teens who have decided that our house is cool because we have lots of bandwidth (for now, at least--Sprint has opted to discontinue the ION project), a switched 100Mbps network which is excellent for LAN parties, and--most importantly--no parents to object to PC rebuilds on the fly, and other similar harmless activity that looks dangerous to nontechnical people.

For once, I decided that the kids should make themselves useful rather than simply making a mess of the house (and an empty cavern of our refrigerator). So Broker, who owns a van, drove us to Ikea, where I bought a bookshelf. Ikea was open until midnight that evening, due to an anniversary sale, and we returned slightly afterwards. It's always a relief to actually arrive home when Broker is driving, since "Walter" (as he affectionately named his 1991 Plymouth Caravan) is a bit long in the tooth, and burns oil copiously.

None of us felt like building furniture, and neither Broker nor his friend Clone had brought their computers. So, while listening to jazz, we pondered what we should do for the rest of the evening. After all, it was only slightly after midnight on Saturday, and the night was young.
Rim-D, who is visiting from Alaska, came up with the idea that we should play chess. That sounded like a great plan, except that we did not own a chess set.

In the world of 24 hour convenience--at least, where Redmond, Washington is concerned--you can get a taco, groceries, and fitness. However, I wasn't sure where we would find a chess set at nearly 1 in the morning. After much urging from the usual suspects, I made a few phone calls. Surprisingly, a grocery store manager suggested that I try Rite-Aid, which recently began operating one area store 24 hours a day. I called to confirm that they did, in fact, sell chess sets. "Yep, we got 'em," confirmed the person on the phone, and we were off to find one.

Being able to purchase a variety of goods at 1AM isn't something that's all that surprising to me. The Conway Wal-Mart Supercenter, halfway between Toad Suck and Pickles Gap, Arkansas, introduced me to this concept in 1993. However, being able to purchase a variety of goods in Bellevue, Washington at 1AM--at a drugstore, no less--blew me away.

I couldn't believe what I could find at 1 in the morning. The aspirin, astroglide, and enemas didn't surprise me--after all, it's a drugstore. But what a drugstore! They had fireproof document safes! Paper shredders! Luggage! Furniture! Radios! Televisions! Clothing! Even hand grenades... well, toy hand grenades, but still! Everything you'd need to flee the country, destroy the evidence, and monitor whether the feds are after you is available at 1 in the morning at a Rite-Aid. Wandering around the store, my jaw agape, I nearly forgot the purpose for which I'd entered the store. Fortunately, Broker steered me back on track, bluntly as usual: "Damnit, TProphet, stop looking at the adult diapers and buy a chess set!"

I went to the toy aisle (yes, there's an entire toy aisle), and after nearly becoming distracted again by the Tonka Mighty Backhoe (a product I think every network engineer should own), we found a chess set for only $5.99. I went to the register to purchase the set, and remembered one final item I needed, which I can usually find right by the register. To my dismay, I discovered that Rite-Aid doesn't carry it. I had to read the Weekly World News online.

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