big dicks

I got crud. I lost my voice. I'm knee-deep in fiction editing, and I've been staring at my own, old words for too long. I’ve gone completely gray, inside and out. I wrote a whole post on this, but it was as boring as I was, so I deleted it. Instead I’ll write about the only non-fiction thing I’ve done in the past few days.

John Elway was a significant investor in Galyans, a sporting goods store. Like the mall in which it was established, it was classy, expensive, huge; it had the premier, seen-from-the-highway-location. There’s a faux river and falls just outside the door so that you can go try out the fly-fishing equipment. Kayaks hung from massive log frames. They carried every decent pistol on the market, target weapons, as well as a great selection of bows and sporting rifles. (I did some research for the books there.) Skis, snowboards, bikes, ten different backboards to pick from, skateboards.... and all the North Face and Spider and Roxy and Independent to go with it.

It got bought out.

Now it’s Dicks; a name which does bring to mind sports, but perhaps not with the positive connotation they might hope for. PHF calls it Big Dick's. I know. I'm sorry. You'll never be able to think of it any other way.

Now there are lots of soccer shorts and Nike and basketballs.

It seems ok, I guess. Why every guy in the place was scamming me, with my crud-induced croak and current gray outlook, I dunno. PHF said it’s because I’m cute, dammit. I said it’s because I put on extra blush to make me look like I was something other than gray, and because they’re losers. But that’s besides the point. We wandered, we bought some stuff, we missed looking over the real guns. (The paintball P9s don't hold quite the same allure somehow.)

But I couldn’t help notice that on the front of the mall, highway side, is a new huge sign that says:

DICK’S.


Classic bait and switch, if you ask me.