Why I Love Moscow

I thought I grew up in a small town.  Growing up, we had one grocery store, two traffic lights, two gas stations, and a lot of farms.  At last count, there is still one grocery store, no gas stations, five traffic lights, a lot fewer farms, and a lot more housing developments.

I also believed there were plenty of weirdos in the town, which made me proud.  My family has lived in the town where I grew up for almost 50 years, so I've heard a lot of stories about so-called scandals involving incest, affairs, and child-molestation, mostly.  However, aside from the town homeless person, Wheeler, and his two sisters, Eartha and Bertha (swear to god), most people kept their weirdness on the inside.

Once I arrived in Moscow, I realized how great the human race's potential for weirdness truly is.  There's just something about the West that gives people more room to unfurl their freak flags, and people here take full advantage of that.

I've been keeping a mental tab of all the 'characters' we've come across so far.  Here are some of my favorites:

Baggus Ladius - habitat:  in or near bars

The woman pictured above frequents bars in the early evening and is usually seen downing humongous mugs of beer.  She uses one crutch and instead of using her free hand to carry a purse, she hangs a tote bag around her neck.  I really want her to set the bag down somewhere so I can snoop inside and see the litany of horrors she must keep in there.  The first time we saw her she was pulling green army men out of it and trying to tell the bartender stories about her "friends."

Whitus Trashius - habitat:  1999, anywhere there is a house on wheels

 I had the pleasure of waiting in line behind this woman at the bank once.  Based on the frizzled gray hair in her ponytail (which was fixed in place with an awesome hot pink scrunchie), I would say this woman was probably too old to have ever worn Lee Pipes even when they were the height of (questionable) fashion, but I give her credit for her vintage find (or more likely for cutting up a pair of her son's old pants from middle school).  I loved this woman even more when she announced to the teller, loudly and with obvious pride, that she was making a deposit of five dollars.  I mean, I'm not exactly flush with cash myself, but $5?  Why bother?

Walmartus Clerkus- habitat:  behind Walmart cash registers

The first time we went to Walmart to buy jugs of Carlo Rossi, we got in this guy's checkout line.  He picked up my jug and instead of scanning it and keeping his condescension to himself, he lifted it to his mouth, pretended to chug it, and said "MMM CARLO!" in a spot-on Cookie Monster voice.  Come on, guy, I know Carlo is shameful, but I'm just trying to live, and being judged by a Walmart cashier isn't helping any.

Whitus Urkelus- habitat:  everywhere, but probably near a flag pole, retrieving his underwear

I actually have reservations about including this one, because I think this child might be special, but I'm a horrible person and on the off chance that he's just another character, I'm going to include his description.  We saw this kid wearing a helmet while cutting the grass...with a push mower.  He was pitifully skinny and pale.  His attire and countenance suggested he was clearly a Caucasian Steve Urkel doppleganger.  His elastic-waist shorts were pulled up high enough that I was concerned for his future reproductive health, and his shirt was (obviously) tucked in.  For reasons I cannot imagine, perhaps for fashion, he was also wearing a leather belt with a huge silver buckle around his waist.  This was not one of those back support belts that laborers wear, I know what I saw.  Since this first encounter, we have seen him riding his bike all over town, and he always has on the same outfit.  Always red shorts.  ALWAYS a helmet.


Trust me, there are so many of these I could include, but I've had enough fun with MS Paint for one day.  I'm going to go apply for more jobs so that hopefully one day soon I can sit at a desk and get paid to write my blog while I pretend to do whatever work I was actually hired to do.