Randomness from the Lou

The St. Louniverse has been very random today. All I can do is soak it in and smile.

Snippets:

• At the tradeshow, this same woman kept coming by the booth and tried to pull the "oh, that was my twin" routine so that she could score more freebies (which were not all that impressive, I assure you). She came by again and again saying 'hi, I don't think we've met' when I clearly remembered her (she was distinctive) and then 'oh, I need one more - actually, maybe two... I should take three' and then would take 5. It was oddly hilarious.
• I got a phone call from this computer repair guy that I hired last year to ask if I would be a reference for him. Which was hilarious, because this guy flaked on me 3 times, showed up 2 hours late when he did come, then had a hissy fit because he's allergic to cats and he didn't want to touch anything in my house and then told me off because I'd run out of paper towels and he didn't want to touch any towels... because the cats might have touched them. THEN he couldn't fix the damn thing and when he found out that I work for a tech company, asked if I could get him an employee discount and if I'd be willing to order some stuff for him (uh, no).
• I got a call from the lady who wanted a reference for repair guy and who was an elderly asian woman who barely spoke english. She gave me a run-down of her computer problems and I told her simply "he wasn't able to fix my computer" and she kept repeating "oh, it was broken? but he fix! You happy?" and I'd explain again, no, he didn't fix it... and then she'd tell me again about her computer problem and then mentioned that she didn't want to spend the money for his services and then abruptly said "I have to go now" and hung up on me.
• I visited the City Museum (pleeeeeease - go there! Look at their website and know that you cannot possibly comprehend it via photos), full of hipsters who all declined deodorant. I climbed twelve flights of stairs, quite by mistake, just trying to figure out where to go. Turns out on the 10th floor is a slide that twists and spins and goes down all ten stories which is what the smelly hipsters were after (note: don't wear a wool suit and try to look all early 80's ska in 87 degree weather and NOT wear pit stick, please). At the indoor turtle pond, the turtles were stacked like puppies (picture above) and I couldn't stop laughing to myself. I was already getting eyeballed for being there alone and giggling to myself didn't help one bit.
• Outside the hotel (in the porte cachere), there was a seriously white trash lady using a shop vac (plugged into the hotel's exterior power outlet) to vacuum her tricked out rice rocket with "Shaqfu" license plates. Security was just curiously watching her. She was clearly not a hotel guest - just someone driving by who decided that they needed to vacuum now and that it was ok to use the hotel's power supply?! Luckily, she had her own shop vac!
• Not so random, I guess, but I can't get over how inexpensive things are in this city. I had a room service dinner and with tip and service fees and taxes and salad and soda and sides and blah blah blah it was $23! In NY, we paid $45 for a single hamburger. Lunch at a local trendy restaurant for 2 people was $18. Also, I got a Coke in the hotel restaurant/bar to take to my room and they've been giving me free refills all day. AND they'd deliver me refills for $2 if I wanted. What?!