Hayden buys a car!

Hayden has answered a car-for-sale ad on Craig's List. Katie thinks a scooter would serve Hayden's needs, but Hayden says you can't really haul furniture on a scooter.

I never knew Chery made a convertible!

The real-life backstory is that last weekend, I followed a coupon to the Worst Michael's on the Planet (tm), found it predictably pointless, got a coffee at the kiosk in the mall, went to Kroger to look at the toy section, got a 59-cent pink donut because I cannot resist pink baked goods (it was peppermint-flavored). . . and at that point, hydrated and fed, there was no reason not to pay a second visit to the Kmart Going-Out-of-Business Sale.




Kistiñe's baggie-doll friends were sold out except for her own blue self. The last box of Just Kidz African-American triplets had vanished. Bratz of various sorts had appeared from the back room, all marked above eBay's going rate and, in the case of My Passion Cloe, above her clearance price at the other Kmart in town.

However, there was one Just Kidz Glamour Doll and Convertible (or, as some call it, Muñeca y Automóvil Glamorosos).

Drove my Chery to the quarry, but the quarry was dry...

Of course, since the current sale terms were "40% off white tags, but only 25% off yellow tags," this box had NO tag, nor was there a price on the shelf.

I downloaded Quick Scan's bar code reader to my phone, scanned the bar code, and determined that Kmart's regular price is $11. (Yes, of course, I now scan every random bar code I see. I get bored easily, but damn, I can keep myself entertained.)

"Coche deportivo" is "sports car," useful in the car lots south of Van Buren.

This was sufficient encouragement to firmly grip the box under one arm as I continued to circle the toy section, explaining Kmart's clearance pricing to other shoppers because damn, nobody understood what was going on. When I eventually flagged down a clerk somewhere amidst clocks and scented candles, she scanned the package and determined that the sale price would be $6, which does not match either 25% off or 40% off -- but was about what I wanted to pay.

Reader, I bought it.

There's no more cardboard above me. There's... sky.

Having resisted the urge to start unboxing at the dive Mexican restaurant down the block from Kmart -- on the grounds that while I was probably the oddest person present, there's much to be said for leaving some margin of uncertainty to that hypothesis -- I started unboxing at the bus stop. There is always somebody weirder than me at a bus stop.

Further progress was stopped by the car being held in place with two of these.

The technical term for this is a "thingie."

It turns out that if you twist and push in a sort of too-lazy-to-get-scissors way, these will come out on their own. But I didn't figure that out until I got home.

Katie, being the one with mechanical skills, wants to look under the hood.

Is it possible to build a two-cylinder car? Because I think this is a two-cylinder car.

The car has a glove compartment, air conditioning, and a very simple sound system.

You can hear the music on the AM radio. The VCR and DVD, there wasn't none of that crap back in 1970.

There is a bench seat. This is technically a two-seater.

We can make it to Mexico City, siting in the back seat of my car.

It has a drive train! Or stuff like that. I'm honestly not sure what a drive train is, but then, I don't go around turning cars upside down to look at their underneaths.

Trust your mechanic to mend your car.

Hayden has some struggle to get the seat, steering wheel, and pedals all where she wants them.

With the seat this far back, it's hard to steer, but I do need space for my knees!

However, she takes the car for a test drive out into the countryside. . .

Low gear is great for slopes and going off-road!

. . . onto the expressway where the heavy vehicles go. . .

Be careful! Those tend to change lanes without signaling!

. . . and back into town through an industrial area.

We're lucky to be coming through here when there aren't any trains playing switch engine.

Hayden is satisfied with the ride and price, so she shakes on the deal.

If you can sign the title over now, we're good to go.

Katie is still a bit skeptical about the whole thing, but off they go!

Maybe I should get a cap. And goggles. And a duster.
Hayden, are you SURE the speed limit here is 40?

Meanwhile, somebody else took the bus to a very important destination, now that she had the cash to make her dreams come true.

Before you get too crazy, here's how to ride the bus -- it's easy!

Before revealing her plans, let's take a look at what Just Kidz is selling, since I'm fascinated by Barbie clones and fakies.

Her little pointy feet are the same size as the feet of Dolores the Dollar Tree Beauty, a.k.a. singer Ambiguous Brown. Indeed, Ambi promptly stole her shoes.

It's so hard to get anything stylish in a size two!

However, Ambi has the curvier figure of the two. Indeed, our newcomer's hips and legs seem designed by somebody whose only experience of "legs" involves furniture. . . spindly, modernist furniture.

I totally got called "string bean" in school.

Her range of motion is predictably limited. Indeed, it's a pleasant surprise that she can hold an arm out to the side.

If I go on Dancing With the Stars, every routine is ending with this move!

Compared to Julianne (left) and Lovely Patsy (right), our newcomer has a very small head. Her face-up is similar to Julianne's, but quality time with Alibaba has left me convinced that every toy factory in the Chenghai neighborhood of Shantou City makes a Barbie clone.

I'm what happens when the cloning process gets. .  blurry.

Yes, I have the wholesale Alibaba app on my phone (see, "bored easily," above). No, I don't have an account. Because I'm afraid that my finger would slip as the bus hit a bump, and I'd find I'd just ordered five cartons of Newest! african doll - lovely - cheap price, to be shipped by freighter to Long Beach, where it would be held up by a strike. (I have no idea why the listing is in Doge. Wow.)

It's clear the newcomer needs a makeover as her quest for her dreams, not least because she has regrettable hair that can only hold a pony tail. After the glitter-redo for Ambi, I'm a bit fixated on glitter hair. So easy. So fun. So many colors in packs of six for $1!

Meet Annie Linux, programmer and hacker extraordinaire, and the newest employee at the spa.

Your first job, Annie, will be to make sure our security is watertight.

With Annie, I didn't paint her head first and didn't water down my first layer of glue -- both of which omissions ended up making the process longer and harder than it needed to be. White glitter looks too transparent on a pink head, and the non-watered-down glue tends to the lumpy. So she needed two packets of glitter and is still a bit lumpy in back.

She's wearing Lovely Patsy's skinny jeans, a Liv sweatshirt, and Midnight Magic boots (which are too big for her) -- all dressed for an all-nighter at the computer.

My pearl earrings hide my Bluetooth headset!