Spotlight on Shopping

On the elevator back to the Skyway Level the car stops at the 3^rd floor. The doors open and 2 officers from the Cleveland Clinic Police Force jump in. "Ma'am we've got an emergency, you need to leave the car," one says to me. I exit and move well out of the way. There's a lot of commotion here. Garbled voices bark instructions on the cops' walkie-talkies. The police want to take a patient to 1-S (I know 1-S is the O.R./Surgery Center), one staff wants to wait for the On-Call to show up, another is taking and recording vitals. Amid the beeping from the P.A. system, the walkie-talkies cutting in and out and phones ringing, three white-jacketed staff run from the ward to the front of the elevators. The space is filling up quickly. There's no stairway to be seen, so all I can do is stand against the wall and try to take up less space.

Another elevator car arrives and 2 more staff rush off. Two women then calmly disembark. One woman is holding flowers, the other has a large teddy bear. There's no space left here. The On-Call arrives and agrees they all need to go to surgery STAT. The patient, the On-Call, the police and someone else take my elevator (the doors had been held open the entire time). Most of the other staff get on the 2nd car. The remaining staff return to the ward. The two women provide ID and get permission to visit. Once all the elevator doors have closed, I step forward, push the down button and wait for another elevator to come.

Andrew and I pack up and head downtown. I've never actually checked out the city on other trips. Andrew doesn't want to see any of the museums or galleries. He wants to shop. We head to Tower City. After exploring 3 levels of stores (including the food court), Andrew adopts a new pair of shoes into his family of footwear (the kid's got some Summers in him, for sure), welcomes a new hat to the house and a hard-to-find CD.

We're leading the rush-hour crowd out of the city. I run into pump problems in Mentor, OH, which coupled with the freezer-issue at the hotel means no meds for the return trip. Andrew understands it might be a looong drive and doesn't even ask to drive through Pennsylvania.

DJ ScAndrew spins the radio dial. We listen to 5 seconds of every station the radio picks up. If we luck into something we want to hear, we stop the scan. As soon as the song is over ScAndrew starts the 5 second sampler again. After 25 minutes, we reconnect the MP3 player. We call on DJ ScAndrew at least once more before settling in the driveway at home.

We're just west of Erie when I spot the billboard...(this is a reproduction of the actual billboard). Having declined the matching tattoos at The Cleveland Shop in Tower City, we have to stop at the Stun Gun Factory Outlet.

The center aisles are filled with fireworks. Around the perimeter are cases filled with zillions of knives, daggers, swords and 5 models of stun guns to choose from. Cross bows, dart guns, blow guns, sickles, air rifles, nunchakus, razor blade stars and more are displayed on the slat-wall from floor to ceiling. I'm uncomfortable here at the Munition Supercenter. I've seen some of this merchandise in evidence bags on shows like Law & Order and 48 Hours.

Declarations regarding the use of stun guns surround the display :
"A charge for 1-2 seconds is like receiving a large shock. A charge for 2-5 seconds will cause temporary involuntary muscle spasms. A charge for more than 5 seconds will result in temporary paralysis."

"Can I get one?" Andrew jokes. "Not today," I answer.
"They're perfectly safe," Mike, the owner, says. "They're only really dangerous if a person has a pacemaker."
Since we're not Pennsylvania residents, we qualify to view the merchandise in the other warehouse. He explains that it's fireworks and stuff that's illegal to own in Pennsylvania, but as long as we use it outside the state, it's no problem.
We turn down the offer.
Thanks, Mike. We're done looking.

The Last 100 miles