Ocean State Job Terror Lot

I spent this past weekend in the lovely state of CT, where the leaves were falling as fast as my serotonin levels (countdown to doomsday aka Daylight Savings: T-4 days).

My mom and I went shopping in Avon on Saturday. All day. We were almost ready to drop, but I was on a mission. A month-and-a-half-long-overdue-birthday-present mission.

Unfortunately as one of my followers I can neither reveal the gift receivers’ identity, nor can I disclose the nature of the present. Suffice it to say, it was something we thought Ocean State Job Lot might carry.
Never have I ever been so petrified of a store.

Lordy, lordy. That place is all kinds of fright-inducing. It begged the question: Why pay for a haunted house when you can go shopping at Ocean State Job Lot for free?

I feared for my life. And of course the all-around eeriness was multiplied threefold by the stormy weather. (Puh-LEASE, October! Quit letting your fright flag fly! Halloween, big deal, we get it. No need to hit us over the head with all scary, all the time. It’s tacky. Get a life, October. Shame on you.)

So yeah, it was downpouring. And it was dark (did I mention how I am dreading the advent of Daylight Savings?) And the wind was howling, obviously. Leaves were flying from branches in a hurried flurry.

It was, in short, a scene straight from a horror film - a scene so familiar because I have seen it sooooo many times. You know, that part where they pan out and show the building in the rain where the girl is about to be killed. And so yeah, I was scared before we were even inside because I knew I should be - my killer radar was up - the setting was just that good.

Just when I believed it could get no worse, I passed through the doors.

Fluorescent lights and dirty white-black-grey tiles, fine. Whatever. But the jam-packed shelves, the items on the shelves - jarred mushrooms and green beans reminiscent of rotten brown eyeballs and slimy green fingers.

Puzzles and books from the eighties. Discontinued shampoo, mousse, gel, toothpaste, detergent - all looking pathetically desolate and undoubtedly expired.

The clothes! Oh dearie me. If you’re a hunter, this is the store for you. A hunter of people, that is. For I daresay, serial killers shop for their essentials at the Lot. I surely coulda pointed out a few.

The rows of creepy Christmas decorations (minus MAJOR points, Ocean State Job Lot, for rolling out the ho-ho-ho-ness before HalloWEEN!), of “decorative” candles and bows and bags and fake trees and melamine Santa chip n’ dips. Scary, scary, scary.

But even more frightening was the man in the costume aisle picking up hooks and masks and scythes, making odd noises and shouting gibberish to himself.

I couldn’t get out of that store fast enough. Sure, it has its redeeming qualities - my mom likes that they carry Freezer-Tite (no other stores do, apparently).

And...umm...yeah, that’s about it.

But the dim lighting, the odd Costco-warehousey smell, the hodgepodge of products, the dirty floors, the people, the people, the PEOPLE. And the thunderstorm! Holy shit yo. I felt like I had entered The Twilight Zone.

And all for nothing! Ocean State Terror Lot didn’t even have the item I was looking for. But I think I learned my lesson - I surely will not be making my way back to Ocean State Job Lot for any reason. Ever. Again.