GOST

We were eating at this local Mexican spot around the corner that also doubles as a market where you can pick up snacks, sodas, toiletries and piñatas when a most peculiar sight caught my eye.  While we were eating I was checking out the selection of shampoos and soaps in the aisle right next to us when I noticed a bottle labeled, “Placenta Shampoo.”

Placenta??

I am aware that there are hippies and other assorted loonies that have been known to save and eat some of the afterbirth of their children, but I’d never heard of bathing in it!  And I certainly had no idea there was a mass market for it!!  Since G-MO was our resident expert on all things Mexican, I asked him if maybe there was something I wasn’t getting, like if the bottle labeled, “Placenta Shampoo” meant something different in Spanish, like maybe there is a town in Mexico called, “Placenta.”

G-MO offered, lamely, that there is a street in Costa Mesa called, “Placentia.”  Yeah, you mean the street we took everyday to get to work??  Thanks G-MO.  Some expert!

I couldn’t wait to get back to the office and do some googling.  The best I could come up with was that maybe the shampoo contains the extract of some animal placenta??  I mean, whatever??  It still sounds crazy as hell.

Michael tried to lighten the mood after our gruesome discovery by announcing that he was an expert at the “Claw Game.”

After several pathetic, failed attempts, I regaled Michael with the story of a REAL “Claw Game” expert.

One late night after work many moons ago, Joe Navran and I visited a Denny’s.  Inside, we discovered a man, all alone, sitting at a booth with stuffed animals arranged all along the seat back and sprawled out all around him.  The booth was also flanked by several black trash bags that were also completely filled with stuffed animals.

After a little bit of investigating we learned that the man was a notorious “Claw Game” expert who traveled from Denny’s to Denny’s cleaning the games out and had in fact just cleaned out the Denny’s Joe and I were at.  According to the legend the mysterious stranger had already been banned from many local establishments.

Michael had a long way to go before he would be banned from any Denny’s restaurants, but he could take comfort in the knowledge that a relaxing placenta lather and rinse was less than an aisle away!

Arlo

GOST