Portland, Oregon is an interesting town. I spent the day there with a few friends and here’s what happened:

We went to the Portland Beer Fest, which was pretty great. The highlight, of course, was my brush with Jimi Hendrix

On the way down there, we were almost accosted by Pete the Ginger, who was standing on a street corner trying to talk to people about green jobs. I told him that I was from Detroit and don’t care about green jobs. I just want my manufacturing jobs back. EG told me I was likely to get stoned for saying that in Portland.

On the way back, we were accosted again, this time by a woman from Children International trying to get us to sponsor poor children overseas. Our conversation went on for nearly 30 minutes with her starting out trying to talk to us about dinosaurs holding laser guns and whatnot. It really made no sense, and it went on forever, until she got to her point that by donating $22 a month would allow a kid to be a kid, thinking about things like who would win in a fight, a monkey with a samurai sword or a raptor with a musket instead of worrying where the next meal was going to come from.

It’s a fair point, but the wrong sales pitch to make to a bunch of people who have neither the means nor the willingness to hand money (or as she suggested, credit card information) to a stranger in a dirty, green t-shirt standing on the corner. The look on EG’s face when the girl looked at her and her boyfriend and said “You could have a baby together!” was priceless. When I told her I don’t make these kind of decisions without talking to my wife first, she replied “You could bring a baby home to your wife.” KS loves it when I bring her souvenirs, but I don’t think a child from Bangladesh is what she has in mind.

The rest of the night was entertaining. Good company, good food. The real entertainment came when I got hungry later at night and headed across the street to Jack in the Box. As I pulled into the drive through I saw two women in skimpy bar clothes, obviously drunk, shouting into the microphone. It seems they wanted to order something but the employees wouldn’t serve people on foot. After a few minutes of them shouting at and pounding on the microphone box, they gave up and started heading toward my car.

While one girl stood there staring at me, kind of wobbling in her high heels, the other knocked on my passenger window.

Can we get in your car?

What? No!

They won’t let us order food if we’re not in car, please, just let us get in.

I don’t even know you.

I’m Heather, now can we get in?

Ummmmm….no, I don’t think so. Your friend looks pretty drunk, I don’t need anyone throwing up in my rental car.

She won’t throw up, I promise!

Yeah…I don’t think so, sorry.

The girl stomped off and tried the car behind me while her friend puked in the bushes. Classy, classy ladies.