optimistic
drewuniversity. This morning while driving into work with 
runstaverun, we heard an advertisement for the big Joseph A. Bank sale. I like their shit, good enough for me.After work, well I'm still at work so it wasn't really after work, but
periol (my wonderful driver for the week) gave me a ride to their Morristown location. In the car, I realized that I was walking into a fine clothing store wearing an Iron Maiden shirt from this tour. To top it off, I've been breaking hair ties left and right this week, so my hair was loose. I was joking with periol how they were going to turn me away, mock me, and refuse my business.So we pull up, he lets me out, and goes off to find parking. I wander in self-consciously, and the sole employee there walked up to help me. I'd guess late thirties,
periol can correct me, fairly bald, very proper. By the end of the transaction we were recommending Maiden DVDs and I had gotten him to curse. I know my way around fine suits, so I make it clear that I want a three-button black business suit, and confirm my jacket size. As he's testing the jacket size, he comments that he saw them (pointing to my shirt) with Di'Anno a few years ago. As we're walking up the ramp to the fitting area, I respectfully express that Bruce was a superior lead man and singer. Before too long, we're talking about their most recent tour and I'm letting him know about the upcoming Dance of Death tour. We're talking about old songs, new songs, different videos that we owned. He slips out the f-bomb, and apologizes profusely. ``Hey, I just walked into a fine suit store with a Maiden shirt and long hair, it's fine, no need to apologize.''
So we dish about Maiden for an extended period of time, and I go into the dressing room. Enter
periol, having found parking, who missed the whole Maiden talk. So I walk out, and the employee starts talking about a store he worked at. They had Saturday morning meetings to improve numbers and get them motivated. The manager was obsessed with this self-help book, and was preaching about it. A couple of born-agains worked there, and tried to subvert the meeting to pushing their angle. The manager's going along with it, really getting into it. Some disparaging comments about them were made, as I cast a look at periol the preacher. ``So having listened to all of that, I tell them that I really enjoyed what they had to say, but they went about it in a roundabout way. They seemed confused, so I explained to them that I learned all of that from Iron Maiden's album Powerslave. They were furious!'' The look on periol's face was priceless. I kept on wondering when he'd wrap the story back into Maiden, and was waiting for that to catch periol off guard.So we continued to chat about Maiden for some time. I explained the real reasons for Bruce's departure, the quips passed between Bruce and Steve, and tons of other trivia. We chatted for quite some time... He told us how he really wanted to watch Rock in Rio, but his kids always grab the TV or his wife's asking him to turn it down. He named off some things I need to look for, and vice versa. I joked that I'd see him at the next concert, and we really got along.
Just the way the world is working that I walk into a suit store, a conservative-looking proper management type helps me, and we're exchanging names of Maiden media that the other needs to purchase before I go. When I go pick up my suit (half off!) I'm probably going to give him a copy of the Maiden biography that
hiphopatcong bought me. periol was amazed.In mere hours, XD is going to be given its time in the spotlight.
