Before I start today’s post, I want to thank Danielle Hatch, Entertainment Editor of the Peoria Journal Star for writing up such a great story about your’s fooly and MBIP, check it out here: Prolific Blogger by Danielle Hatch. She really did a great job and I appreciate the press and I’m already getting tons of additional hits. Danielle and MBIP pal, Phil Luciano are doing a fun video series at PJS called, “Barstorming,” check out the latest edition here.
If this is your first time here, you can read about the blog here and you can check out posts from the past here in the archives. Welcome aboard and thanks to all of you who have been reading and following along for the past four months, it really means a lot to myself and to the weekend contributors.
And if all goes well, I just might be on TV tonight! Stay tuned for an update about that later. And now, back to the blog, already in progress...UPDATE: Alexandra Sutter from Channel 31/CI Proud interviewed me today and it's going to be on their newscast tonight! I'll post a link to it tomorrow!
I never blog about where I work. But I do think it’s safe to write about my drive there. I work a second shift job in downtown Peoria and I take the same route every day. I leave my apartment, get on Allen Road, take that to War Memorial Drive, then I hang a left on Sheridan heading towards Main Street. As I approach Main Street while driving down the road, a horrible and frightening thing happens to me on a daily basis. Follow along and I’ll show you what I’m talking about. (Warning: There’s a lot of cursing in this one, and for good reason, but if that’s going to upset you, ignore this one and just wait till tomorrow’s post which will be profanity-free.)
Okay, we're heading out a little earlier than usual for the sake of this post, but here we are heading out on War Memorial Drive in the direction of my work place. REO Speedwagon is on the radio, I always tell people that I went for 19 years without hearing REO Speedwagon and then I got back here and they're on the radio every other stinking minute. Oh well, it's better than Rush Limburger I guess.
And here we go down Sheridan Road, we're getting close now.
Whoomp there it is. See those three little creepy mannequins in the window at Sam Harris Uniforms on Sheridan near Main Street? Every stinking day I look over at them from my car and get seriously creeped out by them. Today I'm going to park and get a closer look at them.
Okay, I parked and here we are closing in on the Sam Harris store by foot. I've only ever looked at these mannequins from the safety of my car and now I'm kind of filled with anxiety to be getting so close to such a creepy trio.
Wow, as scary as they are from a car's point of view, when you are actually standing in front of them they really bring out the fear in you. I think part of it is that they're little pint-sized mannequins. For me it just doesn't get much more creepy than this. I'm breaking a sweat just taking these photos.
This guy's kind of striking a Michael Jackson-like pose. Nothing worse than a mannequin who's playing with himself. We don't really need you acting out the song, "Beat It."
To me, the middle little mannequin boy is the creepiest of this scary trio. Look at how his arms are disfigured and how he has glove hands. I swear I'll have nightmares about this for months on end. Is it me or does it look like this little fucker is laughing at me despite the fact that he doesn't have a face? I'm really feeling uncomfortable taking these pictures.
And he doesn't have a belt, how would he put it on with those creepy glove hands of his. And look how his arms are so grossly disfigured. And I have to look at this shit every stinking day on my way to work. It's just wrong.
Well, you know what? This is what sets me apart from most other people out there. I'm going to go and ask them to do something about this.eyesore in the window. I'm really sick of driving by here every day and getting creeped out before I go to work. It's just not fair.
I went in and met Cindy who wouldn't let me take her picture, in spite of the fact that she's a great looking fifty-something woman with a wonderful smile. She told me to take a picture of George, who's pictured above. I told them that those little mannequin boys were creeping me out and she told me that she'd fix them up and make them less creepy by the time I went to work today, which is about three hours away. This is what I love about doing this blog, getting something positive done for this community. I thanked her and George and told them I'd be back around three to see what improvements they made on those three creepy mannequins on my way to work. I love it when things fall into place like this!
Sam Harris Uniform's are nearby The Costume Trunk, who we visited back when this blog first started.
Let's go inside and say hi.
I went in and had a nice conversation with Steve Spain, the owner of the store. Steve's a great guy and it was good to see him again.
Last time I was in here I bought a plastic chicken, so I thought I'd buy one again. Maybe this will start tradition where I buy a plastic chicken every season of the year. This is the spring edition. Check back in June to see if I keep this tradition going. It'll be something to do.
Okay, about three hours have passed and I'm on my way to work, but I thought I'd check out what Cindy did to de-creep those little mannequins. Someone's riding my ass on Sheridan, why do people do that? I'm going the speed limit, just back the fuck up and settle down. We'll park and take a look at what Cindy did to make these mannequins a little more bearable.
Cindy sounded pretty excited about this project, so I'm curious to see what she's done with the creepy trio of mannequin boys.
This is it? She put a couple jackets on them and a baseball cap on the creepiest one. Cindy had over three hours to do something here and this is seriously disappointing. They're just as creepy as before. And she promised me that this would be resolved.
I'm a little pissed off here and I went in and asked Cindy what the deal was and she was all flustered and said she got busy and she couldn't finish what she started. And now here's the deal, today is Monday, sometimes I do these in advance so I can stack them up and have a little free time at the end of the week. I figured I could come here and resolve this thing at the beginning of the week and then I could put it together and hold it for Thursday. So I have a couple of days before this gets published. I asked Cindy if she could de-creep these mannequins by Tuesday afternoon and she said that she was certain she could. I told her I had to put this up on Thursday and she assured me that by 3PM tomorrow, she'd do her best to make these mannequins a lot less creepy. So we'll check back then.
So now it's Tuesday and I'm on my way to work early to check out the store window. Cindy's had a whole day to work with it and I'm anxious to see what she's done.
Okay, I parked and now I can't wait to see what Cindy's done with the window!
What the fuck? These creepy little mannequins haven't been touched and it's been over 24 hours since Cindy promised me that she'd de-creepify these little fuckers and now I've taken time out of my day, come here early and nothing's changed! I kind of feel like I'm being mocked here. I went in and asked Cindy and she apologized and said she just got too busy to mess with them. I told her this piece had to run on Thursday and she promised me that this window would be de-creeped tomorrow. Being the trusting soul I am, I took her at her word and said I'd be back on Wednesday. I have to confess my nerves are starting to get a little rattled over this whole thing.
Okay, here's the deal, it's Wednesday, I have nothing else for Thursday's post and the Peoria Journal Star article is coming out, so I know they'll be a lot of people looking at this post and so far nothing about these creepy little mannequins has been resolved. And now I just got called in to work early, so I called Cindy to see if she's fixed up the mannequins and she told me that she's put smiles on the faces, but still needs to put eyes on them. I told her I was a little stuck for time and asked her if she could get the eyes put on within a half an hour, because I had to get in to work early. She promised she would get it done and after I made her swear that she'd do it, I ate a quick lunch and headed back here for what seemed like the umpteenth time.
I really just feel fucking defeated right now. Cindy promised they'd have eyes and they just have these weird smiles on their faces. And I have to be to work in about fifteen minutes.
I'm really starting to think that Cindy is playing some sort of mind game with me. This thing has to go up in less than 24 hours and it's just so wrong at this point. I went in and told her that we were running out of time and she promised to resolve matters by the time I was done with work and I could take photos then. So we'll see, the deadline is looming to de-creepify these little fuckers.
Okay, I'm all done with work and now we'll travel up Main Street instead of down the hill. I've obsessed all night over if Cindy has put the finishing touches on those creepy little guys.
Well the it's moment of truth time here at Sam Harris Uniforms!
Eureka, it's done! The eyeballs are on and it's a lot less creepy looking. I no longer get the chills taking these pictures.
This guy's still playing with himself, but at least he has somewhat of a humanoid face.
I thank Cindy for finally de-creeping these guys. Peoria is officially a little less creepy these days...
And please, no need for thanks...
It's what I do here at MBIP! We'll see you all tomorrow.
Sam Harris Uniforms
1025 N. Sheridan (one block north of Main Street)
Peoria
309-673-5961
Further Reading: Peoria Historical Society and facecrack.
