Chamblee54

Labor Day Saturday got off to a shaky start. PG put the recharged battery in his camera, and noticed a white line on the monitor. A quick test shot was made, and the picture viewed on the computer. The white line is not on the picture.
Next was the fare machine at the marta station. PG does not ride very often, and loads the breeze card on a need-to-know basis. The fare machine was cranky, which is normal. All PG had was a ten dollar bill, and the machine gives change in Susan B. Anthony coins. PG did learn one secret of the turnstile. When the sign says to tap your card, that means to hold it flat against the pad for half a second.
The ride into town was unusually crowded for saturday morning. Of course, labor day saturday is not a normal day in Atlanta. There is Dragon Con, Black Gay Pride, and some kind of college football super game. It is a good day to stay in Brookhaven, but PG allowed himself to get talked into this.
The plan was to meet at the north end of the marta north avenue station, in the food court. Little did PG know that the station had been renovated, and the food court was closed. Of greater concern was the fact that Uzi was not there. A phone call was made, then another, then a text message. Uzi was at the other end of the station. The stress level was manageable.
The d-con parade … d con is a form of rodent poison, which somehow seems to fit this event … had already started. The idea was to walk down west peachtree a few blocks, and maybe it would be less crowded on peachtree when you walk up there. While it may have been marginally less crowded in the hospital-and-wino district, it was still packed. You can only see so much of the parade from the fifth row of the crowd, with or without big hair in front.
So the parade happened. There were starship troopers, barnyard poopers, medieval wenches, confederate trenches, loudspeakers playing the star wars theme, blondes making the team, ghost busters, crop dusters, trekkies, beckys, vlad the impaler, chad the inhaler, Lucy, Desi, Thurston, Lovie, Andy, Opie, and any other fantasy the costume cowboys can hot glue together.
On cue, towards the end of the circus, the jesus people came down the sidewalk, denouncing the harlots on television. The harlots walking down peachtree ignored them, as did most of the crowd. These idiots live for someone to pay them the compliment of arguing. When you wrestle with a hog, you get dirty, and the pig has a good time. Remember that the next time someone tells you about antifa versus the tiki torch bois.
Finally it was time to get on marta, and ride back to civilization. On the north line, you have one job. You get on the north springs red train, or you get on the doraville gold train. It is not complicated, except for today. The first train to come through did not have signs, indicating the destination. Nor did the conductor make announcements. PG somehow figured out that it was a red train, and that he needed to get off at lindbergh station. The next train to doraville had signs, and made regular announcements. The car waits in the parking lot undisturbed.
While editing the pictures that appear with this feature, PG listened to Shots Fired: Part 2. It is the story of a married couple. They have a fight, and the man goes off and gets drunk. Somehow, the police to go his house. His wife meets them with a shotgun. The police are offended, and shoot back. It is a *real story,* and a tasteful counterpoint to all the manufactured fantasy on peachtree street.