In my button box, I have a few oddities and collections. Mostly crap, but some of them are meant to protect the buttons in the box. Junk in the junk. This winter knit hat was one of the hats I've had forever, but it makes a wrapper in my button box. Now, you may think tho drop an ash on this hat as that's the title of this entry, but look underneath it's knit protective sheathing:

Bada boom bada bing! Nothing. Filled with junk. Key chains. Buttons. Cards from cops. Even a Dillards name tag. I believe this is the ashtray that used to reside in my Saturn before it had a boom boom. I don't think I ever used this when it was in the car other than a change tray. The one time I had a friend smoke in my car, he ended up burning a hole in the seat. Nobody has smoked in any car I've owned since.

LOSER!  Wow. It's NOT from my Saturn. Therefore, I have NO IDEA where this came from. I had a 1973 Ford Gran Torino with a 351 Cleveland engine, but this ain't from it. That car has me saying "Cleveland" whenever I see the number 351. Been doing that since I've owned it. Never stopped. What's that disease where you count things or need to touch things a number of times? Obsessive Doof Disorder? Repetitive Fart Disease? By the looks of it, likely it was the ashtray from my friend Walt's deceased Ford Tempo. His transmission went blooey and he got the hot and beefy Escort GT. Who knows. Maybe it was something I found by the side of the road. You never know what you'll find. Like the headlight from a 1999 Hyundai Accent? Hmmmmm.

Button Box. It's got buttons. This is from a movie on the TNT network and was from 1994. Why do I have this? It's in my junk collection. This is one of the buttons I must have received from a glom box at a video store or radio station where I worked. Gee if I knew it would be an important piece on a computer blog, than maybe I would have wrote something on the back of it. Kinda like Boomer the Dog's mother used to write dates on the cans and spices. He had a can of pineapple blowup dated 1999 or so. It must have sat all blown up for another 5 years. Don't have the pineapple chutney at Boomers. :)

I have a lot of keys in my button box. It seems to be the keeper of the keys. When I bought my 1989 Dodge Omni America that I need my mom to co-sign for, they gave me two sets of keys and two key fobs. This is the one that I didn't use.  I loved that Omni because it was my first new car and it added a ton of crap for a price cheaper by $1000 for other cars. I guess it was Chrysler corp's battle against the Yugo's and Hyundai Excels that were catching the budget minded mook's attention. I still wanted an American device. A Kenosha Cadillac. It was still a few years away from the Neon and Saturn hadn't started yet. So, I got my air conditioned, AM/FM stereo, automatic, 2.2 with the leaky gasket 4 door OMNI. It was a 11 year old design, and well, I had a '79 Chevy Monza, so it was light years from the VEGA.

The Saturn SL key chain was the same thing. A duplicate. It does have a few chew marks because I used it a few times. Saturn's used to come with a credit card key. I kept mine and used it several times when I either locked my keys in the car or was too drunk to remember I needed the keys to get my "fursuit" from the car so I used the one in my wallet. Did I say that?

How about this one? A Y! Keychain. Likely , I got this one when the Yuengling beer beverage came to the Ohio market. It was likely given away at a six pack store or an Applebee's or, who knows. Maybe it was from before that, bought at the local where I imported all my Yuengling from before they came to Ohio. Who knows. Better than any other crappy beer beverage.  The tiger comes from a tiger! It's a Exxon Tiger key chain given to me by my friend from Memphis, Growltiger.  Lookit the tiger. He's got lil paws on his pudenda.

Here is an Eddie Bauer nameplate that was found on the ground and a pair of keys from my Chevy Chevette. Not much else to sat but look at the wear on that key. It's a wonder it worked at all.

Mmmmmm....Now the finale of this entry. Everything else that was in the ashtray. Other than the Jeffersonville cop that gave me his card when writing up the accident I was in the first weekend I was back visiting friends..

So in the corner, a chip from "The Money Card" which was the first ATM card issued to me by National City Bank. Of course they were swallowed by a Pittsburgh bank. Add to it my official "Dilllards" name tag. It was when they still printed name tags to give a bit of class to that crappy retail gig. I have one with the name "Bob" on it. Someone left it there, and I used it when I didn't have my true name tag. It's now my Christmas tree decoration.

The Apex Filmworks was a Louisville cineplex that was built in the Mid City Mall that was a former Zayre store. It was a great independant theater that saved a few cinema boxes for showing classic films. I saw "The Big One" and "American Werewolf In London" there, but I remember more seeing "Chinatown" and then seeing "Bullworth" there when the showing of someone that loved a lion was cancelled for a private affair.

The "JVC" came from a rack system in my retail years just like the "kitty" card came from a hot sauce store, likely obtained at Memphis Furmeet 1 or 2. Nice kat.  Then another button. Button Box. It's my pride to say I helped the Meijer (regional discount department store) open in the Louisville/Jeffersonville area. It was the first and only time I was part of a "union". I had to give dues out of my shitty minimum wage paycheck to support the "food workers union" even though I worked on the "hard goods" side. If I wanted the gig, I had to be in the union. The only saving grace is, when I had words with my manager, I could have gotten the support of my union. Feh. The only thing I really remember from my time with Meijer is making a work of art of the "candle" aisle and winning a "cleanest storage" award for $25 for cleaning our storage area. S*it. Retail really sucks.

Arf! -Ric