Now THIS is the happiest place...

...well, you know where.

Last Friday, to kick off my Columbus Day weekend in appropriately high-falutin' style, I went out to the wilds of Maryland to visit my friend GI Jane, who works for The Man at the Army base in Aberdeen, Maryland. The trip was partially just to hang with someone who was the first friend I'd made at college (we bonded over our love for MAC lipstick), but also so I could check out with my own eyes something magical, nay, glorious that I'd never seen before.

See, for whatever reason - extreme isolation, preponderance of lonely soldiers, an ill-thought out attempt to diversify the local economy - there's a stretch of Highway 40 that is all porn stores, all the time. It's kinda strange, actually: you'll be driving along an empty highway, surrounded by fields, and then you'll pass a trailer advertising its XXX wares. Then, nothing for a mile or so, and then again, another trailer with its sexxxy goods for your pleasure. It's like Aberdeen's red-light district, if by "district" you mean "one road stretched out for miles."

Anyway, in my mind, the piece de resistance was the trailer that was bifurcated into a porn store on one side, and a U.S. POSTAL OFFICE on the other. That's right, all your errands can be taken care of in one quick trip! I guess that the Postal Service is running out of ideas for how it can compete with UPS. For those of you who, like me, thought such perfection was not of this world, go check out the U.S. post office for Belcamp, MD, 21017. It shares its walls with "Express Video," which offers preview booths, rentals, novels, and magazines for the discerning customer.