Adding to all of this jabber about bugs. Where exactly did they come from? Are they inherently bad? Are they inherently from, or caused by, these Strange Patterns™? And more importantly WHO are these stranger bugs. I keep hearing all this negativity when we ourselves can't see past the fact that we can't see them at all (without an eyepiece that is). I say we all go down to Techno-Botanica and pick up an eyepiece of our very own. Maybe these new friends aren't so bad.

Last night on the way home from work I saw some kids tagging with Strange Patterns™ paint. I'm not going to name any names of course, but since only psychics really know how to use it AND the Techno-Botanica is the only place around to buy it, let me just say that they may have had familiar faces. To both me and you. And to @Selena.

The beauty of tagging with Strange Patterns™ paint is that even a quick tag ends up being a really engaging piece. You see people on the sidewalk who stop and stare and become transfixed and don't move till somebody bumps into them or their phones ring. So yeah, it's kind of cheating.

But the drawback to Strange Patterns™ paint--in graffiti or more legal hobbies--is that it oozes. The paint doesn't really loose its strange patterns, but it tends to settle, slower than the eye can see, until it reaches the ground and combines with whatever other Strange Patterns™ paint might have oozed there too.

Then I'm not sure where it goes.

The rep for Strange Patterns™ paint came by the Techno-Botanica yesterday. Because of the size of his EVA exoskeleton, Mr. Hmxclxclr can't fit into our tiny little cash office, so he activated his Cone of Silence and had the meeting right there on the floor.

Mr. Hmxclxclr is hard to read even under normal circumstances. His voice emulator removes any inflection from his voice, and his space suit is really just a remote operated bottle for his plasma-based consciousness, so there's no body language to pick up on. He just stood stock still like a statue, his modulator pulsing calmly as he emitted syllables.

The Strange Patterns™ rep was a middle aged woman in a skirt and pantyhose and a Strange Patterns™ tattoo squirming on her arm. She probably had more business than ever (at least from us), and Mr. Hmxclxclr was eager to buy as much as he could I'm sure, so it seemed like an amicable discussion.

So I took out my eye piece to get a better look at the Strange Patterns™ rep, wondering if she had the swarm of Bugs around her like I'd seen with everybody else who was on the paint.

She didn't have a swarm, which was weird, but as I adjusted the eyepiece I saw that while she didn't have a swarm of Bugs around her, she WAS a bug! A big one, standing up on its spindly metal back legs, the other four waving in the air, with antennae and optical sensors coming out the top of its silicon wafer body.

I whipped the eyepiece out and hid it in my pocket when their meeting suddenly ended and they were both staring at me.

I no longer suggest Strange Patterns™ paint to customers. Mr. Hmxclxclr insists on continuing to carry it because it makes him so much money. It's not cheap and the demand keeps on growing and since we're the only Techno-Botanica in the tri-cities area we get all the freaks.

Like today the guy who'd sprayed himself head to toe with it. I don't think he was even wearing any clothes because the Strange Patterns™ paint makes everything... strange. So I pulled out my eye piece and checked him out and sure enough he was swarming with Bugs. Crawling all over his face and flying around. He wanted our whole last case of Strange Patterns™ but Mr. Hmxclxclr has set a rule of two bottles per customer, because even though we could sell the whole case at once he wants to keep the customers coming in so we can upsell them on Early Warning Eyebrow Patches and "Lost Seagull" Screech Lamps and minuscule Love Detector Bedazzlers.

Germs travel at the speed of light. I did not know that, but working at the Techno-Botanica I caught a bug. You need an eye piece to see it (which we sell) and a magnetic Klein bottle to trap it in (ditto), but when you've isolated yours it's very interesting. Once you've filtered out the red shift, it looks like a little domino with paper clip legs and horns.

They seem to swarm (at the speed of light) around a little pool of the Strange Patterns™ paint that I spilled. I wonder if @Selena notices the same thing with her backpack? That is, if she can see them.

Woo hoo what a sale! I've got a big bag of coils and magnets I don't even know what they do but it was only $5! I went to ask the alien guy what they did and he said "Ten dollars! The whole bag!" "But what are they for?" I asked. "Ok five dollars, and I throw in a jinx-removing mouse! How bout it?" and I felt like I couldn't really turn him down at that point so I paid him. I feel like I got a really good deal though. I just wish I knew what they did.

My first class on Tuesday is Mindfulness, so here I am on my phone. After school it's straight to the Techno-Botanica and it's going to be "crazy with deals" because the Waxing Gibbous Sale is over and it's Full Moon Sale night. Not only is Mr. Hmxclxclr crazy for money, but during the full moon he goes almost "out of his head" because the moon's gravity pulls all of his essence up into the top of his helmet and he can get a little goofy. So drop by for some amazing prices on all your Techno-Botanica needs like Minor Disturbance Egg Beaters, LED Truth Tellers, E-ink Parchment Paper, TV Eye Talismans, Wall of Protection Mother Boards, Spirit Phone Ear Buds, and of course Strange Patterns™ Spray Paint if you're still in the market, @Selena.

I'll be there till close, so drop in and say hi. There'll be free Mooncakes and Kombucha and a Mariachi band.

We've been selling a lot of that Strange Patterns™ paint at the Techno-Botanica. Technically everybody who buys it is supposed to write their name down in logbook, and we're not supposed to sell more than six cans at a time to any one person, but Mr. Hmxclxclr isn't such a stickler for "human rules." Plus he was anxious to make bank during the Waxing Gibbous sale.

But what I mean, @Selena, is to keep your eye out for imitations! Anybody could be putting Strange Patterns™ on anything these days. Who knows what @Glitter really "found."

It was "Waxing Gibbous" deals at the techno-botanica today and we were packed. 5% off per item, up to 50%, so I was ringing up big sales my entire shift with barely a lunch break. Wires of Mystery, Tru-Love GPS chips, Dust-free Mojo Bags, Willy Wooly Magnetic Hair Growth Grains. The boss worked the floor and watched for shoplifters, and he's pretty imposing in his exoskeleton, or space suit or whatever. Plus he can see in 360 degrees. "What can I help you with?" comes out of his voice emulators but it's encoded with subliminal ultra-low frequency warnings that have brought more than one small-time larcenist to a life changing moment.