The Most Badass Store in the World!

I don't know about you, but this is the perfect store to visit if you're gearing up for a kick-ass ninja/soldier battle against a bunch of Bruce Lee robots on some sort of Japanese mountaintop.

There's not too much I don't love about the sign either. I love the yellow font with the red background. I love the capital letters. I love the unique lettering of the word Karate Supplies as well. Heck, I even love the word supplies.

You know, when I was little and we passed a "FIREWORKS, NEXT EXIT" sign, I would press my head up against the car window, strain my neck to get a view of the store and then proceed to drool. It didn't matter if it was Fourth of July, Groundhog Day or Christmas, I couldn't wait to get my hands on some kick-ass smoke bombs, M-80s, roman candles and whistling bottle rockets.

That's how much I loved fireworks.

At the same time, I was what people nowadays would refer to as a ninja and army geek. I knew all the Karate, Ninja and War movies by heart. Revenge of the Ninja was a personal favorite that still stands the test of time to this very day. In hindsight, it was a good time to be alive.

During our summer vacations, my mom would load my brother, our friends and myself into our primer-gray station wagon and we'd hightail it over to the Army/Navy Surplus Store in Wheeling, West Virginia. We'd blow our allowance on throwing stars, nunchuks, army gear and survival knives. After that, we'd head over to St. Clairsville fireworks store to liquidate the rest of our dough on some high-tech artillery.

My mom didn't know this, but we were preparing for battle.

SIDENOTE: Also during this time, we would purposely run through thick, thorny bramble bushes with high hopes of getting a huge gash in our arm or leg in hopes that we could stitch ourselves just up like John Rambo did in First Blood after he jumped off the cliff and cut himself on a tree limb. But that's another story, eh?

Loaded with our gear, including BB guns, homemade WD-40 flame-throwers and bazooka-type rocket launchers pieced together with black tape and pipe, we'd head up into the woods to play a little game I liked to call Vietnam War.

We would split up into two teams: America and, well, Vietnam. Then, we would have a battle royale. We'd try to mimic the battle scenes we saw in Baa Baa Black Sheep and Apocalypse Now. But, it basically just turned into a free-for-all barrage of fireworks and gunfire aimed at no one in particular.

As I think back on those times, one word comes to mind... AWESOME.

So, imagine my surprise (delight?) when I saw the above sign on the way to the Adirondack Mountains about a month ago. My jaw dropped. Had I been ten-years old again, I'm pretty sure I would go into convulsions and foam at the mouth. I'm also pretty sure my head would explode like that guy in the movie Scanners.

Take a couple of minutes to imagine what the store looks like on the inside.

Oops, gotta go. I'm drooling again.