A Tale of Two Rite-Aids

I went to the closest Rite-Aid because I was all out of milk half gallons, and they seem to have good turnover in their milk half gallons, so I probably wouldn't be faced with a shelf full of soon to be expired milk. And I thought a frozen pizza would hit the spot too. Not an expensive one, but a somewhat cheap one. That's why I go there. That was the plan. I needed some cash first.

I stopped at my neighborhood ghetto liquor store to use the ATM, which nobody but me ever uses. A large man was using it. So, I bought an Arizona iced tea with the dollar I had in my pocket and waited for the large man. The large man got confused, by all the buttons, I guess. I left to use the ATM at my local Shell station

I got some cash. I said “Hi” to the clerk, whom I slightly remembered as the clerk who worked there.

Now on to the Rite-Aid. It's in a vaguely ghetto part of town, but that's where I live. A large SUV was blocking two spaces, so I pulled into a spot that was a little tight, because the Mustang guy parked a bit in the right of his spot. I didn't have much room to open my door and at that point I noticed the gangster in the Mustang passenger's seat. He was listening to some gangster music with loud bass.

“BOOOM. WHAAAP. BOOOM.”

All of it sounds the same. I carefully extracted myself from the car so as not to hit the gangster's Mustang with my car's door. I figured it would be smart to avoid getting shot in the groin.  Gangsters love to shoot guys like me in the gentlemen's area. I cupped my hands over my Johnson and went inside.

I was immediately confronted with 7-10 people impatiently waiting in a crudely formed line.

This can't go well.

I quickly spun to the left and exited. I was inside a total of one second. I carefully re-inserted myself into the car, so as not to get shot, and drove to the next nearest Rite-Aid. Each Rite-Aid carries the same inventory so I should have no problem. Upon entering the store, I was immediately confronted with a woman walking towards me. She moved to the left. So I moved to the right. Then she darted to the right. I moved to the left. This went on a few more times.

She grabbed my arm and said that she grew up in a family of 14 and something additional gibberish about, “Always being in somebodies way.” I guess she must have issues from childhood still bothering her and I look like her therapist.

The important thing was the milk so I can have my late morning bowl of cereal. I always get the milk half gallon with the red top. They didn't have any milk half gallons with red tops, but they had some milk half gallons with blue tops. They expired tomorrow. There is no way I can use an entire half gallon by tomorrow. Milk is a disgusting thing to drink so I don't drink it. Unless you're a baby you don't need it. This Rite-Aid was also missing the entire selection of somewhat cheap frozen pizzas too. So I drove back to the Shell. They have milk half gallons with red tops.

I said “Hi” to the clerk whom I slightly remembered as having worked there and he asked about my Saab. I don't have a Saab, but I played along.

299 Words

I was driving and Rush came on the XM. Geddy Lee was screeching on about a salesman over the top of unnecessarily complicated drumming, and I imagined for a moment that I was driving through the Hollywood Hills.

The 'Hollywood' sign is dangling precariously on the edge of the Santa Monica mountain range. Instead of Geddy Lee wheezing through his pie hole into a microphone and calling it a song, Hope Sandoval is singing. I think it's 'Ghost Highway.' The song isn't important. It's the mood that I'm trying to set. Substitute your favorite Mazzy Star song. Just make sure the song you pick is suitably haunting.

My girl is in the passenger's seat. The top is down - it's a convertible. A black 1952 Cadillac. I'm not traveling very fast - maybe 35 - tops. The road is very curvy. You have to keep your eye on it. I am going fast enough to mess up her artificially red hair, though.

“I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.” I say.

She pulls her hair off her face and says, “I haven't been hungry in years.”

I keep driving west until I reach the Pacific ocean. I keep driving until I can't go any farther. She jumps out of the car and starts wading into the ocean. Her dress floats on the tops of the waves. It looks like a jellyfish that had come to the surface. The Sun is setting behind her and she is in silhouette. She keeps going as I stand there and watch.

At that moment Geddy Lee managed to infiltrate my imagination, warning me of a salesman. A drummer drums his way through a complex fill. An arm comes out of a window.

“Number one with a Coke. That's $4.97.”

I Pardon You

I've been under invasion by black ants this summer.  That's their color, anyways.  They're ants of color.  It's probably a statement on my kitchen and not a statement about the race of the ants.  I could have just as easily been under attack by white ants with scraggly beards, or Latino ants with teardrop tattoos under their eyes.  Probably not Asian ants, though.  Saturday is a school day in Asia - I believe.  Anyway, I just want to avoid any racially charged discussion about criminality in the ant population, and black vs white, blah, blah, blah.  It's not their fault that they have to resort to a life of crime.  It's something we can blame on our sick society.

My finger points at you, sick society!

I've been engaging in a slaughter of ants this summer.  My favorite trap has turned out to be a virtually empty can of Arizona iced tea.  They're attracted to the sugary drink and crawl (what else can ants do?  Hop?  Skip?  Stupid, but apparently necessary verb!) inside the can and meet their death.  Then I start filling the can with water and the ants go with it down the drain in the kitchen sink.  Where God drowns them to death.

God loves killing with water.  Ever read the Bible?  The Old Testament is filled with examples of God drowning people, sometimes for no good reason, other than they became a bit too slutty, or they became prideful.  By the way, those Olympic athletes are prime candidates for being killed by God (probably drowned - I presume (God is a one trick pony)) if they get too proud of their achievements.  I'd watch out.  That's why they point to the rafters and thank him.  "Please don't kill me.  I didn't mean to win.  It was an accident, I swear!"  Let's move on.

So, the ants meet their death with a torrent of water.  Yet some of them cling on to the inner workings of the garbage disposer and climb right back out, whereupon I send them back down the drain.  Sometimes they hold onto seemingly nothing and ride out the flood of water.

Today, this particular ant survived at least a half dozen counts of attempted murder.  I'd fill the sink halfway with water and let the deluge loose at once and it would crawl back out, time after time.  I turned on the disposer and it, miraculously, climbed out undamaged.  After murder attempt number 8, I let it climb onto a fork and released it outside.  I figured the ant's tenacity should be rewarded with clemency.

I pardon you.

Ghost in the Ruins

So, the vultures are picking at the corpse of what's left of my childhood home.  I lived there from 3rd grade up until my early 20s.  The estate sale is underway, and then later, the house will be sold.  I'm not sure how I feel about this.  I'm a minimalist so I only took a few things - shown below - but it's a shame because that place is was filled with treasures.  I took one more thing, a Heathkit digital clock that I built in the early 80s.  I didn't want to unplug it and reset the time.  But it still works perfectly.  So, it's not shown.

I put my mother on a plane in Detroit last Saturday, headed for Southern California, and resort-like living at a place near my sister.  She's got a realistic attitude about what's happening.  All this shit has to be sold to help pay for her resort-like living.  I'm a minimalist but I'm heavily sentimental.  I'm also heavily mental.  I also like Heavy Metal.  Okay, enough of the word games.

I took these stunning mid-century dishes.  The cane is engraved with Dragons.  It should compliment my grim reaper cane nicely.  There's a Mr. Peanut ashtray, which I think is cool.  I've always liked Mr. Peanut.  He's just a peanut but he comes accessorized with a top hat, walking stick, and a monocle.   He's high class.  There's the Jefferson Golden Hour glass clock.  It was a wedding gift to my folks in the early 50s.  It stopped working.  They built a billion of these clocks over the years.  The last item is a Soundesign calculator from the early 70s.  It survived a massive flood in 1975.  It takes 4 C batteries and still works, although, it works kind of gimpy.

 I'm not sure how I feel about this.

Old Shit - A Photo Tour

I went on a tour and snapped some pictures.  The commonality is that our road, named in tribute to a dead, black, civil rights leader, in my part of town, that is, runs straight through an urban area, it's renamed with a letter and a number, and proceeds south (where I'm sure they don't care much for this dead, black, civil rights leader) where a quaint suburban area sits beside it, and then it neatly dissects a cute, little, rural village - at the end of our tour.  By then I will have established commonality.  I could follow this road all the way to Ohio but I'm not going to.

Here's the old Ford dealer which was just around the corner from my original house.  We moved out in 1975 when I was eight.  It was within walking distance.  Actually, I was a little kid.  Kids never walk.  It was within running distance.  After another Ford dealer gave it a try, they closed permanently in the mid-to-late 90s.

The old house.  The neighborhood is reasonably well kept considering the houses aren't worth crap anymore.  These people don't have a pot to piss in but, as you can see, at least they have several windows to throw it out of.  Abigail DuPont's uncle lives here now.  Total coincidence.  He is estranged from the family.   He works at the Mammoth superstore warehouse and worships Jesus full-time.  The backyard backs up to what used to be a Burger King but now it's a crummy restaurant where you can get poisoned for only $5.99.

My original school.  I went there from 1972-1975.  I used to walk there and back with Derek.  Then I would stay at his Mom's house, down the road, until my Mom finished her job doing whatever.  In 2nd or 3rd grade I was slowly getting ahead of the other kids in Math and the teacher would give me different, more advanced assignments than the other kids.  It made me feel weird so I slacked off and let the rest of the class catch up.

Our Old Shit tour concludes with a visit to Abigail's grave.

A Chapter From My New Book, Entitled, "Sliced Bread and Menopausal Chickens: What Every Parent Needs to Know"

Chapter 99

I thought 2:00 pm would be a good time to visit the local Mammoth superstore, but apparently, mostly old fucks come out here at this time of day.  They're everywhere.  It must be free napkin and jelly packet day.  Three and four wide up ahead and I'm headed against the tide.  Wait, one just came around aisle three.  Now it's five people.  I'm about to get run over.   Can't you people stay to the right?  It's a social contract that only I obey.  As per usual, I have to adjust my behavior to others.  So, I slide even farther to the right.  

There's what I presume to be a fossilized American tailing me.  I slow down.  He slows down.  I stumble to the right.  He follows.  He's much too close.  Why is he following me?  Asshole.  If I walked faster I bet I could lose him.  I'd like to give him a push and take off running down aisle four.  Then a quick right at the frozen pizzas.  He'll never catch up.

Instead I decide to make a crashing halt at the eggs.  I fold my arms, then I put my hand up to my chin and stroke it, as though I have a goatee and the eggs are a big fucking decision.  Should I get the grade A large eggs?  Should I save a few cents and get some grade C eggs?

All the eggs are grade A so it's not even a choice.  Nothing but exemplary test results from these chickens.  They must have been raised on a free-range farm.  A free-range farm means the chickens can walk all day and contemplate life, the universe, and everything.  Sort of like my day except that I don't have an egg quota.  I imagine it goes something like this:

Classical music is played for the chickens as they dine on chicken feed with white wine.  Later they are each offered a delicious desert.  Then, many of them retire to the smoking room whereupon they regale one another with stories of the day's conquests.  Challenges met, competitors bested.  A smaller number have reached menopause and they no longer produce eggs.  These chickens are sent to the slaughterhouse, where their heads are chopped off and they are sold for meat.

The fossilized American stopped at the eggs too.  What the hell?  I guess that plan didn't work.  I dart to the left and lose him.

Led Zeppelin is Stupid and Sucky

I've decided that they aren't that good and don't deserve this multi-decade long orgasmic hype-a-thon.  Sure, they seemed new at the time, I suppose, and that was good enough, since the world was fresh off Elvis and Robert Plant simply did the next logical thing, which was to not wear pants.  Big deal.

Stairway to Heaven is a shitty song filled with dumb platitudes and metaphors that would embarrass even the most pedestrian stoner, is repetitively annoying with all of the 'wondering,' and clocks in at 20 minutes.  'Free Bird' seems too short by comparison.

"When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed.  With a word she can get what she came for."

"Come back later when we're open, bitch."
"Uhh."
"Oh, sorry, you're the lady that buys stairways to heaven.  Why didn't you say so?"

I just hope they dug down at least six feet and poured a proper footing to get below the frost line so the large staircase doesn't heave in the springtime.  I know, I know.  I'm being too literal.  This bitch is actually paying off the local religious authorities in return for a guaranteed front-row blanket at Jesus' annual picnic.  I get it.

"There's a feeling I get when I look to the west."

I get all emotional when looking to the south south west.  I know how you feel.

"Ooh, it makes me wonder, Ooh, it really makes me wonder."

I wonder why I spent $9.99 on iTunes for this album.  It was this, Meat Loaf, or the Never Ending Story.  Then I learned that the Never Ending Story does, in fact, have an ending and Meat Loaf doesn't collapse at the end of the his album in a sweaty, cardiac episode.  So I got Led Zeppelin.

"Then the piper will lead us to reason. And a new day will dawn for those who stand long ."

A guy in green yoga pants will enlighten us?  Has anyone seen a piper lately?  Is that the same thing as Peter Pan?  'Dawn' rhymes with 'long.'  The sentence is clever because they are standing.  I get that too.  It's not a 'new day' I long for but a fucking chair.  This job has no benefits, shit pay, and I have to stand all fucking day long.  Go to Hell.

"If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now, It's just a spring clean for the May queen. Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run there's still time to change the road you're on. And it makes me wonder."

Ten minutes in so far.  Total gibberish.  Still wondering about Meat Loaf.  'May Queen' must be a mistake.  They were talking about cleaning, so it must be 'Speed Queen,' a washing machine.  Fucking hippies don't do laundry regularly so that must be it.  Dirty, fucking hippies.  Another ten minutes to go.

"The piper's calling you to join him .."

More shit from the mythological piper.  Fuck off already.

"Our shadows taller than our soul."

He's obviously quite high at this point.  A soul has no dimensions.

"The tune will come to you at last. When all are one and one is all. To be a rock and not to roll."

The song doesn't end when it ends?  Great.  I wish this song was a food so I could make myself gag and throw it up.  I wish I had a Rolling Stones truck thing to haul it away to the dump, because it's so long it won't fit in my Malibu.  I wish I was wrapped up like a douche so I couldn't hear it.

By the way, most rocks don't roll very well unless they have substantial momentum, asshole.