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the world is a cage for your impotent rage, but don't let it get to you.
by lizard at 05:51 PM on September 28, 2003
have you ever been afraid to open up a blog entry screen because you were afraid you'd go completely mental and write something regrettably horrible just because you weren't allowing yourself to write what you wanted to? no? didn't think so, i mean who would do that? i'm just here to tell a little story, that's all.
a little background: i have a long history of grocery-store induced mental illness. it might be the muzak, it might be the hamsterdance rejects they hire for courtesy clerks, i mean i start getting a complex: do i really look like i need that much help? and when a working retiree twenty years my senior if she's a day asks me not one not two but yes you guessed it three times if she can help me carry my groceries out, i figure i must be some kinda mess. when the elderly practically demand to carry your cornflakes for you, it's all over, man.
so i was in a mood the other night even before i went to the emotional minefield that is the store, quite a mood, the mood's what i'm not writing about. but i needed food and aleve, i had no choice; i was forced to face the store. and there, in front of the store, was one those selling/begging for a cause guys, sitting at his little table. not good. i've had my run-ins with these people before, there is no sanity for me anywhere in the vicinity of vons. this time i played it a little different - i took it as a personal challenge. my goal was to get past the brainwashed person with the quota without being accosted. the challenge was do this without threatening gestures or firearms, without making eye contact or uttering a word. i had to just project a quiet and absolute 'do not fuck with me' vibe.
i was in the zone. i focused all the mood's energy into a burning pinpoint of something so volatile, so powerful, so beyond giving a fuck, something i imagined radiating from the third eye area of my forehead, something like the force, only psychotic. (i told you it was a mood. i told you.) i strolled past slowly, staring straight ahead, expressionless. in my periphery i saw the solicitor person turn towards me, open his mouth to speak, think better of it, shut his mouth, and start glancing around avidly at anything that wasn't me.
ahh, success. that was sweet. didn't do much good, nothing does when i find myself in the store, moody already and i do have a history, believe me. all of this almost explains the reason i reacted so strongly to the display in the personal care aisle, the schick quattro display. quattro? four? blades? yes, four blades, two conditioning strips, and of course, a lifestyle. and it is a very manly lifestyle indeed: more gadgets, more games, more televised sporting events, and more large breasted women than you can shake a viagra-fueled dick at. what we have here is the humvee of personal grooming products, or another clear indication that the apocalypse is in process, depending on the mood of the observer. four blades. four. i stood there staring at this ridiculousness for some time, and yet mysteriously no courtesy hamsters appeared to pester me about finding everything okay, oh yes the force was with me.
i remained outwardly calm as i purchased my swiss cheese, smoked turkey, and aleve, committing no mayhem of any kind, in spite of everything -- the things i did write about, and the things i didn't.
comments (13)
while i can relate to a commerce induced hysteria, i can also relate a fact, spurred by your imagery below. here goes...
my roomate, on a construction job for a urologist here in town, was suddenly privy to some gossip about the local urology profession. trends and whatnot. well, i was shocked to learn that of all cases that a urologist has to deal with day to day, in the gay district, the highest percentage has to do with blood letting the over-stimulated, viagra-fueled dicks of young, not-know-any-better, men. that and urinary tract infections. when asked about the high propensity for uti's (should have been obvious) he related anal sex to the act of picking up play-doh with a straw by stabbing it.
by lajoie at September 28, 2003 7:26 PM
Lajoie, that's the best way I have ever heard THAT described. Not that I pay any attention to THAT sort of thing, nor have to worry about it, which depresses me a little.
by MrBlank at September 28, 2003 7:34 PM
now that is some vivid imagery right there.
blood letting?
by lizard at September 28, 2003 7:35 PM
blood letting...you know like when the rangers go into the forest and twist a spigot into the maple trunk to drain the syrup? like that.
by lajoie at September 28, 2003 9:56 PM
that's what i figured. i wanted to be figuring wrong, but no.
by lizard at September 28, 2003 11:06 PM
At least they don't have to remove the hamsters.
by anna at September 29, 2003 6:47 AM
they probably do if it falls under (into) their jurisdiction.
by lajoie at September 29, 2003 11:47 AM
is the hamster thing real? i was googling around out of curiosity and i couldn't find anything. but it was late (well, early, my late is everyone else's early) and i was kinda sleepytired, i might not have been googling clearly.
but do they, i mean, really?
by lizard at September 29, 2003 1:37 PM
i'm not sure about hamster activities. but my own personal rule of thumb -- if you can dream it up, then someone (somewhere) has probably wound up in an emergency room with a lot of explaining to do.
by lajoie at September 29, 2003 2:28 PM
Go to any urban legend site and look up Richard Gere, though I think he preferred gerbils. Then again, what's the difference.
But dammit they better stay away from chinchillas. I might add that we've got two babies here and they are just adorable.
by anna at September 29, 2003 6:20 PM
i'd have hoped all 'rodentia' were off limits.
how are mr. and mrs. chilla?
by lajoie at September 29, 2003 6:31 PM
I don't see why Shick needs to make a Quattro. Wasn't the Mach 3 good enough? The gal's version, the Venus, is awesome. I thought nothing could ever beat my trusty Silk Effects, but Venus is it. I don't think I'll venture into Quattro territory. It would be too ridiculous to shave my legs with something that shares its name with a sports car.
by jean at September 30, 2003 3:33 AM
I somehow missed the boat with what can only be described as a rollercoaster of a comment thread. Holy shit. There are so many of us posting these days it's overwhelming. Yay! mg, if you build it, they will come.
by Linz at October 2, 2003 12:37 PM