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I braved the world today.
As usual it got the better of me.
It stands to reason.
I’ve been praying for a week at least for some important things. They have all come out as we wanted them to.
So, it was obvious that things would now return to normal–SNAFU. I figure God thought he granted us the greatest good fortune when we found one another. He figured it was good enough for well, twelve years and counting.
Shit just goes wrong a lot. Maybe we aren’t exceptional in that. My karma is crap. So, as I said, things returned to normal.
Remember I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that we got our eyes tested and ordered new glasses? Yes. I see you do. They were promised WITHIN weeks. So I went to the optical zoo a full one day after the expiration of two weeks. The Contrarian’s new glasses? Sure! Got ’em. Mine? You must be kidding.
A quick check of the laboratory in Transylvania, Romania, assures the myopic clerk that they were made and sent. Myopia maven says, hey, they have not arrived here.
I forestall the desire to invite said glassified youngster on the high probability that she or one of her like drones has misplaced them, and it would be a good idea now to go start turning the place upside down and FIND MY GLASSES!
Apparently “lost in transit” happens a good deal, since without batting a coke-bottled eyeball (really really big eyeballs she had), she orders my glasses again and yells “RUSH IT”. Which means that it will be coming by whatever has now replaced carrier pigeons as transportation from Eastern Europe.
I swear she called the guy “Peggy” when she hung up.
Well, of course that kind of SNAFU should be enough for anyone in one day, and you would guess it was. You would be wrong. So very wrong.
I proceeded to a HYVEE grocery. Now out of pure unadulterated hatred, I don’t shop at Wal-Mart unless I can’t find it anywhere else. But let’s not mince words. Wal-Mart’s prices are better, so it behooves any other store to really (and I mean seriously) out customer satisfy me.
So, I am humming along collecting my goodies, and I am nearing the finish line, when all shit breaks out. I arrive in the veg-a-ta-buls, and immediately spot a big problem.
WHERE THE BEJEBUS ARE MY TOMATILLOS? I look up and down, and from side to side. There are no other dimensions, so it ends there. Not a single papery skinned green appearing tomato can be found. Not even a sorry excuse for one that has been tumbled from the shelf and resides in the murky corner of a public floor.
I whimper and figure I’ll have to alter the recipe now to use an enchilada sauce and, am wondering whether I should return to the “Ethnic” aisle to locate a commercial brand from that “authentic” EL Paso (isn’t that in Texas?) brand, when. . . .wait for it. . . I discover there is a big opening hole where the freakin’ fresh basil should be.
FOR GLORY’S SAKE AND MOTHER MARY FREAKIN’ NO WAY!!!!
I am now seeking a anyone who dares to wear a garment that associates them with this insipid store and when I spot the victim I wave furiously. I can almost see him shrink into his shell as he approached with the look of one who is hen-pecked at home and at work.
“You, Sir, are destroying my menus in one-fell-swoop.” (Seriously if you have a clue what a one-fell-swoop is let me know)
“What do you need Ma’am?” he wheezes, his eyes darting around looking for an escape.
“I need tomatillos and fresh basil!” I declare. I do this loudly, so that everyone within a three-mile radius is aware that I am unhappy. That pleases me to know that my pain is visible.
“I have them in the back, I’m sure Ma’am,” he says in a pained rush as if releasing the air from a balloon. “If you can wait just a minute, I’ll find them for you,” his voice nearly breaking with the plea.
“I’ll be here for a few more minutes collecting my other veggies,” I announce, not wanting him to think I would stay a lifetime now to obtain my precious items of food.
He rushes off.
He returns with the basil, and assures me that he just has to open the right magic box in the back to retrieve the tomatillos. I have just finished getting everything but one item when he plops down a box of my lovely green orbs and he breathlessly offers,”take as many as you need” and rushes off to save another damsel in distress.
Oh, enough?
No. Not yet.
I go to the highfalutin’, oh so ritzy, international cheese display, with wheels of parmesan and asagio, and bries, and goat’s nectar. I love cheese, and I’m happy to peruse the shelves, my eyes caressing the blocks and wedges.
Um. . .where the frackin’ crapola is the Mexican section? I mean, they are part of the international aren’t they?
When it is clear that there is no Mexican section, I collar a bakery minion who has the ill fortune to pass by.
“Where is the queso fresco?” I ask with a hint of friendliness, masking a dark and evil seething heart.
“I am from bakery,” she starts to mumble, but the cold steel look in my eye, convinces her immediately that there is no escape. “I’ll ask the cheese people for you,” so blurts out and rushes over to the deli counter. “This lady need some queso fresco. Where is it?
“Case -o- what?” comes the reply.
“It’s a Mexican cheese,” I spit from tight lips.
“Oh, that’s in dairy.”
“That is on the other damn side of the store,” I scream, as this little slicer backs up and her eyes grow wide in something akin to real fear.
Well I go over there, and it is not even with the idiot cheese (store basic yellow and white). It’s on a shelf across from it, and they don’t have any of it anyway, just four lonely rounds of other Mexican cheese, and an even lonelier single package of chorizo, which is a far piece from where all the other sausages reside.
“What is wrong with you people?”
“Look, all cheese except cardboard crumbles of fake Kraft parmesan and that glue called CheeseWiz and Velveeta are kept in coolers. Keep them all there! You morons have cheese in four different places in this warehouse.”
“Put that fake cheese with the other fake foods, you know the Hamburger Helpers and the canned “chili” and Hungry-man frozen dinners. You can have a whole aisle of stupid garbage food. Include the juice-less juicy juices, and you can take care of the fake people who eat that swill.”
“Either that, or provide limo in store service and I’ll just point and you drive me around.” One or the other.
And I left the store and only one middle finger later from an irate teenage who wasn’t able to use the road as an exercise of “from 0-60 in three seconds”, I got home without further incident.
It’s only a flesh wound, just get me some peroxide and a clean bandage. I’ll be good as new in no time.
Existential Ennui 