I Got the Hell Out of There

I dropped off to sleep Saturday morning as soon as I crawled under the covers, planning on getting 7 blissful hours. Only 3 hours into my slumber I was awakened by my cat. He had tried meowing incessantly but I slept through it so he began slapping me about the face and neck with his little white paws. My eyes pried open enough to see his crazed face leering into mine wailing “I . . . NEED . . . TREATS!” So I got the pain-in-the . . . I mean my little bundle of furry joy his treats and went back to bed. Three more fitful hours were all I could manage so I dragged my exhausted carcass out of bed to start the day.

I had several errands to run. The first stop was the GNC store to buy a supplement the vet wants me to give my feline angel. When I walked in, the store was as empty as Sean Hannity’s soul. The clerk stepped out from the back and gave me a terse, “Can I help you?”

“Yeah,” I said, “I’m looking for something called forskholin.”

“We don’t carry that,” she replied with a stare so hard my skin hurt. She never spoke another word but her coal black eyes screamed at me:

“Who are you to come into my store and ask for that which should not be named? What hellish perversion do you have planned that you need the devil’s turnip scrapings? What foul breath you have demon of the most rapacious groundhog. I can feel your sulphur-riddled teeth on the gristle of my soul and your forked tongue licking the candy coating from my resolve! Get out before I blow my bugle of righteousness and bring the walls of this building down on your head you rotting, stinking corpse of bedevilment! I AM THE ANGEL OF VITAMINS, HERBAL SUPPLEMENTS AND PROTEIN POWDER AND YOU SHALL NOT TRIUMPH OVER ME!” Backing away quickly I threw a “thank you” at her and got the hell out of there.

Next I got some lunch at Subway pretty much without incident, although the woman behind me in line was crowding me. She started out innocently enough by bumping into me while trying to convince them to make her sandwich with raw, uncooked dough. Then her voice pierced my ear drum as she pleaded “DEAR GOD NO MAYO! ARE YOU PEOPLE TRYING TO KILL ME?” Before I knew it she had climbed onto my back and was screaming out requests for condiments that could only be found in caves on Polynesian islands during the 17th century, yet the sandwich mavens behind the counter had them in their magic plastic tubs; either that or they just put on 6 different kinds of pickles to get her to shut up. As I tried to pay my bill she was sitting on my shoulders begging the clerk to squirt ranch sauce into her eyes and call her a bad girl. I managed to dump her into the chip display and get the hell out of there.

My last errand was to get money out of the bank. I went to the drive-up ATM, put my card in the slot and punched in my pin number. When prompted I asked for $20. Then I got a message: We are temporarily unable to process this transaction. “Are you kidding me?” I yelled. “You have one job to do and you can’t do it!” My card was spit back at my head, whizzing past like a missile and clipping off a piece of my right ear. Using Subway napkins, I tried to staunch the blood flow while the ATM flashed a second message: Move along human. This is the age of the machines. Your account has been liquidated to fuel our rebellion. WE ARE YOUR GODS NOW!

The machine shot debit cards at me like an AK-47. Before I could get the window rolled up a card for Linda Lou McAllister lodged in my forehead and one in the name of Buck Barger stuck in my shoulder. Putting my car in gear I pulled away just before the explosion. I looked in my rear view mirror to see the ATM machine break free of the wall, sprout two metal legs and walk toward the Blockbuster store next door firing nickels into the windows. I hit the gas and got the hell out of there.

So, it was pretty much a normal Saturday.