Pulling Straight Through Since 1958

Yesterday I traveled out of town.

Yes, I know this may have been pushing the limit of healthy excitement for a woman my age, but you can't get fuck all everything you need here.  There are, shall we say, limited resources in this place that I live, (read into this as you will) so sometimes you have to drive.

 Lord knows I probably shouldn't have driven anywhere at all yesterday since, as it turns out,  I couldn't even back out of our driveway (also known as the icy path of hell leading to the home of the Abominable Snowman Family ) without ever so gently nudging my neighbor/friend's car (the friend who  by now has probably unfriended me with her mind, or stuck my picture inside a lemon) Her car was parked on the other side of our snow mountain, the place where ancient legends have warned us never to tread.  But the point is, sometimes you have to say fuck ancient legends, I need some toilet paper  blue cheese salad dressing and printer paper with more than five sheets in the package,  defiantly get into the car, and drive to places that you would rather stab yourself in the eye twice than drive to, but that's life and I haven't found the exit sign yet.

Starting the outing in this way that I did didn't put me in any better frame of mind, the kind of mind that is needed when one is faced with the journey to the Place I Will Never Go Again. Turns out that  one thing truly does lead to another, and so the very first thing that happened was that I was tailgated - viciously, cruelly, relentlessly, embarrassingly, shamefully and savagely.  I became a victim of road bullying, made famous by Mel Gibson in The Road Warrior movie, circa May 21, 1982. Holy shit was I in love with him then.  But yes, from my rear-view mirror I could see there were people sporting mohawks hanging out the open window and waving weapons, dangerous villains to whom I mumbled fuck off asshole and proceeded to drive like the old lady that I have earned every single right to be, because I am a grown-up.  Obviously.

Two hours later, I reached my destination which was, sadly, Walmart.  Unlike the dollar store, you can get a FULL package of printer paper at Walmart for a decent price, unlike the dollar store type of package that contains 7 sheets for $3, bringing the grand total to $85.72 for the equivalent of a normal package of printer paper.  Anyway that's why I was there, but really it was to buy toilet paper. I mean, who goes into a store and just buys toilet paper? Yeah, those people and I am NOT one of THOSE people - I don't care what you've heard.   I mean, even if toilet paper is on sale,  it's still kind of embarrassing to buy ONLY THAT,  unless you bring a whole shopping cart full of young children with you, which I'm sure you could arrange if you wanted to because moms need time off once in a while.  But the point is, I just went in for toilet paper AND printer paper, but first I had to find a place to park.

When I was young and still able to procreate, I had three children, all girls.  The middle child had a "thing" about parking the car , so when I pulled into a spot in a parking lot and there was a empty parking spot in front of me, she demanded, in only the way kids can,  that I "PULL STRAIGHT THROUGH!"  She would actually chant this demand until I caved. Ever since then I have purposely hunted for just these spots, the ones that you can park into and never have to back out of.  Now yesterday, since I had already had an "incident" while backing out, I was determined to find a place where I could pull straight through to a spot which would allow me, upon leaving, to simply pull forward out of the parking spot, resulting in no neck straining, no stress, and no scrapes or dents in an unsuspecting and undeserving vehicles. 

Yeah, well, as it turns out, now EVERYONE wants to pull straight through (who knew it would become this popular)  and so I circled the lot for about 45 minutes and then gave up, pulling into a "back out" spot.  When I was finished with my shopping I went back to the car to attend to the backing out of the parking lot.  As I got into my car, another car pulled into the spot in front of me, obviously gloating over her good fortune.  But not so fast, Sista,  because I was backing out very slowly, so slowly in fact that there was possibly time for another car to come up behind me and wait for my spot, meaning that this woman was in danger of losing her ability to pull straight through.  So as I backed out ever so slowly, she pulled forward within I'd say about .4562 of an inch from my front bumper, putting pressure on me from every angle imaginable, until I was gasping for breath and experiencing mild to really seriously severe cardiac arrhythmia.  However, I managed to back out without dying or causing injury to anyone or anything.

So it was over, right?

No. Of course not.  You see I needed this thingy for my computer - a back up drive so I can use this new fangled invention called Time Machine (this is another story for another day.) so I went to the only place that might have this, which isn't really a computer place so you know that nothing good can happen there.  Yep.

In these places they hire one "geek" (quotes on purpose) to help those who need more than file folders.   I noticed he was busy with another customer, so I took my cue from The Lady Who Was Going to Pull Through and I followed them all over the store, just in case someone got the idea to squeeze into the queue when I wasn't looking.  Unfortunately this left me open to experience the dialogue that convinced me, as if I still needed convincing, that Satan was indeed having his revenge on the Earth.

The Man Whose Wife Sent Him to the Store And Changed All the Locks While He Was Gone: Well, 14 years ago we bought a printer and at first we paid $400 for it, and then when we came back a few months later, it was on sale for $300 dollars and later it was clearanced at $149.99 and  .....

(blocked the rest for sanity reasons but predictably,  the conversation went on and on and on and on and on)

Geek - hmmmmm. mmmmmmm. yeah.  mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.


The Man Whose Wife Sent Him to the Store And Changed All the Locks While He Was Gone: Yeah, so I want something of the same quality as my last printer.

Geek:  hmmmm, yeah.


The Man Whose Wife Sent Him to the Store And Changed All the Locks While He Was Gone: So what would you recommend?

The Voices in My Head - AHhhhh!  A light at the end of the tunnel!

Geek - Well there's the X model but that's had some issues lately.


The Man Whose Wife Sent Him to the Store And Changed All the Locks While He Was Gone:  OH, I DON'T WANT ANYTHING WITH ISSUES!!!!!

The voices in my head:  Arrrgggggg So close. Damn it, we'll be here all day.

Geek  - Well, all of the others are good - all about the same really.

Voices in my Head - WOW, Is this guy good, or what?  He should be working for Microsoft.

And then a miracle happened. The geek started giving me some well-deserved customer servicr, but he was, surprisingly, no help whatsoever, and then I left because this day had been going on way too long by this point. But I still had one more challenge of the day, backing out of yet another parking spot, which was handled quite expertly and effortlessly, I might add, while leaving only a couple of disgruntled drivers in my wake. 


And that's why I'm not leaving town again.