We're Going Feuding!!!

In nine hours (we always have an early Thanksgiving) the Geoghagan Family (including a few Duboses, a Hatten, and maybe a couple of Millers and a Hernandez in the mix) will be digging into some turkey, seething with resentment, and possibly even gushing with love for one another from time to time. Comfort and joy, all around. I, of course, have insomnia -- but that okay because I'm at Amber's house where the internet flows like milk of the poppy -- and all I will be required to do tomorrow is eat, nap, drink, make Mom roll her eyes, and tell a few of my family-friendly-yet-still-fiendishly-chaotic-stories. Hope everyone has a great Turkey Day.

Community Chest

So, for the last week and a half I'm had the same thought every night:

"Which of my old shoes am I going to boil for dinner tonight?"

Thank Christ-Shiva-Allah-Odin-Apollo that I got paid today. I couldn't eat another Ramen noodle. It was like being a poor college student without that whole pesky going-to-college-and-earning-a-degree aspect. I've had feverish, wet dreams about grocery shopping for the past three nights.

But isn't it funny how relative everything is? When I got to the bank with my check in my hot little hand -- there's a sharp, crisp Marine standing at the door. Toys For Tots. I've supported them many a Christmas past. But today my mission was: deposit check, go to Publix, live the rest of my life in selfish bliss. And I can't really give Toys For Tots a proper donation today.

So, the Marine looks at me like -- "Fuck you, hipster scum, I hope the war goes on forever and you get drafted and die!" Wait, wait, wait....I'm not Mister Pennybags but I swear that I will donate a toy for some tot, some time. Soon. Before Christmas. Maybe even a crippled, black child. I can just see him (or her) smiling right now. It warms the cockles of my heart to give.

I should probably take this moment to thank some of the people that kept me from starving this past week: Bateman, Marcie, Susan, Tyler, and Anna. Thank you. One day, hopefully, I can be there for you guys too.

And Toys For Tots.

When The Light Is Green, The Trap Is Clean

I thought: Worst case scenario, one of us will find it dead one morning.

Fairy Tales has a rodent problem. Last Thursday, we had a guy come in from Truly Nolen and set up traps everywhere. Upstairs, he set up those hardcore, old school mousetraps. You know, snap, break-your-back, dead mousetrap type mousetrap. Around the back areas he set up these styrofoam-and-glue mousetraps. Like a tar pit. The rodent goes for the little bit of Slim Jim ('They love Slim Jims' said our Truly Nolen guy, a burly sort of a fellow who would look right at home waving a sword around in one of the Lord Of The Rings movies) and can't get unstuck. The rodent just freaks out, starves, or has a heart attack.

I thought: Best case scenario, I won't be at work the day they find it.

Friday comes and goes, Saturday too. Nothing. Maybe they moved on. Maybe they're super smart. Maybe NIMH has gotten ahold of them and they're just watching us from the shadows, waiting, planning, twirling their whiskers. It occurs to me around this time that I'm scared to death of this rodent. Of this rat. Our rat. I've been trying to convince myself that this isn't so. I've fail.

Sunday. I'm opening the store by myself. It's just me and Amy working. Sunday, noon to five. Short day, easy day. It goes by quickly. Everything's going so well, as they say in Moulin Rouge. Then 4 o'clock rolls around and I have to get something out of the wrapping room. It's called the wrapping room cause that's where all the giftwrapping is done. It's also where one of the glue and styrofoam tar pit mousetraps is located. I make my way down the back hallway, full of junk and toys and boxes....and almost step on the largest fucking rat I've ever seen. Stuck. In the glue. Near the door to the wrapping room. Slick black-brown hair, pink-white belly, fat and sleek. Its hairless, cord of a tail, longer than my hand, flailing around like a gray question mark.

Its tiny oil drop eyes stare at me, freaking out, wide. The tail flaps. Then it starts to scream. Please understand that when I say scream, I mean scream. Not squeak. Not squeal. Scream. I've always heard that rabbits scream like people. Well, I'm here to tell you that rats scream like people too.

I turn around. Gooseflesh. Adrenaline. Cold stomach. Thank God I hadn't eaten anything that day. I would have thrown up. I freak out as much as the rat. I feel like someone is putting its fat rat body on one of my shoulders. I freak. I wig out. I shudder. I'm scared of rats. I don't feel sorry for the rat. But a part of me wished that it would have went upstairs and just gotten itself killed quick.

Its oil drop eyes. Its tail, longer than my hand. I make some phonecalls, tell my bosses that we've captured the rat. I closed the store, left the rat in the dark. To die. And that's all well and good. It got caught. That's what happens when you get caught. It's oil drop eyes. The next day, Monday, it was still alive. Tar pit. Dinosaurs. It's little quick-quick, slow-slow rodent motions. Its black within black eyes. Tiny. Its little instincts, telling it to struggle, to scream, to fight.

I thought: All these scenarios are awful.

Last Weekend For POE

Time to drink all the drink, smoke all the smoke, and fuck every whore in the city.

All I Want Is A Room Somewhere......

...with a computer that works for more than a week or two. I don't want to know how or why it works....it could run on the blood of genies or pixies for all I care. I am that lazy human being that just wants to flip a switch and have a thing....work. That's all. It's not like I'm asking my computer to perform some hardcore War Games or hacking...I pretty much just want to blog and look at MySpace until my eyes bleed. Nothing is ever simple. So, here I am, back where I belong...among the plebs (stop fucking coughing you plague-ridden, poxy son of a whore) at the Downtown Public Library. I need my fix and I know where to go. This guy sitting next to me has probably infected me with the Bloody Black Flux. Ninja post....over and out.