A Love Story

Eating, fantasies about eating, and the aftermath of eating occupies almost my entire social life. If I were an anorexic, I would have no friends, and my family would shoot me like Old Yeller because of what use am I if I can't eat with people? I have been told, much to my delight, that I dance on a fine line between food and garbage. I am proud of this because it is a trait that I shared with the greatest love of my life. I call her the greatest love of my life while she calls me a sick, obsessed fan who needs to get a life. Lovers' quarrels, that is why we were meant for each other.

My sweet lady friend, who I have adoringly deemed dead since leaving me on this godforsaken continent, became my friend many years ago over a plate of quesadillas. I watched enthralled as she snatched a plate of old quesadillas from a strange woman at a Tex-Mex restaurant and proceeded to gleefully devour her prize like a glorious baboon. She then declared that she avoided paying for food whenever possible and that free food was her favorite food. Then she got up and bought a milkshake. I was dazzled by this elegant lady. From that moment on, I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.

My elegant, baboon, lady friend and I became incredibly close over the years, and one of the reasons for our powerful bond was our common attitude towards food. We loved food and did not discern between garbage and food. One time on an evening stroll, I spied a paper plate of ambiguous leftovers on the sidewalk. Being the attentive companion that I am, I kindly alerted her by shouting, "Hey man, free food! Free food's yo favorite food!" She responded by punching me in the head, which meant "I love you."

Those were the glory days of our relationship. I remember like it was just yesterday we couldn't decide on what to eat for dinner so we each ate a pint of ice cream. She had the Blue Bell Anniversary Sundae because she was such a refined and classy lady. I watched as she passed out on the floor in a sugar-induced coma. Her collapsed body in the prone position, like some kind of enormous penguin in mid-slide. "Beauty, isn't she?" I thought. Soon I too fell asleep, dreaming of a land of ice cream and riding my penguin lady friend down a sundae mountain. Later I was awoken by her roommate who had come home late and probably wanted me to get out of her bed. Remembering my manners, I asked, "Hey, you wanna get some wings for dinner?" She replied, "It's three A.M." Alas, I was in love and had lost all concept of time and space.

One of the most adorable things about my friend was her insistence on keeping food long past their expiration date. It was one of the things that made her special. On one of our romantic weekend roadtrips, she gave me an egg custard tart which I eagerly accepted. My teeth mashed into a soggy crust, and a dairy-tinged smell clouded my nose. The tart had begun the early stages of decomposition, but my ambitious lady friend refused to give up on it. Giving up was not in her nature. Alas, it was her determination and fearlessness in the face of bacteria that attracted me to her. I spat the wad of molded pastry out in a napkin, wrapped it up and stuck it in a crevice of her car. I knew she'd know what it meant when she found it.

"I love you."

The years flew by as our love aged like the molded cheese she told me was safe to eat. It's been almost a year since she died. I've since moved on with my life, knowing that she is in a better place... one that has better Korean food because that bitch is in Korea. I think of her often and wonder if she thinks of me. The taste of cheap bread brings tears to my eyes and reminds me of the romantic evenings where we tried to see how many sandwiches we could eat. The sight of garbage on the floor evokes nostalgia and a hint of fear of my head being punched. I miss her. I will always remember her laugh, her smile, her scent. The scent of staleness.

Goodbye, my love

Target

I love Target. I do. I love it so much. Anytime is a good time to go to Target. Bored? Go wander around Target. Nervous? Target sells wine and beer. Heartbroken, because Darrel is sleeping with some bitch named Deltrese? Target sells matches, lighter fluid, and delicious snacks by Archer Farms. I myself have even ended up at Target on numerous date nights, because hey, I'm a classy dame, and my wife knows how to treat a lady. I know I'm headed for a good time when I see that red circle with the red dot in it. It's like the eye of Sauron. One does not simply walk into Mordor just as one does not simply walk into Target; it is recommended that one, rush, charge, scramble, or in my case, sashay into Target. There is no telling what fun fruit flavors and mysterious treasures I may find at every visit. By treasures, I mean things I do not need but gleefully purchase at unbeatable prices.

The Target symbol is indeed like Sauron's all-seeing eye. It looks into my soul and telepathically tells me, "You need this raincoat. Sometimes, it does rain in Texas. Buy this raincoat on Temporary Price Cut for only $20.88. What are you waiting for? They might run out. You can be the first in the Express Checkout line if you hurry." Suddenly I find myself with a raincoat on a hot, sunny day in the middle of Texas. I am also now hauling home a load of glitter-encrusted shoes, a gallon of shampoo, ice cream, booty shorts, General Tso's flavored potato chips, make-up, a flashlight, Bananagrams, and a box of cookies. I'm a monster.

I am indeed Frodo Baggins sashaying into Mordor. I always leave my home with a mission in mind. "I need to buy milk and bread. That is all. Just milk and bread." I enter Target, and suddenly I am unable to throw the ring into the fire from whence it was forged. I am hypnotized and believe that I don't just need bread, but I need bagels as well. And bagels are never complete without cream cheese. Oh hey, Target is having a special on cream cheese, so I should try chocolate and salmon flavor in addition to original. Hey, how about that milk? Organic is the way to go, but look at all these organic selections! Do I want low-fat? Am I a growing baby and need DHA Omega-3 in my milk? Well look, I can get low-fat milk with added DHA Omega-4 all in one carton! I deserve a prize for my wise decision. Hey, since I'm going to be so slim and sexy drinking this low-fat DHA Omega-3 milk, I should get myself a cookie to balance it out. Wow, would you look at this fucking cookie selection! You can smack my ass and call me Sally because Target is serving some Mrs. Fields realness up in here! I don't know what flavor to get so I'll just get a couple of each. I'm going to share them with friends. Yes, I'll share them. Bitches love cookies!

Several bouts of grabby-hands later, I find myself wondering what witchcraft has willed me to becoming the proud new owner of Sham-Wows. Where is Gollum when I need him? When I am reaching for that winter coat on clearance because it is the beginning of summer, I need Gollum to jump on my back and bite my finger off. It's the only way. I can't turn away from unnecessary items at reasonable prices. A day may come when I can enter Target and purchase only the items I need, but it is not this day. An hour of remorse and weathered credit cards when my bank statement comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day I shop! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, patron of Target.

Every Date Needs A Crackhead

My girl J and I went on a date last night. About once every two or three weeks we have one of these dates where we treat each other to a fancy dinner and a lovely evening spent with each other's company. All other times we'd rather not see or hear one another. That's the way we like it. That's the secret to the success of our six year relationship. Dating other people also helps.

Tonight was a special night. J bought a fancy new camera this week so she picked up her most stunning, derp-faced model to test it out on: ME. Thus began our date night. We took the train to downtown Dallas for some scenic shots of the neighborhood and some bewildered shots of me in different settings. Then I treated my lady to a tasty dinner of pasta, burger, and wine. Bitches love wine! Later J saw my dinner and raised me a decadent dessert of some sort of stuffed chocolate cake abomination and a bread pudding with cream sauce. Bitches love stuffed shit and cream sauce more than wine!

Everything was just lovely. As evening fell we stopped at a fountain and took some night shots on her camera. We even had the brilliant idea to take levitation shots. Bitches love levitation photography! From the fountain to the train station, we took turns shooting each other jumping in mid-air. J looked as fun and adorable floating as she does on the ground. I served my best Paz de la Huerta-hovering in various states of seduction and befuddlement. The night couldn't get any better.

Oh but it did. On the way back home, we got off the train at the wrong stop. We thought, "Oh well, we'll just catch the next one in fifteen minutes." We sat down and quietly chatted while we waited, pretty pleased with how nicely our date turned out. Then we heard,

"Fucking punks... goddammit... fuck... those fucking punks..."

A man within earshot proximity to us was muttering angrily to himself and stomping around. We ignored him. Bitches have bad days sometimes. As we quietly continued with our conversation, I slowly became aware of how close he was getting to me. I didn't feel like I was in any danger, but I became concerned that I was in the splash zone for whatever filth he was harboring. Homeboy looked like Pig-Pen from the Peanuts comics if Pig-Pen wore a roll of packaging tape around one hand with some rope wrapped around his arm. I, on the other hand, was looking fly as fuck in my new dress. What can I say, this bitch looks good for dates. Naturally, I did not want some nasty crackhead's dust and sediments contaminating my new dress, but I soon became the divider between him and J along the seating area. All the while he was growing more belligerent and restless. Finally he got up in front of us and interjected our conversation with,

"What're you girls talking about? Boys? Is it boys? You talking about boys!"


"No." We replied and attempted to return to our conversation. Our attempt was futile as he blasted off,

"WELL I'VE GOT A LOT OF WISDOM, AND YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO ME! I'VE BEEN ALL AROUND THE WORLD, I'VE SEEN A LOT OF THINGS!"


At this point, J and I were dumbfounded. We tried to calmly communicate with him that we just wanted to have this private conversation between us, but he was adamant about being heard. He babbled on loudly about various, obscure, crackhead business that I didn't understand but felt compelled to record and present to small children as a warning to not do crack. I do not know for sure if he was on crack, but he was clearly strung out on something so for convenience, I will assume crack. The holy Whitney Houston once said, "Crack is whack," and Pig-Pen was wackier than public schools' wacky cake.

"I'm going to go where angels fear to tread. WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD! Yeah, over there. I'm going. I'm gonna go over there now!"


At this point I was ready for Pig-Pen to go. I looked him dead in the eyes and replied,

"That's great. You do that. It'll be awesome. Go there. Godspeed."


He seemed to head towards wherever angels feared to tread, which looked to be Downtown Plano, much to our relief. Then my mouth happened. Apparently I just always have to have the last word.

"Good luck with that." I said.

He turned around and came back. I nearly fell off my bench in consternation, Japanese anime-style. J looked like she wanted to drop-kick me, WWF-style. He started rambling on again with his nutty crackhead musings. I realized that this crackhead didn't really have any intention of defying angels and heading down the street. This clown was getting in my face earlier about doing some unholy, badass shit, and now he wasn't going to do it! I was annoyed. If he's going to be wishy-washy, then I get to be a troll. I then embarked on trolling the crackhead. He then asked us,

"What's important to you? What, boys? Grades? What do you do for excitement?"


"Read."


"Do what?"


"Read. Books. That's it."


"Oh yeah? What do you read?"


"TWILIGHT."


"What's that... oh you mean that vampire shit? GOD! I mean LITERATURE! Classic literature! You read classic literature?"


"THE BIBLE."


"Oh... I am not a Christian man... You know, Homer!... THE ILIAD!! yeah ...."


In the midst of my trolling, we saw a police car pull up, and two cops walked out. For the first time in my life, I was glad to see the police. Also for the first time in my life, I made very pronounced eye contact with the officer walking towards me, telepathically sending him a message of, "Hurry the FUCK up!" They came over and attended to Pig-Pen, who allegedly only had two beers at a customer's house. Apparently he also lived in a house at Alma and Plano Parkway. For future reference, I'll keep a lookout for crackhouses in that area. By this point, I felt that J and I needed to do a jumping high-five, possibly snapped mid-air on her fancy camera. The train arrived as they were searching his plastic shopping bag. On the train we met the guy who called the cops. I felt I owed him a jumping high-five as well, but resisted the urge, lest he call the cops on me for assault. We headed home in bemusement and relief.

On the way home, J expressed her annoyance with how long it took for someone to call the cops and how long it took for the cops to get to the station. I felt compelled to agree until I realized that we got to the station with the train set to arrive in fifteen minutes. I estimated that we sat there for few minutes chatting, and it probably took another five minutes or so for someone to call the cops, leaving about five minutes for the cops to get there. The entire, cracked-out ordeal happened in roughly fifteen minutes.

Time sure does not fly when you're with a crackhead.