(26 ramadhan 1426) serial times, pt 7

The Pkg

(continued from before...)

I had the munchies and decided that I needed to sate this raging urge before I could go any further on my quest.

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Live in the moment.

Forget the future; you may not get there.
Instant gratification.

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(Of course, the irony in all of this was that instead of smoking everything I had then and there, I was saving it all for a later date in another country; I was stumbling around the fringes of Los Angeles trying to find a courier company to deliver my heavenly green in a safe and guaranteed manner, belying my insistence that I forget the future and live in that moment because I might never make it to the future...)
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The list of items on my munchies wish list was comprised of the following:

A frozen pizza from Ralph’s supermarket.
A Sunkist orange drink and some Pringle’s salt and vinegar potato chips.
Some Dove chocolate.

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Without much thought, almost as if I were being pulled by a master puppeteer toward Ralph’s, my feet moved involuntarily and with certainty. I was re-focused again and nothing was going to deter me from getting to Ralph’s, buying what I craved, and going to my friend’s apartment to sate this craving.
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I crossed the street, and that sense of impending accomplishment began to settle over me again.
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The sight of the FEDEX truck in the Ralph’s parking lot was an utter shock to me and I forgot (momentarily) about my munchy cravings. I was too stoned to notice, but I was subliminally becoming irritated at my constant changes of mind and heart.

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I had all the focus of an ADD patient on speed.
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I approached the truck cautiously, as if I were closing in on an overseas American consulate that was guarded by machine gun-toting MPs. I was unsure how the driver would react to seeing someone approach him with such a valuable pkg as the one I had in my hand.
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‘Excuse me’, I said rather timidly, almost daintily, ‘but I need urgently to send this pkg overseas via FEDEX. The Kinko's there across the street cannot help me because I want to pay by cash and they won’t accept cash, only a credit card or FEDEX account number, because they are only a drop-off point. Can you help me?’
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The FEDEX guy eyed me as professional female porn star would eye a potential suitor with $5.00 in hand and a 2.5-inch penis.
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‘There’s the FEDEX facility over on Imperial Highway that could help you.’

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He didn’t seem to grasp that I was only on foot and in no shape to hike over to Imperial Highway, though it was a damn sight closer than the Kinko's on Hawthorne. I tried to explain that going too much further than I had already walked was out of the question, but it was of no use.

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‘Is there any way I can just pay you to take this pkg and do the necessary things to get it shipped overseas?’ I was pleading.
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‘I’d like to, but I can’t,’ he said. He actually looked remorseful as he said it, as if I now had $100.00 in hand, but still only swinging 3 inches.
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I thanked him and walked off. I didn’t know what to do next. It was not my day and it had only just begun; I had a long day ahead of me and already it was a bad one.
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What did the rest of the day hold for me? My forgetting to pack something? A middle seat on the flight? The plane’s crashing?

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I had no choice on what to do next except obey my munchy cravings and head into Ralph’s to buy some food.
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As I walked through the automatic opening doors into Ralph’s, the thought occurred to me that I might look ridiculous, even suspicious, walking around with a pkg in my mind. Thankfully, my being stoned lessened my worries; besides, what else was I going to do with it? Stash it somewhere out in the front of Ralph’s in the plants they were selling, or in a shopping cart, or behind a soda machine? I’d been walking around with the pkg in my hand all day long, why should I have stopped then?
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I walked through Ralph's in a resolute haze. I was sleepy and hungry and really didn't really look forward to walking back to my friend’s apartment. I first went and picked up a large can of Pringle's because it wasn’t temperature-sensitive and wouldn’t melt or ruin if I took my time wandering around Ralph's. I headed to the frozen food section of the store, trying to decide which to buy first, the frozen pizza or the package of frozen Dove chocolate ice cream bars. I was in such deep self-debate about this issue that I walked blindly past the frozen food section without even knowing it. Eventually, I stopped and realized I’d walked past only because I noticed I was in the ‘Personal Hygiene’ part of Ralph's and it was dawning on me that I needed fingernail clippers and I’d been meaning to buy a pair for a couple of weeks.
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I was irritated to discover that I couldn’t find the clippers, even though I’d been standing in front of where they should have been for nearly five minutes. I couldn’t believe that I couldn’t find them and I cursed trying to find something like nail clippers while under the influence of drugs. The irony that, while stoned, I’d remembered to buy something I’d been forgetting to buy for the past several weeks, yet couldn’t find it, didn't escape me.
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Finally, I couldn’t take it and I left the nail clippers to go find my pizza.
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It was insanely easy to find the pizza (Thai Chicken, from California Pizza Kitchen) and ice cream bars and made me wonder about those nail clippers. Maybe the reason I couldn’t find the clippers was because there WERE none; they were sold out! That had to be it and I went back to the ‘Personal Hygiene’ section to check again.

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I stood in front of the display where the clippers normally were displayed and was half-surprised to find that they still weren’t there. I saw combs, emery boards, bottles of nail polish remover, and other various sundries, but saw no clippers. Down near the bottom of the display, just off of the floor, though, were two empty spaces. I’d seen those spaces a few moments earlier, but had been too lazy to bend down and check them out.
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I still was not up to bending down and checking more closely, but I knew I’d torture myself for the next few hours if I didn't bend down and check. I took a deep breath and bent down; it was the hardest thing I could ever remember having undertaken. It was as if there were a dozen fifty-pound sacks of sand on my back.
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I wondered if I’d be able to get back up.

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(to be continued...)