Wal-Mart

I heard a lady say, "What are all these people doing here at this hour?"

"What does everybody need so bad?"

I was in the lane next to "Ten Items Or Less". I only had two things but the cashier looked very bright and motivated to go home, so I knew I had selected relatively well in terms of gigantic lines of people at Wal-Mart at 9:00 on a Saturday night.

Wow, you are thinking. She must think she's some sorta supercalifragilisticexpialidocious head, if she finds her trip to Wal-Mart a noteworthy event.

It gets better.

I bought a toilet seat.

Gosh, you're thinking. TTTTTTT MMMMMMMMMMMM AYE YI YI already. When will it ever end?

Well, the reason this journey is significant, is, a couple of years ago, I got dumped from a career I thought I really loved and it wasn't even a reasonable, respectful, walk on-walk on kind of dumpage. It was a regular mail, regular stamp, two days after Christmas, five days before we were all supposed to return to work, pull the rug out from under your world/sock you in the stomach dumping.

Some would defend such actions as "Just business." and I say it's crap. Respect doesn't have a price tag. A colleague who met a similar fate(except by Federal Express-what was I? Chopped liva?) said of the dumper: I dream of his demise.

Not long after that fateful envelope, MK and I went to Loews because I needed a toilet seat.(I don't take glamorous vacations. I buy a new shower curtain! Woo!) I remember taking the cheapest junky white seat, and I remember saying that's the one I wanted because I was not sticking around. Wherever I wanted to be, I knew my final destination was going to be known as: anywhere but here.

So. It is all these months later and I actually went to Wal-Mart tonight for a clear shower curtain because I have a sort of a clever-ish idea I want to try out that requires multiple shower curtains. I had been balking on following through with the idea, until I guess I started hanging around with these senior citizens I work with now.

I've been trying my best to convince them(and remember they're from the Deeeee-pression) to use the best materials, in the work that they do and the stuff that they make. To start working on those projects they've been dreaming of doing. To do those first. To do them now.

Not because they're old and running out of time, but because they're at their peak in terms of skill and experience. Let the beginners practice with the scraps and the remnants. The seniors have earned the good stuff in my estimation.

I remember a new cartoonist asking the question on an Internet cartooning discussion board. She asked, "Of all the cartoons that go out in a batch? How many have to be good?"

The answer, of course, and what separates the accomplished from the beginner is that you know sending anything less than your very best work is self defeating. The editor has no obligation to sift through 12 cartoons on your behalf. Two duds in a row and it's game over sucka'.

Tonight, as I was wandering around Wal-Mart because the lines were seriously gigantic, it occurred to me that all this time later, I have a pretty nice thing happening here in terms of a life. I have friends who greet each other by kissing each other on the cheek and their only connection is me. I have a dog that gets all prancy when she nears the fire station in anticipation of a cookie and if the fire boys aren't out there? She looks all over the place for them. My job seems to need me, I'm supposed to be getting my own street soon and if I turn on my truck radio real loud? I can hardly hear the brakes squeak at all.

I thought of this song as I picked out my new genuine some-sort-of-actual wood toilet seat. I was hoping it was from The Mary Tyler Moore Show when she tossed her beret in the air. but it's actually from a show called Alice with the 'Kiss My Grits" lady.

Profound is where you find it, I guess.

Early to rise, early to bed.
In and between I cooked and cleaned and went out of my head.
Going through life with blinders on, it's tough to see.
I had to get up, get out from under and look for me.
*There's a new girl in town and she's looking good.
*There's a fresh freckled face, in the neighborhood.
There's a new girl in town, with a brand new style.
She was just passing through,
but if things work out she's gonna stay awhile....ba ba bum bum bummmm

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