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By Misti Date: 2004 Feb 09 Comment on this Work [[2004.02.09.04.16.22978]] |
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We only have two nights together a week. Saturday and Sunday, my days off. The rest of the week, I get home around one a.m. when my husband is already sleeping. We are trying not to ruin the two nights we have together. My throat is raw from screaming. It wasn't as bad as it sounds, just typical. Chris pushes my buttons in various ways and I react by screaming things that don't make much sense. In hindsight, it is always comical. My mom thinks we act like two year olds. She has said before that it blows her mind the things we fight about. We always shop for groceries at the Wal-Mart on Central Avenue on Sunday nights after Chris has dinner (microwaved mixed vegetables flavored with Adobo Mexican seasoning and extra hot chile powder...he won't let me cook for him) and a smoke or two. Tonight he was engrossed in "The Life of David Gale," which I detest. It's sadistic and stupid and I hate Kevin Spacey and Kate Winslet. No one even bothered trying to use Texan accents. They aren't that difficult. Kate Winslet used the exact same voice she used in "Titanic." What an amateur. Anyway, I was online and out of the corner of my eye I saw my husband lick his right hand. I'm very paranoid about such things because Brian Forrest Carlin, the guy who dumped me before Chris came along, was always picking his nose and eating his boogers. I still kissed him and liked him lots so what does that say about me? And he never washed his hands after going potty. When I first stayed at Brian's apartment at Fort Sill in Lawton, Oklahoma, I noticed there was no soap at the bathroom sink. When I returned to his apartment the next weekend I brought him a bottle of anti-bacterial soap for the bathroom sink. Didn't say a word, just put it in there. So I turned around and asked my husband if he had just licked his hand. He said,"No." I didn't believe him. I laughed and said he was like a little cat licking his paw. He vehemently denied the accusation. I asked him to meow. He said,"Meow" in a regular voice. I wouldn't leave him alone until he meowed like a real cat. Still, he swore up and down he didn't lick his hand. This bothered me because I knew he was lying and I don't like feeling like I'm crazy. I already know I'm crazy enough that I have to take Lexapro daily and have a preschooler's concept of money. I don't want to think that I'm in the beginning stages of schizophrenia and am seeing things that are not real. Well, I let it go. We took out the garbage and got in the car and drove to Wal-Mart. On the way to Wal-Mart I begged my husband for food, specifically the new chicken strip dinner with toast and fries and white cream gravy and a cherry Coke from Sonic. I had not eaten all day. My stomach was rumbling. My husband bought me the food and I was happy. No, thrilled. I was scarfing the food down like I had not eaten in a week. Got gravy all over my wool sweater. Then we went to put gas in the car and when Chris went in to pay for it I thought I would surprise him and clean out at least some of the mound of garbage piled in the back floorboards. I opened the door and an empty fruit flavored water bottle and other crap fell out. It was disgusting. When my husband came out, instead of throwing the trash away he threw it back in the car. I told him I was afraid spiders would start crawling out of it. That was our second real argument of the evening. The first argument actually happened on the drive to Sonic. We were driving down Central and I pointed out The Caravan, a big dance club of some kind. I think it's country. I said,"We should go there sometime. It looks seedy as hell but they always advertise good drink specials." Instead of acknowledging my idea (in all its brilliance...ha), Chris said,"Oh, I've been wanting to show you the Manzano open space area." I blew up. I told him he never pays attention to what I say, he just talks over me. What the hell does an open space area have to do with a dance club??? Then he complained that he could put off shopping until tomorrow. He was tired. It was 8:30 p.m.!!! I went ballistic. I told him,"I actually wrote a list tonight! I want to make cookies to take to work! I don't trust you to get my list right!" Then he decided he wanted to go to Manzano. I cussed about it and he said,"Why can't you be a little spontaneous for once?" I said,"Why can't you be a little smart for once? You just complained about going home but you want to go on an adventure?" He wanted to show me the city lights from this area. So, off we went to the Manzano open space area. Don't ask me what an open space area is. I'm really not sure, even though my husband is always taking me to different ones. We got there and it was a dirt road with big bumps and twists and turns. I am nervous enough about such roads in the daytime. At night, I cannot tolerate them. He wanted to drive up the mountain and I said absolutely not. He turned around and we saw the city lights. I said,"Oh, this is like Lover's Lane. This would be a good place to park and fuck." We were not in the mood for that. I had indulged my husband in a quickie earlier to my new blues cd. I was still slightly sore. Somehow made it to the always thrilling Wal-Mart Supercenter. Before we went in we shared a cigarette my husband was excited about, Winston full flavor. He told me he read the ingredients on the box of Liggetts (cheap cigarettes) he bought the other day and I would be surprised by what all is in there. Chocolate, for one thing. Wow. I told him to cut the ingredients out of the box so I could use them for a collage. We had a lively conversation about cigarettes. I told him I hate Camels. They taste weird. Chris said it's probably the Turkish tobacco. I told him back in my wilder days everyone smoked Marlboro Reds and I didn't like them but I smoked them to look cool. I was a closet Misty Lights fan. I told him how Jay I'm Not Gay Roberts (the one-armed con artist I "married" at the drive-up window in Vegas on November 22, 1995) turned me onto Benson & Hedges menthols. As we entered Wal-Mart I said,"That should have been my first clue that he was bisexual." Chris asked if he held his cigarette like this and positioned his fingers in a weird way. I said,"Yeah, that looks familiar." He laughed and said gay guys hold their cigarettes that way. Wal-Mart was more exciting than usual because I brought mini neon orange Post-Its with me. Walked up to the bright orange tangelos. Oh, wow. Bright, vivid orange! Five for a dollar! Oh, no. Helllll no. Again, Wal-Mart was trying to sell substandard fruit to the unsuspecting average shopper who shops as they live their life...in a sleepwalk. I opened up my Hindu chick tin lunchbox which I use as a purse. Took out a Post-It and a black pen. Wrote,"You have gotta be joking" on the little piece of paper and stuck it to one of the crates. Looked around. No one noticed. Good. There was more work to be done. On one of the aisles I noticed a discarded banana peel on one of the poorly stocked shelves. This was wrong for two reasons. Someone stole a banana from Wal-Mart and blatantly ate it and then discarded the peel on a shelf that had nothing to do with bananas. Someone ELSE did not do their job and throw away the banana peel! Oh, no. Hellll no. The American consumer deserves better than this! A kid could have walked by and noticed it and thought it was okay to steal fruit from Wal-Mart, eat it in the store and discard it on a random shelf. I wrote,"Sam Walton Would Roll Over In His Grave" and posted it by the banana peel. On one of those island displays that featured those Little Debbie or whoever heart-shaped snack cakes, there were items on one of the shelves that did not belong there. The shelf was sloppy and dirty. I worked at the jewelry counter in a regular Wal-Mart for two weeks during the Christmas season the year I graduated from high school, 1991. One of the Ten Commandments of Wal-Mart peons everywhere is,"When not busy with a customer, thou shalt ZONE." Zoning is simple. Any idiot can zone. Zoning simply means making sure the merchandise is properly displayed, pushed toward the edge of the shelf so there are no empty spots, and everything in its rightful place. For example, bras don't belong with the Hello Kitty watches. Condoms don't belong with the scarves. And so forth. So on this Post-It note I scrawled,"Zone much?" Then lastly, I noticed a strawberry colored mess on a shelf that featured Kool-Aid. I left a note that simply read,"Disgusting," underlined three times for emphasis. I just had an idea. Next time I visit Wal-Mart, I will take a cheap disposable camera and snap shots of all the things that offend me and send them to the regional manager. I'm doing this all in the name of decency, ya'll. From what I've read, Sam Walton was a damn fine man who believed in cheap haircuts and aggressive friendliness. You say,"Howdy do!" to everyone who walks within ten feet of you or your sorry ass is out of a job! He was a simple man with a big dream. Sadly, that dream has died a brutal death. Wal-Mart sucks way more than it should. If it must be mediocre for the masses, fine. But it should at least be clean! Clean and zoned, I say! Damn it!#@$#@ Off course for just a bit, as we were driving down Central tonight we passed by a Furr's cafeteria (Chris won't eat there because he said it makes him think of furry food, and food should not be furry). Inside I noticed one of those damn stupid claw toy machines like that kid got stuck in the other day. I think he was in Wisconsin. I read it at AOL news. I don't know how in the hell he got up inside that thing but that's not the point. I told my husband something along these lines: Why are we so stupid in America? Why do we settle for such mediocrity and absolute crap? Every bad restaurant from Furr's to Luby's to Golden Corral to Cici's Pizza has those damn claw toy machines. You know, where you put a quarter in and try to get an ugly stuffed animal or a Betty Boop doll or whatever. That's just a microcosmic example among perhaps millions. Why do we settle for stupid disc jockeys who cut their teeth on Howard Stern and stations that play shitty music ad nauseum? Why do the people we work with not have anything interesting to say 88.5% of the time? Why do we mock people (or say they're pretentious) for discussing things other than Janet Jackson's pierced tit/football/baseball/why did J.Lo dump Ben?/the car we want/etc.? We live in a shallow, instant gratification, tacky ass culture. Jerry Springer makes more money than I will ever see in my life. The reality shows are proof that even though we are a world power who sniffs at the superstitions and primitive way of the residents of various Third World countries, we aren't too bright or civilized ourselves. We have credit cards and money to burn but we have no aesthetic sense. I'm talking about the average American, which is why I don't have any friends at work, spend most of my breaks at my computer, and still have the misanthropic chip on shoulder attitude of a bitchy seventeen year old brat most of the time. I am a snob, even though I'm poor and mentally ill and ignorant. Back to Wal-Mart, which I think would be improved by a P.A. system that plays "Words of Love" by Buddy Holly one minute and "Sub Mission" by the Sex Pistols the next, candles (in sconces) and skylights instead of garishly bad lighting, salespeople who wear whatever the fuck they want to wear, including velvet clothing from Hot Topics and crazy hats from Goodwill, funky used clothing instead of all that Kathie Lee Gifford polyester crap, people who give customers free massages and nutritional advice ("Instead of those frozen eclairs and Cheeto Twists, might I recommend our frozen stir fry and Wheat Thins? Fuck me? Okay, buy whatever you want and die of a coronary by 55. Next!"), no video games or guns, just tons of BOOKS (real books, not the Chicken Soup crap) and real art material, clean floors and shelves, and no plastic bags. Paper bags or a rule telling you that you must bring your own tote bags from home. Wal-Mart is what it is, so we bought our stuff and got out of there. Back at home in our cluttered one-bedroom apartment (I don't pay the rent but I think it's about $450 a month), I put away the groceries while Chris lugged in the endless plastic bags filled with his bottles of fruit flavored water. When Chris was sitting in his chair again and I was sitting beside him in the computer chair watching that damn David Gale movie, I made a comment on the hand licking incident and he said,"So what. I had a little Adobo on my hand and I licked it off. Big deal." I cracked up."You admitted to it! Hours later! You little liar! Baby, are you so scared of me that you can't tell me the truth?" He admitted that he is a little scared of me. That broke my heart. I told him it was okay to lick his hand like a little cat licking its paw. With anyone else, maybe it would gross me out but he is adorable and I love him. I just couldn't stop laughing over it. I couldn't believe he lied about it. Later on he made the faux pas of mentioning that damn Tom Lykas fool and an "unattractive" lady at work who basically threw herself at him and he was repulsed because she was ugly. I said,"Oh, so you would have liked it if she were hot? Fuck face!" I got madder and madder because he kept pushing buttons and taking the joke too far. I screamed expletives and went so far as to kick him in the shin. He was smiling as he said,"That hurt!" I said,"Next time it's your nut sac you big fucking mid-life crisis asshole!" He's only 31 but he was talking about how he is down to 190/size 34 pants now and how this summer he is going to work out and be like the Brawny guy on the paper towels and get a new car that all the chicks will love. He was talking about the teenage girls at work and how hot they are. I was furious! I don't like jokes that aren't funny. We made up in our own weird way. I read to him aloud from The Relationship Dictionary in a very bitchy voice. It takes me awhile to calm down and get sweet again. He brings out the fighter in me. We cuddled and then he went to take a shower. To be funny, I put in my new Prince cd and danced around to "Sexy M.F." in my granny panties and white Victoria's Secret bra. To make Chris laugh, I took his "Black Power" (that is what it says on the package, truly) spandex cap out of the plastic holder and put it on my head. When he came into the room and heard Prince playing and saw me making an ass out of myself in my underwear and his Black Power cap, he was not amused. In fact, he was pissed. He said,"Where did you get that?" In a baby voice I pointed to my bookcase and said,"Mine." He said,"Did you take that out of the package?" I nodded my head."Oh, thanks a lot. I was saving that for my hikes this summer." I said,"You idiot! You have another one just like it! You bought it at the dollar store! I'll buy you another one!" He said I had no right to go through his things like that. So, that little idea fell flat on its butt. I looked ridiculous but I said,"Most guys would have been turned on to walk into the room and see me shaking my ass to Prince in my bra and panties." He was not amused. We made up, again, before he went to bed and I slathered lotion on his hands and straddled him and gave him good-night kisses. I have a tiny little flashlight with a keychain on it that I use to navigate my way around the bedroom when I come to bed because Chris won't leave the night light on for me. I started shining the flashlight in his ear and said,"Oh, somebody needs to clean their ears." Another source of contention between us. I was raised on Q-Tips. After a bath or shower, my mom would put baby oil on the Q-Tip and clean my ears out. Well, Chris's mom believes that Q-Tips do not belong in the ear canal. I have tried to convince him that if you just wiggle the swab around a little bit inside the ear it will be fine. I am proof of that, more or less. He refuses to listen to reason. He said,"Okay, now you're pissing me off. Leave me alone!" As I left I laughed and said,"What is this cd called again?" Every night he puts in a different cd to sleep to. He said,"It's the Appalachian Anthology Part III." I cracked up and said,"Deliverance! You're going to dream about rednecks sticking it up your ass!" That's all for now. Bye. |