BAG

her name is Catherine...the Beauty and the Beast tv show intro, remember?...except i don't know her name, never had the courage to avert my gaze from her luscious breasts to her nameplate below. she works at The Store, y'know, the place where i do my grocery shopping each week, she used to sling in behind the deli counter, that's where we first met, she quickly made me forget Jen with her black-circled stretched ears, messy blonde hair all pinned up, Spanish lips, quirkiness, and the quality which attracts me fast like metal on magnet: not giving a fuck about anything. goths can sniff out boredom, ennui, and apathy better than army dogs.

first sandwich: the BBQ, last of its kind, it would be phased out the next week: first meeting, awkward, but i quelled my loser loner makeup long enough to feign conviction and coolness and started jabbering on about her stretched ears as she quickly toasted the bread, filling my order with a speed signaling she wanted to de done with me. she had a green dragon or lizard tat or something on her neck, i asked her about it, but apparently i stutter, or mumble, 'cause it took the third time repeating myself before she recognized the word "tat". maybe she heard "splat" and thought i was a creep. see, this is why i need to get out more, i type so much and hardly speak at all, my motor skills are dulled, my mouth can't cash the check my brain is spewing.

second sandwich: meat special: but not that kind of meat special, and it wasn't all that special. i don't come to The Store for the brilliant food frankly, i cum for her. clearly, there is no chemistry on her side, for she takes my order and immediately goes into the secret room behind the deli and closes the door, waiting for the meat to heat up 3 minutes in the greasy oven. what was the post-order banter this time around? fuck if i recall, depression is real.

third or later sandwiches: well, thing is, we didn't cross paths for some time...and then two months or so later, she reemerges from a different closed door in The Store, a higher-up door to a better office, an office with a plant, she apparently is now a part-time manager or something, she's done with those dirty sandwiches, although she isn't quite management yet, for i see her bagging groceries.

some time later, it occurs: she just happens to work my checkout conveyor belt, with my groceries, my foodstuffs, my skin mags, my condoms, my computer drives, and celery, and celery salt. i cannot believe my eyes, but this is happening, she is actually using those soft gentle hands of hers to pick up the food containers and wine bottles i have purchased and she's bagging them in cheap white plastic bags. i silently help, i always help the bag kid whenever possible, the checkout lady punches up the food on the computer, then she helps bag the food, puts four items in one bag, don't crush the eggs, and then the least i can do is lift said bag back into the cart as i get ready to go.

our hands touched during this process, as we were both scrambling to get the bagging job done. i noticed that she maintained her air of nothingness, but she wasn't as blatantly cold to me as before, she seemed level, calm. i should have asked her about her stretched ears again, missed my chance, this chance might not ever come again. what are the chances that she would be there at the exact moment i'm there with my groceries at that same day, time, and place? infinitesimal. she had black hair now! sexy raven black hair, hadn't noticed, was too busy thinking up the ice-breaker. and that gorgeous face, pale cheekbones, lovely lips...i'd ask her "so, did that hurt getting your ears stretched like that?" yeah, that's cool, that would make her smile, if i can get a person like this to smile, i'm in, for the world has rendered both of our mouths vacant and incapable of smiling.

you know what i'm gonna do? you know what i'm gonna do? the next time she happens to be there, walking to and fro into her new spiffy office, and she takes a break to bag, i'm gonna request help out to my car like all of the old, frail ladies who saunter around The Store with their canes, tennis-ball stretchers, and motorized cart cars do, i'll ask for assistance loading the bagged groceries into my car trunk, i'll pretend to have a broken leg, i'll develop a fake hobble, that'll give us a sure, true, not-reliant-on-fate actual time period of five minutes or so to talk. don't leave things up to fate, action is required, not luck, luck will break your way one week and break your leg the next.

the ground is slipping away from underneath my feet, i'm floating upside-down, time for another pill, or rather, another vitamin, there is only so much escape into sleep, there are only so many unanswered emails a man can stomach, i voted for change, exact change is upon me.

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