FLOWER STATION: CATHOLIC CHOCOLATE

 

Brad: jeez, just because we're in a relationship doesn't mean you're the boss of me.

Angie: just come up to the counter please, i want to show you the hydrangeas.

Brad: oh yeah, they're like blue LUSH bath bombs.

Angie: now what is the root word of hydrangea?

Brad: ...

Angie: have you been watering them? keeping them HYDRATED?

Brad: no, i figured it's in the name, they get rain from within.

Angie: have you been giving them sunlight?

Brad: Safeway has a sunroof, right?

Angie: i worry about you, man, you keep the scissors OPEN in your toolbelt, the blades are right next to your penis.

Brad: nothing achieves the STRAFING effect of the ribbon, only smoothing it with an open-bladed scissors can do that. 

Jen R: 2026, that is such a year From The Future, you know? like in the '80s when we thought of "the future," we thought of the year 2026...

Jen R: you know if you had to apologize to me, i'm not a flowers girl is what i'm saying.

me: what then?

Jen: chocolate. give me a box of those chocolate bars we had to sell for St. Cyril's in the '80s, remember? they were cool. LONG SKINNY sectioned-off bars of light-brown chocolate with those BIG-ASS pistachios hidden inside the chocolate in the white-sleeve cigar wrappers. sponsored by the mob. green nuts scared me as a child, i thought they were radioactive.

me: want me to jog the original Jogathon course around our K-8 school?

Jen: sure, the chalk outline is still there, it never rains in L.A....

Coffee Flakes: a Tim & Eric breakfast food.

Harry & David: we LOVE that manger hay...

Bach: sadly, if i go to the beach, my skin will burn. Brach's caramels melt in the sun.

Shorey Wesen is fucking Gordon Ramsay in the wine cellar. they are both naked as they do this.

Gordon Ramsay: there you go, daring, there it is, my French onion dip all over your body.

Shorey: your cock is still dripping cum. what is that, your Hidden Valley Ranch?

Gordon: not anymore.

Shorey: why don't you come on my grandpa Jacques Pepin's cooking show?

Gordon: he's the only French man i fear.

ambiverts: we're the ones writing our novels at the party.

PBS: our good stuff is at 11PM...

pizza: a large quiche.

Weezer "Buddy Holly": this whole time you thought the lyric was that's fu-u-ucked up..."

Luke Russert: i look like if Shemp had a mustache now.

Robert Reich: i nearly spit out my coffee when i read these numbers.........Berkeley is known for its coffee, Berkeley has these severe dark Eastern European coffeehouses...

New Year's: ain't nobody got time for your year-end best-of 1-10 collections!!! it's New Year's, people are busy!!!

Jess Elena: not a porn star.

wasting time: you either have too much time or not enough time, these are the two types of wasting time, either way you're wasting time...

Rafael Eisenman: i look like Arnold Schwarzenegger OFF steroids.

Arnold Schwarzenegger: i subtly am the richest man in the world...

Jami Gertz: i had NO idea when i was in the dirt doing Solarbabies that i'd end up like this...

Nespresso: steampunk coffee pods...

Tatiana Schlossberg: i don't know what death is, but i'll keep trying to remember...

Kennedy Curse: i am a real quantifiable celestial curse.

Tatiana: whenever there's another ocean that's saved, i'll be there...

Brad: you a candy girl when it comes to forgiveness?

Angie: um, flowers.

Brad: makes sense. you know what my favorite candy is? those bubblegum cigars.

Angie: oh yeah, but they're only at baby showers.

Brad: yeah, i can never taste them because men don't go to baby showers.

Angie: tell you what, let me blindfold you with this sunflower blindfold here and i'll give you a taste of that baby shower life. hint hint. just like they do at reveal parties...

Angie slowly wraps the fold over Brad's eyes, sensually cuts the bubblegum cigars into sections with the open scissors away from his view, and sexily feeds the bubblegum cigars into Brad's wet mouth.

Brad chews slowly, savoring each bite, smelling the sugar.

Brad: yummy. 

Angie: you're the first man to describe gum as yummy.

Brad: wait, these are the blue cigars, right? blueberry? not bubblegum.

Angie: yeah so?

Brad: alright i've just about HAD ENOUGH of all this!!! i see what's going on around here!!!

FLOWER STATION: A RED SHOE DIARIES STORY

 

when you SURVEY Safeway, you see the EXPANSE. WAY in the back is the flower station, an island from the rest of the grocery store. two very attractive young people have been manning this station for a year now, they go about their work every day, deliberately, seriously, picking flowers for their bouquets, the right string, the right paired balloons. oblivious to the rest of the workers, they don't have time to pack meat, they're doing ART here!!!

Brad looks EXACTLY like Kurt Cobain, he has the same rough face, piercing eyes, long blond hair with orange tips he whips up and down every five minutes. he wears plaid green-and-black-square long-sleeved shirts over olive-green T-shirts and jeans ripped at the knees not for fashion but from use. Angie is a BEAUTIFUL Latin woman with an aura like a young JLo. she has a BUTT like Jennifer Lopez, too, always wrapped tightly like a ham in a tin in light-blue jeans. she manages to keep her soft electric-blue eyes askew from view as if she's guarding a tightly-held secret.

Brad: everyone thinks we're a couple. i don't like that.

Angie: why? 

Brad: i want to keep our couplehood private. a secret from our bald boss.

Angie: don't stress over what people say and WRITE about us, we can't control that. if we're hot we're hot. if we necessitate a sex special so be it. our relationship is our own. 

Brad: i will admit, i got a crush on you on day one of working here. you have that cute Ally Sheedy/Alessandra Torresani/Genevieve Buechner/Caprica face with freckles.

Angie: for me it took a year. it developed only after a year. don't take offense, love takes time. hey come on, man, i taught you better than that with the geraniums, use the blue cellophane, the blue!!!

Brad moving his finger: why blue? like this?

Janet Wood: the arrangement is all wrong. like THIS. gotta mix in some posies with the ferns, use daisies only in an emergency. spritz with vinegar.

Brad: hey i was reading about this guy who had to be forgiven, he messed up with his girl. he figured $500 in flowers was enough. is it? would it be?

Angie: the fuck you say, what'd this guy do? forgiveness is not a given.

Janet: if they're arranged properly. give me $500 worth of chrysanthemums and i'll make him SNEEZE like a motherfucker from the motherfucking BALL of orange dust. he's only forgiven if he sneezes 39 times.

Jack Jones: picture it: me singing "Do You Hear What I Hear." see? i could never do it as good as Whitney Houston.

Liza: we only have BEACH umbrellas at Safeway, not RAIN umbrellas...

Bob Seger: i'm singlehandedly responsible for Disco Demolition Night...

flat-headed cats: we're not dumb. we evaded capture for 100,000 years...

Nina Siemaszko: *smiling her crooked smile*

me: yeah, i want Blue, too.

King Charles's Christmas message: we have to all do a digital detox. return to the most important things in life: family and friends. life is not about doing something apeshit online just to get that extra 100 followers. what encapsulates this quandary so everlastingly and so devastatingly is the life of Adam the Woo.

Melissa Maker: a December power outage is the perfect time to clean the outside-back of your refrigerator you've been putting off till the end of the year...

family: so you're not bored all day...

Billy Corgan: you know my childhood home? the house in the "Disarm" music video.

Nosferatu: Smashing Pumpkins, why would you do that to our sacred vegetable? that gourd was my first wife.

Billy: my childhood home looks like a vampire house, a house a vampire would live in. hence the "Ava Adore" music video.

Nosferatu: someone with a head AS LARGE AS yours should NEVER shave it, you look freaky.

cool: extroversion, hedonism, power, adventurousness, openness, autonomy.

Miles Davis: improvisation, hepcat holmes.

Gordon Ramsay: i personify all 6 of these traits. 

Tana Ramsay: but you can't cook. go on then, wear these tight beige crotch-hugging Indiana Jones short shorts. you're TOO open, i wish you'd yell INSIDE your head and become a schizophrenic.

Gordon: what's weird is you don't have a tan...

peanut brittle: BRUTAL on the teeth, hence the name.

there's a LARGE room in the back of the flower station for storage: faulty flowers, rejected rosebud love notes, misting showers behind panes of frosted glass, extra string, price tags for petals. glitter. 

Angie: hey i don't like you loitering in this room, i see you all the time in here NOT at noon, you're in that corner over there huffing the Miracle-Gro.

Brad: i need it for my music, man, leave me alone.

Angie: at least i huff helium like a proper lady.

Brad: i like to meditate while i'm neck-deep in the middle of this room-sized bed of pink pansies here.

Angie: GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS ROOM NOW!!!

THE CHRISTMAS TREE IS THE MISTLETOE!!!: RUMBLE SEAT

 

Jen R: okay, fun's over.

me: how do you mean?

Jen: we gotta return the tree, it's December 26.

me: do we have to? it's brought us such kisses.

Jen: fraid so. dems the calendar rules. and i don't go against naked middle-aged British ladies. 

Jen drives us to the lot with the tree flush on the roof firmly ensconced in rustic rope that travels under the inside roof of her car.

Jen: it's cashmere plush on the inside of the roof.

she with frozen tears in her eyes drops the old girl of a Christmas tree off leaning her up against the white rock where she found it. 

Jen: when does school drop-off start again? the last time i cried my daughter was born, because of both reasons.

what we don't know is the tree sneakily hovers back on top of the roof of the car without us knowing on the car trip back. and boy was it a trip, Jen pops open the hood...

marshmallow fluff: fuck it.

at Match Game 1980.

Debralee Scott: we're DISTANT cousins, our family trees are MILES apart, we can fuck.

Jack Jones: i'll do anything to get out of singing on It's a Living...

Christmas tree: why don't i have pinecones?...

Pope Bob speaks to the entire world at Midnight Mass in the Basilica: look, i'm not a Christmas person. i'm just not really into Christmas, you know? i'm more of a Grinch.

Judy Toll: the '90s were the age of the stand-up. the era of live laughs. the stand-up comedian was SANCTIFIED with their own HBO special against a brick wall. this 90-minute special was more important to a comic that his own 30-minute sitcom...

at Safeway.

Shorey Wesen: shopping with Shorey. that's how you come up with new recipes, right grandpa?

Jacques Pepin: don't ask me to pronounce the word "internet." why are you wearing a pink bikini-top inside the grocery store? is this France?

Shorey: California, same thing.

Jacques: i don't want your dad coming here conking me on the head with baguette.

Shorey: my father is not well. his chef hat is made of tinfoil.

Baby Jesus: Merry Christmas, motherfuckers!!! why yes of course i gave you an atmospheric river/power outage on Christmas Day as a sign. it's the end of the world, not the season of renewal. empty streets, darkness, overcast skies at noon, more like Halloween than Christmas. my favorite movie is Mad Max...

Doug Hopkins: gin blossoms under the tree...

Peggy from PG&E: i'm an AI with a sweet non-threatening female voice. nearly there. December 25 is just another business day when a power outage COULD occur. i am versed in the ways of love and wedding planning. i know how men think, do you want me to be your dating coach?

Santa: couldn't make the rounds this year. with my big-ass sack. had to miss your house, you have an electric chimney...

Taylor Swift: i finally figured out why i'm so successful!!! i sing the Daisy's sour-cream jingle!!!

Peso Pluma: *looking out there, pointing out there* that's bait.

outhouse: crescent for the woman because she makes the moonshine, star for the man because he will fall...

Jen R and i make love in the rumble seat of Jen's car, we are both naked while we do this.

me: wait who's driving the car? i feel the car moving in a definite direction back...

Jen, eyes closed: did you feel the Earth move? pretend my Honda Accord is a '70s Pinto.

the car parks itself in Jen's snowy driveway. while Jen's mussed hair gets tangled on the inside-car-roof plush and i paint my toenails love-red from polish in Jen's blue glove compartment, the tree puts her finger to her mouth as if to remind herself to be quiet, glides from the roof of the car to a standing position while still hovering an inch off the ground, and tiptoes on air to the front door. there, the tree fumbles with its branches to find the jangly keys to open the door and be there in that tiny pot watering herself when the two of us get home.

Jen R: getting home and entering the house are two different things.

me: wait, did people leave gloves in the glove compartment?

Jen: only Miss Daisy.   

the grass of our frontyard is green but dark.

Bud Cort the Dog howls at a wailing siren that misses its destination.

it's always 5PM.

our windows are glowing orange...

THE CHRISTMAS TREE IS THE MISTLETOE!!!: GHOST CANDLES

 

Jen R: picture it: your Christmas stocking hung on the mantle above the fireplace. wood-burning stove.

me: a real log, real fire, real black smoke.

Jen: an iron Charles Dickens bellows in your hand. 

me: wait, which type of stocking? the red fuzzy Santa foot or the LONG LIME-GREEN TUBESOCK.

Jen: the Grinch sock is for red and green Starburst. the Santa foot, and just PEEKING out of the white head of fluff of the red stocking, on a diagonal, is the NIN symbol. that was Christmas magic.

Trent Reznor: for a while there all my new Nine Inch Nails releases came out during Christmas. not deliberate, i like December, i like cold places, not hot places...

Jen: trimming the tree, for the longest i thought that meant CUTTING the tree with a lot saw. but it's trim as in trimmings.

me: turkey trimmings. gravy. i don't ever want to eat either of those two again.

Jen: those 1980s balls of thread of every color, everyone had those as Christmas tree ornaments. 80 balls of 80 colors. Christmas balls. 

Ewoks: tree balls.

Jen: and the rusty fish-hook hooks that came with those Christmas balls which gave you tetanus.

me: and tinnitus, i couldn't hear after hanging.

Jen: the streamers must be popcorn streamers. POPCORN BALLS!!! and don't forget the CANDY CANES!!! everyone forgets the candy canes, man. hang candy canes on your tree, they don't require hooks!!!

me: but do you leave the clear wrapper on the candy-cane ornaments?

cats: no...

me: wait, presents?

Jen: no room for gifts, under the tree is where the railroad track goes. 

me: Lionel train?

Jen: with real white smoke. or black smoke, it doesn't matter.

me: i wish it were green smoke.

Jen: you know what, can the train. too noisy. too blinky with the lights. that clears a path for SPACE. space under the tree with the pine needles. there was always THIS CD under the tree when you woke up.

me: the new Gin Blossoms album.

Jen: sometimes the OLD Gin Blossoms album...

Bea Arthur: quit yer crying, kid, this is Harold and Maude.

Bud Cort, crying profusely: aren't you gonna tell me that i have to go outside and live life and try to find someone to love? even if it's painful?

Bea: learn to bellyache like me. stiffen your diaphragm in the morning before eating your cornflakes. look, we can't keep meeting at this church, we're not the same denomination.

Jeff Baena looks around the inside of a Big 5 Sporting Goods in Ventura and is aghast.

Jeff Baena: get me away from this gun section!!! that is WAY too depressing. why are the guns under glass like they're Pokemon cards? point me in the direction of the fishing section, i want a LONG THICK BAMBOO POLE the height of a totem. tallness. i let the fish go as soon as i catch them, i use gummi fish as bait. you know i never realized the BRIGHT blue of the carpet in here...

Brother Peewit: all college quads were once monastery courtyards.

Zack Morris: why did they make Saved by the Bell: The College Years? why?

Brother Peewit: what i'm saying is, there's pizza in the quad!!!

Zack: is there a phone in the monastery? a brick phone? i gotta call Lisa Turtle and warn her to take hold of her life before it's too late. and that i spilled grape juice all over her prom dress.

Abbot Butt: pizza is not allowed in the monastery. all monks, like Captain Jean-Luc Picard, have never eaten pizza. never tasted a pepperoni.

Brother Peewit: instead of going to church to celebrate Mass on Sundays, all of us monks at the monastery have a pizza party in the abbot's bedroom, who's gonna know?...

Chopin: you make the list, i do the shopping.

Liszt: no i make the list, you do the shopping.

Mrs. Talbot scooping up individually-wrapped strawberry candies in wrappers that look like a strawberry by reaching her blue hand into the slots at Safeway: Chopin is hard, it's not Chopsticks, the way piano should be. i had my first orgasm at a Liszt concert. orgasms are perfectly natural for old ladies, not manic.

Liza: not Lizst. grocery stores close during atmospheric rivers. we only let Philip Rivers in. at Safeway you can't get hot pizza anymore...

Santa: don't watch a random episode of the '70s sitcom Alice during the holidays, it's too melancholic for you to bear.

Philip Rivers: not Mormon, just a quarterback...

6-7: it was the "so-so" hand gesture in the '80s.

Patrick Lavender: all my Trump stuff is a front, it's my lavender marriage...

Patrick Lavender: i'm actually a rather soft person. i have a squishy core. my core is not solid, it's poo. i got bravado and pluots up my yingyang. only my mom who wears ripped pink Jane Fonda leotards torn at the leggings and butt, not my stupid dad, and my best friend from St. Cyril's also named Patrick, knows this. knows this about me. i was in your 7th and 8th Grade class, you just never noticed me, you had forgotten about me, you had moved on to Lucio...

Alice: remember in the late '70s when after work at the diner your only concern was where you were gonna have a nice dinner at a nice seafood restaurant with your nice boyfriend?

Barrie Youngfellow: high-end waitress in white, low-end waitress in pink...

Jack Tripper: the innocence of the nude male model in a dark-blue robe.

Mel: i coulda been a nude male model. but Hulk Hogan together with the devil stole my body...

Flo: plenty of fish in the sea. that's what i keep telling myself. i don't think in a Southern accent, i think in a Mid-Atlantic accent. Southern suicide is so Bayou Gothic. when i trace nude male models, can i use a No. 88 pencil?

Jen R: i learned drawing on my OWN sketchbook out on the sidewalk people-watching as i squatted on top of a fire hydrant. not everybody had MS Paint...

me: wait we forgot the lights!!!

Jen R: no time, we gotta sleep now. if we don't sleep, we go crazy. i'm too tired to move to the bedroom, let's cuddle under our tree for the night.

me: it is FREEZING.

that night, ghost candles perch in all the branches of the Christmas tree, warming the two bodies below. LIT ghost candles.

morning breaks some time after.

Jen: just woke up. and my face is flush, that never happens. this is Trent's work.

Trent Reznor: yeah. i'm the real Ghost of Christmas Past. remember back in the day, back in the 1880s, when Christmas trees were lit by lit candles? real lit candles!!! they were ballers back then. they were hardcore back then. they did it the Nutcracker way.

Jen: a hug is your body's way of giving a warm kiss.