Exreality.NET

A few weeks ago, I was perfectly content with my life. I was working a full time job and hanging out with friends on the weekends. But as the summer wound down and acquaintances left for college, life in Everett took a turn.

My good friend and fellow writer shadow was one of my main sources of entertainment. Whether it was catching a midnight premier or grabbing a quick bite during lunch break, he kept things interesting. Once he headed off to college in California, I was at a loss. For the first time in my life, I was unable to call one of my best friends to go on some sort of adventure at a whim. Sure, it was a bad feeling, but I thought it’d be easy enough to get through. Why? Because I spend a majority of my time at work, with a group of people I am truly fortunate to work with.

By the time the grind of the work day had ended, I was so tired that socialization wasn’t even a thought. For that reason, it kept my mind occupied. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, and I was forced to end my employment in order to have my wisdom teeth extracted. The surgery itself was quick enough, but the inconvenience and discomfort following would soon reach a boiling point.

The worst part of the whole ordeal is the fact that it’s not particularly painful. My mouth feels fine, and aside from being swollen, looks completely normal. Not being able to eat proper foods also puts a damper on things, and quickly sours the mood. If I have to eat another fucking vanilla pudding cup, I will cut someone’s head off and parade it around on the end of a stick. I struggled to even call it pudding, as the texture is more like mortar. I’m sorry, I need sustenance, not to hold up a structure. No matter how hard you try, it is impossible to fill up on a soft food diet. And to make matters worse, what goes in soft comes out soft. Have to love that. But I digress.

Yesterday was nothing short of a mess. On top of my inability to eat foods worth eating and my swollen face, I thought it would be a good idea to venture out into the world for the first time in two days. What a mistake. I had told myself on many previous occasions when I had ventured out on Thursdays that I would never run errands on a Thursday ever again. And for the most part, I stuck to my word, as I usually work until late evening as it is. But without a job, I didn’t realize the mess I had gotten into. The traffic was an absolute disaster. I think that Thursday has become the new Friday. Everyone takes an extended weekend, thinking they’ll avoid the Friday rush, but in reality all they’re doing is moving the weekend up a day. This frustrates me because I wanted some ground beef, and when I run out for ground beef, I don’t expect it to take an eternity.

As I ambled to the meat case, I was immediately bombarded by a thousand different cuts of equally unappealing meats. So, instead of trying to choose on my own, I stepped into line to get it from the meat specialist. And I call them meat specialists because they aren’t butchers by trade: I could probably wield a knife better than their collective staff. What I didn’t bank on was running into the prudish woman who didn’t know a shrimp from a scallop.

The first indication that you’ve got a prude are the pants. You see, the prude wears a pant constructed primarily of a fabric that no one can describe. It isn’t denim. It isn’t cotton. It’s some sort of cotton-marshmallow alloy with properties (such as clinging) that don’t even fit into the realm of reality. Worn above the pants is a loose-fitting blouse of an annoying color, usually red or purple. Obnoxious jewelry such as fake pearls is often worn, and she inevitably has gray hair in an old lady type of style.

So there she was in front of me, selecting her various meats from behind the glass. She chose a bit of ground beef, and once it was wrapped up, the young man behind the counter asked if he could help her with anything else. When asked that, the proper answer is, “No, thank you.” You don’t ask for another three things with people standing in line behind you. If you want to casually shop at five o’clock on a Thursday evening, you may even be considerate enough to let the person behind you get the one thing that they need to make their evening meal happen. Anyway, he handed her the beef and she then selected those stuffed chicken ‘thingies,’ better known in the technical realm as breasts. So he hands them, wrapped neatly, across the glass. And then he asks, out of routine, “Will that be all?”

You guessed it. That wasn’t all. She then requested a pound of ‘those kinds of shrimps.’ The plural is shrimp, you bloody trollop of yesteryear. So the nice gentleman behind the counter grabbed a handful and began wrapping it. She then had the audacity to ask him if he could stop wrapping, put them in an additional bag, and rewrap them in a know-it-all type of tone. As all of this occurred, I kept looking back to the meat case, fighting off the urge to serve myself. Unfortunately, when I did make the decision to get the pre-packaged stuff, every time I went to make my move, someone else had swooped in to look confusedly at the ONE TYPE OF MEAT AVAILABLE. And of course, once this lady finally cleared out, the meat case had also opened up, leaving the options open. But I went for the meat specialist and finally got what I had come for: some ground beef.

So we finally exited the store, and as we stepped outside, the cart runner was hauling the carts back inside. For some reason though, anytime anyone moves those damn carts, they look absolutely astonished when they don’t turn or stop on a dime. A snake of carts has a collective mass somewhat similar to that of Tom Cruise’s ego. If you can’t handle it in a crowd of people, you shouldn’t be piloting it. So after I shot that broad a look, I reached the safety of my friend’s truck.

But of course, there is the drive home. At least four drivers cut us off, pulled off of a side road slowly, ran a red light, and nearly smashed perpendicular into us. At that point it hit me. I’m off to college soon. There is nothing left for me here. My friends have moved on and there is nothing but traffic and hustle and bustle here. The thought of my move to college brought not fear and anxiety but a general calming state. And it was at that time that I thought aloud, “Fuck this town.”