textiplication.com

[inspired by the unknown searcher who came to my site from the Google query, "human-shark hybrid walking the earth"]

Episode I: Wal-mart doesn’t understand me

I needed some AA batteries for my radar detector. I could go to CostCo or Home Depot if I wanted a package of fifty, but I didn’t want a package of fifty, so I went to Wal-mart. Also, Wal-mart’s parking lot was a right turn from my office, which meant I wouldn’t have to wait for a traffic light. I have to keep moving or I get short of breath.

“Welcome to Wal-mart. Can I help you find anything today?” It was this guy my dad’s age or older, just inside the door, wearing a little apron. He was polite and seemed harmless, but I was feeling a little peckish, so I ate him. That caused a bit of a ruckus. People screamed and ran away, which is really stupid because it totally sets off my pursuit reflexes. I would have chased them down and eaten them, too, but I remembered what I had come in for. AA batteries, for my radar detector. I’m a human-shark hybrid, but that doesn’t mean I have to act like a shark all the time. I have some self-control. Plus I wasn’t all that hungry anymore.

It turned out that AA batteries were in Aisle 37, which is a lot of fucking aisles, if you ask me. It took way too long to find them, and I almost regretted eating the guy who wanted to help me. Except I never regret anything; shark, you know. No one else would help me, either. I guess they thought I didn’t want any help, or maybe it was all the blood and gristle on my shirt.

Or the fucking remora on my back.

Jesus, I hate those things. As soon as I noticed it I yanked it off - Aisle 23, Harry Potter books and tie-ins, like I need that - left it flopping on the floor, but before I knew it there was another one hanging from my chin. Only so much I can do. Sometimes I think this human-shark-hybrid thing wasn’t ever fully thought through.

Finally found the AA batteries and headed for the registers. They have way too many registers, like twenty or thirty, and only put clerks at two or three of them. There were lines at all of them, including express, and I hate standing in line. I get very restless. People have commented on this, how when I have to stand in line I get all fidgety, start walking back and forth, looking pretty edgy, short of breath, you know. Shark. Not the kind of guy you want standing behind you in the express lane, you know, especially if you have too many items. Apparently I make people pretty uncomfortable, I understand, with the fidgeting.

And then I eat them, which makes it all worse. But at least all the lines get shorter. Like the express lane at Wal-mart, where everybody just runs away after I eat the grandmotherly type who had at least twenty-five items in her cart, you know, for the express lane. I’m not even exaggerating. The girl at the register ran away, too, so I was getting really frustrated. Like, I just want to pay for a couple of AA batteries, and look what they put me through. Retail has just gone to the dogs.

So I’m just standing at the register, waiting for someone to come take my money, and I realize, What I am doing? I’m like, a shark. Well, partly. And what kind of shark stands around the express lane like some pussy, waiting for someone to come take his money? Fuck this, I say to myself, and head out of the store. Then there’s this, like, whinnng, sound, and I feel this sharp pain in my mouth. There’s a tooth broken off in there. So it’s crap, they shot me, part of the game, I guess, but with a fucking BB gun? Cause that’s what it feels like. I see this security guard waving this little toy pistol around, but he’s like fifty away and it’s just totally not worth the effort. I just ate two people, I’m barely hungry at all, and I still have my AA batteries. I head on out to my car. I pop out the old batteries, pop the new ones in. Bleep, bleep, bleep, I’m in business. Watch out, Smokey, here I come.

As I pull out of the parking lot, I probe the gap in my teeth with my tongue. The new tooth is already edging down into place.

Cool.