Oh By The Way, Which One's Floyd?

I was at one of those terrible pharmacy type stores earlier buying a couple packs of smokes & this old timer with a putrid male perm happened to be in front of me in the old queue. He was buying a small bottle of some generic pink Pepto Bismol crap. His total for this purchase was $3.19. He then proceeded to pull out a checkbook. Yes, he paid $3.19 with a check. I stood there in utter disbelief as this dude took 2 minutes to write a check for $3.19. Finally, after the 100 year-old clerk processed his check and the geriatric check-writer took off to get loaded on generic Pepto Bismol, I said to the ancient looking clerk, "I haven't seen someone write a check for 3 bucks in like 25 years. Does that happen often in here?" This nasty old bag informed me that some older folks don't believe in using check cards. I said, "What the hell is there not to believe in? It's a damn debit card." She then let me know that someone had written a check at this pharmacy for 17 cents recently. That's when I lost it. I really did. I broke into convulsions of laughter. The only question I had for the Methuselah-esque clerk was, "What can you even buy here for 17 cents?" She replied, "We were running a special on used condoms." I asked, "How used were the condoms, ma'am?" She looked a little stumped on that one, but pulled herself together long enough to give me an answer, "Sonny, we got them from an old folks' home, so there wasn't much jizz in them & what remnants of pecker tracks that was in there was saturated with apple sauce." I told her I appreciated her candor as well as her grammar and took off out of that damn pharmacy.

Some dead white poet wrote something about April being the cruelest month. I'm not sure who the poet was, as I never read the poem (hell, I've never read any poem). But I overheard some unbathed hippie classmates talking about this whole April being cruel deal back in my days of pursuing an English degree at TOSU. It's interesting to note that the unbathed hippie students were discussing this April being cruel issue with an unbathed hippie professor. But I digress. I never gave too much thought to this whole poetry conundrum since those halcyon days in college where I'd show up to class at least 3 or 4 time a month. At least. Some months I'd make it to 6 or 7 classes. I was a real overachiever in those days. But Saturday night I got to thinking very seriously about this dead white poet's assertion that April is the cruelest month. What I decided is that the dead guy was just a little off. See, Saturday night was March 31 - just before April started. And what I witnessed in the 2nd half of that 2nd game from NOLA might be the cruelest thing I've ever seen in my entire fucking life. Poets - way off once again. Why does anyone waste their time studying that garbage? In the room the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo...Bullshit. No, they don't. Chicks I overhear tend to come and go talking of the best way to treat their damn yeast infections...

Our friends who happen to pull for the Duke Blue Devils have had it bad. They got blown off their home floor by UNC, pounded into submission by the Noles, then were embarrassed by a team from the Patriot League - in the Gate City no less. For that loss to Lehigh, Brandon & I were out at Scams Lakeside. The bar was packed. There had to be 75 folks wandering around drunk, ripping their stupid brackets to shreds after Mizzou lost to those brothers from the MEAC. The funny thing was, I didn't see one Duke fan anywhere. Maybe they were all at the Coliseum witnessing the crushing choke firsthand - I have no idea. All I know is that I kept looking for someone wearing Duke blue to mock until they either cried or took a swing at me. Either way would have been okay by me. Alas, nothing. Hell, there were more folks at the bar rooting for the Michigan Wolverines at the time. And they choked as well - losing to the damn Ohio Bobcats...

I was out not too long ago at some joint called Buck Naked Saloon - Brandon is interested in one of the chicks working the bar there. Hence, we've been there a few times recently. Anyway, I was sitting at the bar chatting with a fat man sporting tons of chest hair. I mean this dude's chest hair was amazing. Thick and luscious. And a little creepy if you ask me. But whatever, to each his own. All I know is that if I had chest hair that was like 2 inches thick, I'd hide as much of it as possible under several t-shirts, a button down, and a blazer. But that's just me. What this wild chest hair freak and I got to chatting about was the band that was about to start playing at the old Buck Naked Saloon. They are called Sock Monkey. This hairy freak asked if I liked the band. To be honest, I couldn't recall if I'd ever seen the band around town. And I was honest with chest hair boy about that fact. But I did tell him this, and this is the absolute fucking truth, "I do wear socks. And I like monkeys." The dude didn't have a thing to say to that. After about 20 seconds I asked him, "Do you like Camper Van Beethoven?" He said, "Huh?" I explained, "I've heard about people camping. And I know there is a dead composer named Beethoven." I could hear the damn rocks bouncing around in this chest hair dude's almost shaved head. I tried one more on this genius. "Do you like Pink Floyd?" He suddenly got excited. A light bulb went on somewhere. He said, "Fuck, yes. Pink Floyd rocks!!!" I said, "The only problem with that is this - yes, I know there is a color called pink & I have heard of Floyd being a noted barber of days gone by, but Pink Floyd sucks. They suck the soul out of you with every cliched second of their mind-numbingly stupid lyrics." The guy didn't seem too keen on chatting with me after that. Brandon noted shortly after the hairy chested Pink Floyd man walked away that I was by far the best person in the entire city of Greensboro when it came to the tricky skill of getting losers to leave a bar. It might be the only thing I'm good at, when you really think about it anyway. But it is something. It's a strength. And you gotta go with your strengths...

Pictures of Matchstick Men