Fart

I find it curious, I don't really understand why I should considering that I've been doing it since I was born damn near half a century ago, but there you go, lads. Curious. About what, you ask. I find it curious that any time I go into a public place like, say, Walmart, I am simply overwhelmed by the parade of lunacy that is the everyday American citizen. Surrounding me in traffic, in their cars, driving by, blowing my ears out with the most idiotic and simplistic beats imaginable, yelling obscenities at me because I have a long beard, whistling at any woman short of a one-legger (and then again, they would probably give them a good "WOOP!" were a one-legger to hop by after all), it's like the starting line at the Surrealist 500. Driving among them is bad enough, to be sure. Yeah, but no, but yeah - but if you want to get the full Salvador Dali shaving a masterpiece into your back hair level of weird, head into Walmart.

I wandered in to one today. Now don't get me wrong, it wasn't like I've never done it before. If I need dirt-cheap groceries and want a dose of the humble, there is no better place. Traipse on into one, you'll see.

There's a few oddities that seem to always have to get out of the way the moment you walk in. I swear it's in their mission statement or something. I somewhat suspect they actually keep these people on the payroll just to insure the full Walmart ambiance. If you're gonna buy a three dollar box of generic tampons then you're going to have to deal with this within seconds of walking in:

1. The cataract-ridden old guy. He's all cloudy corneas and tilted head on the axis and reeks of basement brand cigarettes and stale urine, and even if he wasn't gnawing on someone you might be forgiven for assuming he was a member of the undead. Instead, he pretends to check receipts at the door. An exercise in futility if ever there was one. You could walk out with someone's child and this guy would smile, draw a highlighter line on your receipt, fart and send you on your way. And that's guy one.
2. The woman who is so obese, morbid is at least two levels shy of a reasonable description of her planetary mass. You can smell her, she smells like rotten pork chops in your trash which have been sitting under your old fryer grease while you were on vacation. In case you were getting turned on, her face is covered in gumdrop sized moles sprouting hairs the size of aloe stalks. She is walking out, every time you are walking in, she is walking out with a cart full of frozen burritos, shredded cheese, lard, fruit danish in the family pack, five cases of Squirt and a three dollar box of generic tampons. 
3. The part-time cholo. He's wearing Jessie James brand Dickies work shorts with white crusty stains on them (never ask, never, never ask), a doo rag in his back pocket, the prerequisite 1/4 inch buzz, teardrop tattoos, aluminum fronts and is always a number of steps in front of his black-eyed bun in the oven old lady charged with pushing the cart, which along with their groceries also houses their infant who is playing with daddy's butterfly knife. 
4. The Tranny. Nuff said.

Mind you, you just stepped in the door. I was in there so that I could check out some coffee makers since my coffee pot exploded on me the other day while I was performing the offense of cleaning it. I always steel myself so that I might be able to handle the Fellini carnival that awaits me, and every single time I am so totally ill prepared for what awaits me.

By now I am in a daze, I am walking slowly trying hard to not get noticed by the finger pointing pod people. All it takes is for one of them to catch a whiff of me and it's curtains. They will surely hold me down while they all take turns ass raping me and filling my cavity with their spores so that I may turn into the human road map acne casualty metal head with the Fear Factory t-shirt, shit stains, tent-like oversized black bell-bottom pants, GBH back pack, skull necklace, giant hole directly where my balls are located, black fingernails, terrible black dye job (which is growing out) and a Kool Menthol behind each ear.

Now I have the fear. I am pretending to weigh the merits of the Keurig over the Tassimo. Now I am pretending to debate with myself over which refurbished iPod Touch would be best for me. Now I'm perusing the cosmetic aisles trying desperately to get the calamine lotion I promised C. Now I am walking briskly to my car as I turn back and notice the cataract man standing in the yellow painted walkway at the front doors. His bony arm outstretched, his impossibly long finger aimed directly at me. His mouth opened wide, a ghostly wail emits forth, his minions stop and turn towards me. I fumble for my keys. They are advancing towards me now. I turn the key, the engine starts. They have broken a full run. I slam it in reverse, back out, run two of them over, they deflate like puss-filled balloons. I dart out of the parking lot, a coterie of aliens in pursuit.

I swear, as I do every single time - I will never, never, ever go to that place again.

And then we need toilet paper.