Ever notice how it's the little things in life that amuse us so much? More to the point, ever notice how it's the silly little idiocies in life that amuse us more than anything else? Well, this is not as much ''the little blog that could'' as it is ''the blog that enjoys going up the down escalator in your local mall.'' Will it have anything of real importance? No, probably not. But enjoy the ride never the less!

 

There's that infamous scene (one of many) in the movie "Aliens", where our heroic and soon-to-be eaten/coccooned marines are making their way through the Alien nest. To good news is: they've found the missing colonists who disappeared. The bad news is: the colonists are pretty much all deceased, and glued to some really funky-looking walls in the Alien nest. They manage to find a colonist who's still alive. She in turn manages to hoarsely whisper, "Please...kill me!" moments before a little Alien chestburster explodes out from her chest in a painful and bloody mess.

Life can be like that sometimes. Alas, I think I'm that colonist (minus the cleavage) stuck to the wall at the moment. This is the last weekend before the dreaded phenomenon of 'back to school'. We sell backpacks for kids & students. Lots of backpacks for lots of students. This means that this weekend is the last real chance any last-minute school supplies can be purchased beforehand. Now there will always be people who go out and buy things after the fact, or after it's begun. They can live. There's not a lot of them. I can deal with that.

However, I'm right at that point where I'm torn between wetting myself and uttering those immortal words: "Please...kill me." Because in my world, the horrific droves of customers are the Alien chestburster. And our store is the ribcage (okay, so it's not the greatest metaphor here, but work with me, people! Work with me!). Today marks the first of two days that will see hordes of customers explode into the store, and tear it apart to ratshit. It's going to be bloody. It's going to be messy.

I wish I could say I had more faith in the people who visit our store. I wish I could believe that the people will be clean, courteous, friendly, patient and intelligent. Or at least possess two of those attributes. Alas, I've almost completely lost my faith in humanity, so I cannot gaze upon this weekend with such optimism. Work retail or any other customer service-oriented job. You'll become a cynical bastard too.

I'm sure I'll survive it when all is said and done. But the scars will linger in my fragile psyche. I'll probably be muttering incoherent words of terror, as if I've glimpsed a colour of out space or a Shoggoth doing the macarena.

Today's Religious Theory: if there is such a thing as Purgatory, where you're not exactly damned to hell, but not on the straight ride up to heaven, and have to atone/work out all your lesser iniquities as penance, then I truly believe Purgatory will be a large retail store. All the people who've been chronically rude will suddenly find themselves trapped behind the cash till, having to deal with rude customers (perhaps even rude incarnations of themselves, if vengeance is indeed best served cold with a side order of poetic justice) all the time until they are broken and recant.


posted by Phillip at 5:55 AM

 

I've just finished writing some of the hardest letters I've ever had to write, with some of the darkest things I've ever had to acknowledge. Reality is hardly the most cheerful of things when it comes knocking at your proverbial door with nearly every monstrosity Pandora's Box has to offer. And yet, like the Greek myth, there is that small glimmer of hope that, somewhere along the way, something's going to come out right.

There are times I've almost lost hope. Those were times where I almost lost everything else a person could possibly lose. I haven't yet reached that point here, and I don't intend to. Life carries on, and to give into a more near and dear metaphor, the book that is life will always have empty pages waiting on whatever chapters or portions of our lives get wrapped up. There is always something else happening. There is no "The End" in sight just yet.

And so I await tomorrow, knowing that the darkness will still be there when I open my eyes. But there will be other things happening that may change the world I know, ideally for better and regrettably for worse. There will be hope.

It may be my darkest state of grey. But it's still only grey, and not yet black.

Today's Lesson: it is impossible to argue philosophy with Mel in the middle of a roller coaster ride, unless you are willing to put up with rebuttals to your inclusion of Kant that go along the lines of, "You fucking idiot!" (And I quote.)


posted by Phillip at 7:10 PM