SHITTY DAY

It's 7:30 p.m. I'm finally in a good mood and am afraid if I write about my day I could slip back into a bad mood. Oh well, here goes...

I leave for Europe tomorrow. As you might guess, that can cause an insane amount of stress. I slept in as long as I could because I knew I wouldn't have that luxury for two weeks. I got up and made my coffee and got a bit of work done. Sent off stories, wrote two new short pieces and pitched a few more. Ya know, the usual.

Then I called Rite-Aid to fill my asthma medication. Can't go to Europe without them. Turns out I am fresh out of refills on my Azmacort, which I'm supposed to take twice daily. Rite-Aid tells me to call my doctor's office, so I do. The woman tells me I need to see a doctor. I beg, but there's no other way. She told me I could get an appointment in less than two hours. Funny how that works. If this wasn't an emergency, she would have made me come in in two weeks. I had an hour to kill, so I did my daily routine of dishes and sweeping.

Stopped by Chip's to get some cash he owes me. He's going with me. We're both excited and went over last-minute things we think we might need.

I get to the doctor's office. Like I've said before, FUCK YOU SEAL BEACH. I can't stand this shithole of a beach community. All these rich fuckers think they own the goddamn world. They don't. This velour suit wearing hag just has to hum along to the terrible waiting room music. I'll never understand people who do this. In my younger days, I let stuff like this slide. But as I get older, I am slowly inching toward becoming the type of person who tells annoying cunts like this to shut up. To make thing worse, she couldn't hit the right note to save her withering life and wasn't even humming along to the right parts. Humming for the sake of humming.

The doctor was fine. Blood pressure, eyes, ears, say "Ah," all the good shit. I tried to run out on the bill cuz I don't have health insurance (more on that later), but they caught me. Luckily for me, I got some sort of discount and had to pay only $81 for my visit. Some discount.

I stopped at Whole Foods for last-minute munchies and went to the bank. I was third in line but it took forGODDAMNever. Some chatty brat was asking all kinds of questions to who I thought was her grandfather. Then she called him dad and I understood why he was as irritated with his five-year-old daughter as much as I was: He was far too old to have a kid that age. Her questioning everything got to me. I wanted to put a piece of tape over her mouth and give her dad a rubber so not to make that mistake again. This is why I don't want kids. I'm far too selfish and irritable to have to answer stupid question after stupid question.

I get home and I'm two hours behind and down $81. Eat lunch. Missed Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption. That coulda calmed my nerves.

I went to Rite-Aid to give them my doctor's notes. They tell me it'll be 30 minutes, so I go home and play solitaire. They called and told me they didn't have the Azmacort. Tension begins to rise. I ask them to call one of them hundred other Rite-Aids in Long Beach to see if they have any. A minute later they tell me the one in Belmont Shore has it. So I go to mine (on Cherry) and get the other prescription. Then the fat-ass white trash lady hands me my doctor's note in case I need it at the other one. It's 5 p.m. and cars are everywhere. I get to the other Rite-Aid. They gave me my medicine. But it's the wrong one. The Cherry Rite-Aid gave them the wrong info. I call Cherry Rite-Aid and tell me that they have Azmacort in stock. Tension and frustration now elevated. All of this is delaying my trip to the gym, which is important because the next two weeks will be unhealthy. I get there and again I'm hit with some bluehair shithead in front of me in line. He's buying a bottle of wine at the pharmacy and complaining about the price. "Sign says $7.99. You're charging me $14.99." My time at Ralphs grocery store taught me one thing: When the customer says the sign says one thing and the register says another, the customer is always wrong. Usually what happens is an item is in the wrong spot. Or it's for a particular size, shape, brand, etc. Who knows what happened with this guy, but he was slowing down the after-work rush. Finally it's my turn. She rings me up and...$161.99. For a fucking asthma inhaler. I tell her it's usually $30. She checks with some guy in a lab coat. Real official. He says I haven't filled my medicine since last May and that, at that time, I was still insured by Blue Cross. That's bullshit for two reasons. 1. I take this inhaler twice a day. I've re-filled it at least three times since May. 2. My health insurance, when I had it for all of six months, ran out the day I quit my last job. Which was LAST FUCKING FEBRUARY! I told Mr. Whitecoat to fuck off and didn't buy the only thing I really needed. Four Rite-Aid trips is all a guy can take. I told them staff their to go fuck themselves and walked out. I had the inhaler in my hand and was tempted to just leave with it, but I ain't going to jail the day before I'm flying to Europe.

So I'm down $81 for a doctor's visit that I didn't need and about four hours of my time. Time that could have been spend doing something much more productive. I went to the gym around 6 p.m. and it's packed. I only got 30 minutes on a bike because everything else was taken. Now I'm doing laundry and feeling better. Had I written this when I got home from my final Rite-Aid trip, I'm positive I would have used more profanities.

I don't vote, but my ordeal today makes me want to cast a ballot for Clinton just so I can get health insurance. We're the big bad United fucking States of America and we can't make sure all of our citizens don't pay $81 to see a doctor and $161.99 for an asthma inhaler. Unreal. Truly unreal.

Needless to say, I'm super excited and nervous about this trip. I have a feeling this could wind up breaking my bank account, but I'll deal with that later.

I have to pack. Guaranteed I'll forget something.

We're gonna be gone for the Super Bowl. I hope there's a bar somewhere with that on. Could be surreal to watch such an American past-time in another part of the world.

But hey, the Lakers won last night.

HIPSTER NATION

My biggest problem has always been trying to make money off the ideas in my head. I was driving around today and was reminded of another million-dollar idea that's never left my brain. It's a website called hipsterdoofus.com. The premise is this: Take pictures of the stupidest, most irritating hipsters and post them for all to see. People could comment on each shot and try to one-up other contributors with photos of young white people who try way too hard. In theory, I should be all about hipsters. But I'm not. I've been called one many times by many people, and while I understand how some make that connection, I think they're wrong. The hipsters I speak of, the kind I saw milling around on their bicycles eating ice cream in front of Rite-Aid today, are nothing like me. There were four of them -- three guys and a girl. Every guy had a shaggy haircut, tight pants and a striped shirt (actually, one was wearing a striped sweatshirt). When they look at each other, do they think they're peering into a mirror? I'll never understand why anyone would want to categorize themselves so easily, so comfortable with putting everything they are into a box, never to escape. That's a boring life. People see my hair and peg me as a rockabilly dude. Wrong. I dig Elvis a bunch (and Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash), but that's about the end of my rockabilly infatuation. I might look like the sorta dude who jerks off to the Horrorpops or (god forbid) Social Distortion, but I'm not. I'm a vegan. I love my cats. I read books. I play golf. I listen to jazz and the blues. I drive a Corolla, not some flame-painted oldie but goodie. These hipsters, what a crock of shit, thinking they know something the rest of us don't. And what's with the thin-framed bikes? You know, if you aren't using the gear shifters on those, there's no point in riding one. But practicality has nothing to do with anything these fools are into. Then the girl turned around and it started to make sense. In my younger days, I would have dressed like a buffoon too if it meant having this black-haired beauty in my company. Guys sure do some stupid things for female attention. That explains why I never got much: I was too dumb to play the game. Hair over my eyes? I can do that. New Balance tennis shoes? Sure thing. Eat ice cream because it's intentionally childish and for some reason that's the in thing to do? I'll take cookies and cream. No, my dumb ass was wearing Dickies and punk rock t-shirts. Not exactly the most eye-grabbing look. Hopefully one of these guys is seeing her naked on a regular basis. If so, good for him. What about the other three? What's the reason for looking like schmucks? Where are their way-out-of-their-league girls? If only I had my camera, I could have taken a picture of these clowns and posted it to my website that doesn't exist. Yet.

Strange Day

I woke up early, 10:10 to be exact. I stayed up til 11, then fell back asleep until 1:15, totally blowing off important stuff. Oh well. At 2, I walked a few blocks to Rite-Aid. On the way, there was an apartment complex that caught my eye. In front was one pink-and-white sandal and a pair of black Dickies thirty feet away. The Dickies were on a patch of grass between two buildings. It looked like they had been thrown from one of the top floors of the building. Where was the other sandal? I thought that was my strange experience for the day. I was wrong. I got into Rite-Aid and instantly ran into Chris, who was buying cold medicine. Again, not the strangest thing that happened. This was: Standing in the prescription line, this weird guy approached me and asked in a joking manner if I was standing in the front of the line. I was third in line and even a blind man knew it wasn't the front. I played along and looked over. Then I looked down. He was five feet tall with a baseball cap pulled so tightly over his head that his salt and pepper hair made batwings on the side of his head. He had one of them fuzzy comb moustaches and his beety eyes were open real wide. Before I could chuckle at his mildly humorous observation, he went into a monologue. "What animal comes from the clouds?" he asked. I said I didn't know. "Rain...deer." Hardy fucking har, leave me alone creep. Without missing a beat, he asked me if I knew what the word pasteurized meant. There was no way out so I said no. Then he extended his right arm, hand flat, and ran it past his eyes. Past-your-eyes, get it? Before I could respond, he leaned forward in a real pathetic way and said "Pretty bad, huh?" Insead of answering, I looked for the camera. I fancy myself a well-known writer, but I'm not famous enough to be on Punk'd, am I? I stepped out of line for a second and he zoned in on the couple in front of me. They were your average early 30s boring white couple, the kind who, once they get in their hybrids in the parking lot, comment on all the weirdos in that store. They looked slightly less amused than I was. I was glad he was gone. Then I got back in line and he got behind me again. Total bummer. Someone walked passed us and he said "Happy New Year." Needless to say, I thought he was trying his act on a third victim and didn't turn around. He got no response, so he leaned over my right shoulder and repeated it. "Happy New Year." Startled, I turned around and he wished me a Merry Christmas. Today's January 6! Obviously someone needed to be bumped to the front of this line and get their meds. I wished him the same although on the inside I wished he would leave me alone. His next one really got me. "Did you hear the one about the rope?" "No," I replied. "Ah, skip it." I've never heard any of these before. I wondered if they were his own material. If he was five, I'd say he might have had a promising career ahead of him. But he was older than shit and probably got hit by a bus on his way home.