Okay, so Dad got me a gift certificate to Fry's Electronics for Christmas. This is a good thing. Yes, it made the "yay" in my mouth. Little did I know what I was getting into. I have never been to a major store on the day after Christmas...
I should have known better, but I am naive. I am a stranger in this land; your ways are strange and incomprehensible to me. It should have been a clue that things would not go well when I pulled into the parking lot and joined the queue waiting for a parking spot. Car after truck after SUV wound it's way across the pavement in search of a place to park. Occasionally we passed little enclaves of people that had pulled over to the side to take a rest from the endeavor. Some of these enclaves seemed to have set up semi-permanent living quarters and appeared to have been "resting" so long that they had gone quite native. The scraps of their civilized clothing were all but obscured by the layers of indigenous materials they had adopted to cover themselves. Cardboard boxes, plastic shopping bags, and rolls of discarded (or pillaged) printer tape were ingeniously fashioned together into tribal garments. A pack of hunters passed us going the opposite direction carrying a captured pizza delivery-boy bound to a pole.
They all carried shields which appeared to be fashioned from the plastic bodies of shopping carts. There was affixed to the front of these shields the familiar cerulean blue logo of a major shipping company. Whether any of their number recalled the significance of their emblem, I do not know, though I suspect there is a wizened old man back at their camp who might dimly recall its history. They seemed a jovial bunch. Indeed, I managed to trade the top off a bic pen for a slice of their captured pizza. The fellow seemed to think he had gotten the better end of the deal, but I was starved at this point and in no condition to negotiate.
A little further on I spotted a clan of similar individuals skulking dangerously amongst the rows of parked cars. They seemed well fed but desperate young men. To the fronts of their shields were bound with copper wire the intimidating black and nuclear-green of an X-box package. I scrupulously avoided them.
Just as I was about to lose hope, the car directly in front of me banked hard to the left and came to a stop a little off the road. I slammed on my brakes, startled by the change in routine, and it took me a moment to realize what had happened. He had found a parking spot. I was now at the head of the line. We were somewhere in western Oklahoma. I parked next to New Mexico and began the trek back.
At this point I was exhausted. Beaten down by hunger and the biting wind I very nearly succumbed to my animal instincts and joined the natives. This might very well have been the end of my story had not a kindly matron offered to shuttle me back to the store. She discovered me as I had reached my wits end, having just found a discarded shopping cart and thinking what a wonderful shield that plastic siding would make. If only there were a logo I could fasten to the front of it...
Nevertheless, the kindly woman rescued me from such thoughts and lifted me back to the store as she promised. My benefactor was quite a character in her own right, and no doubt I shall commit many of her anecdotes to print in the following days, but for now suffice it to say she had many a colorful and astonishing story to tell, and seemed to think that she must take full advantage of her captive audience. I was happy to oblige her, and we got on quite well.
Along the way we passed the "pizza-hunters". They had made many advancements since last I saw them, having learned to weave strips of cardboard into surprisingly functional housing, and erected a marvelous tower out of broken up bits of pavement and industrial plastics. It was a true wonder, and I was glad to see the X-box ruffians hadn't gotten to them.
In time, we reached our destination, and my matron and I parted ways with many a sincere, if empty, promise to keep in touch. As I turned to face the great glass doors of Fry's Electronics, and the gigantic piano suspended above me, I think I must have felt a bit like Dorothy, having come at long last, and at great personal peril, to the walls of the Emerald City. Though my own journey was by no means epic, it seemed to me a great accomplishment, and I was quite proud of myself for having come so far without once relieving myself in public... and so you may understand the great urgency with which I entered the Land of Fry's.
They had converted the "In" doors into a separate entrance for exchanges/returns, and were using the "Out" doors for the entrance to the store proper. Off to my left as I entered, I spotted a smartly dressed management-type near the check-out line sweating profusely and holding up a sign that proclaimed "Line starts HERE!" He seemed to be having a dreadful time of it, and, Sir, if you are reading this, you have my sympathy. No sooner did he present his sign, than swarms of crazed consumers came rushing from all corners in a desperate bid for prime line placement. So quickly did they come, that the young manager had to trot to stay ahead of them. Indeed, it seemed the faster he moved, the faster they came until presently he broke into a sprint, a mad dash, fleeing before the tide of customers. I applaud his professionalism, though. Even under these trying circumstances, he held high his sign, proud standard-bearer of American Capitalism.
It was cold outside, unseasonably so for winter in Texas, and the gathered throng had dressed accordingly. Wearing long sleeves, heavy slacks or pants, coats, jackets, and sweaters, it was quite a display of seasonal plumage. Management was thoughtful enough to turn up the heat within the store so as to provide for our shopping/browsing/impulse-buying convenience. At first it was pleasant, even toasty. In time, it became obvious to all that this was a very bad idea. I couldn't say with any certainty, but I estimate there to have been approximately 3.7 billion people in Fry's that day, all in winter dress and moving about in close quarters. Things began to heat up rather quickly. I wondered, as I loosened my collar, why it was only now beginning to get hot as the store had to have been at least this crowded all day. I cast my gaze back toward the entrance and there found my answer. The entrance/exit doors had become congested. An overzealous employee attempting to bring an oversized pallet of PS2s in through the front by forklift had managed to lodge the thing in the doorway. Try as he might, he was having no luck freeing the vehicle. The blockage caused foot traffic to divert around to the returns/exchanges doors, which caused further congestion there. As I watched the downfall of Man begin, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Then I realized that in fact the hairs on the nape of my neck actually were standing on end, and I cast around me for the cause of this phenomenon.
To my horror I realized I was surrounded by a sea of high school aged girls, all wearing the latest in winter trends. That is to say, they were all wearing sweaters. They largest, fluffiest, most static-electricity producing sweaters money could buy, all rubbing up against each other as far as the eye could see in every direction. The air trembled, my vision blurred, I felt as if I were levitating. I must have let slip some cry of distress, for just then all 783 million of them turned to look at me. Some turned left, others right, sweaters brushing against each other...
The next thing I recall, I was being revived by a strapping young paramedic in the parking lot near my vehicle. It seems the EMP produced by the static discharge of all those sweaters had blown the building quite the fuck up. He helped me to my feet, had me sign a waiver refusing transportation to the local hospital, and went on his way to help the next poor post-holiday shopper.
Stunned and bewildered, tired, hungry and distraught, I climbed into my car and joined the homeward queue.
And I never even got my Fine Young Cannibals CD.
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