Thursday, January 19, 2006

Martin Luther King Day and Bacon Wrapped Hot Dogs

I need a vacation from going on vacation. It’s like Vietnam trying to return to normal life again. During the whole trip I was worried that there were squatters in my apartment. That for three weeks they were wearing my clothes and listening to Mudhoney. Or that my Hyper-Middle-Eastern Land-dick would evict me. I thought for sure I’d get home and see the Sheriff’s tape plastered on my door. My luck, they’d find the mushrooms that my buddy left in my freezer 6 months ago. I’m sure they’d believe to when I told ‘em it wasn’t mine. They’d probably pistol whip me in the back of the squad car. They might even let their meth-fueled k-9 hounds chew on my neck while I try to convince them I haven’t touched drugs in over 3 years.
I got back and none of that happened. I still had my dopey little hovel. No squatters. I hadn’t even left the Foreman Griller plugged in. But damn, I thought for sure my new job was going to fire me. I was gone from work for three weeks, surely Larry Planskill the frozen-headed HR guy would have realized I was not essential. Or that my resume would have been riddled with mistakes, and half-truths that would have unraveled over three weeks. Nope. They kept me on. Which was a bummer because after the trip, I was on my last laundry leg. All my dress socks laid in hard balls around my bed like dead flies. Of course after Christmas and Europe I had zero cash until my next paycheck. So I had to turn my socks inside out. I know, totally ghetto, but it was either that or where white tube socks with black slacks…so…
Anyways, the payroll people lost my check in the mail. So the MLK weekend had turned into a COINSTAR Weekend. I lugged a pickle jar full of coins into the Ralph’s supermarket. I had a degree from Berkeley and UCLA. I was 30 and I was living off of couch change. As I was dumping a tsunami of pennies into the Coinstar machine, some ballsy jerk had the brass ones to ask me if I had any change. That son of a bitch. Clearly I had Change, but it wasn’t spare for christ’s sake. He was one of those Fanny Pack people with a Prairie Home Companion hat. Bastard. After paying Coinstar 8 cents on the dollar, it turned out that I had 22 dollars for the three day weekend. It was almost all gone after a couple coke zeroes. I had to buy 2 twelve packs of diet Shasta. I know, ghetto, but it was MLK weekend.
Speaking of, me and my girl decided to hit the parade. We went down to King Street and Grammercy. We were a hit at the parade because we are an interracial couple. Everyone on the floats waved to us and shouted Happy Kind Day! Some vato rolled by with a greasy cart full of bacon wrapped hot dogs that were so good my head almost exploded. I kept it together so I could eat another one. Something about salted-fatt strips wrapped around a pureed nitrate-soaked meet tube is damn good.


I don’t spellcheck.

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