Me, Watching Megan Get With Graham In "But I'm A Cheerleader", Every Time;

Me, watching Megan get with Graham in "But I'm a Cheerleader", every time;

Sometimes I wish I never had to pick up the phone. My whole body itches with the need to check and see how everyone I love is doing, and I always give in to that craving. It's my own fault that they all live so far away from me anyways. So I check my phone, and on the tip of my tongue I'm always wanting to ask, "When are you going to ask me to stop?" But it's a bad habit I'm trying to curb, so I don't let it leave my mouth or bleed off my fingertips.

There's so many beautiful things about them that I love. Their sense of adventure and drive to keep going. Despite the odds that the universe seems to throw at them they just keep pushing forward in a way that leaves me inspired. They are so uniquely them that I can see parts of them flitting around in my daily life- through colors, and products lining store shelves. Through the changing of the seasons outside and the weather. I breathe in their company and am reminded of every late night conversation we had, while everyone else was asleep.

It's not enough to fill the empty space they leave whenever they're far away, but enough that I'm always reminded, so that I'm always reaching for the phone (the one thing that keeps us tethered) like a lifeline. I can't help feeling this way, because they made me who I am.

Does anyone else deal with this level of obsession? Does anyone else feel the need to keep everyone you ever dared to love in a box so you know they'll never leave? That you need to hold them captive with your words because for some strange reason that's beyond you, you don't believe that they could ever love you back? Even if they made me everything I am?

A Report! From Inside The Walls of Mallmart

He looks up to the ceiling as if he can see through it into the stars. His palms outstretched on either side, inviting any spirits to join them. This of course, was an act. He was not channeling spirits, and he was not communicating with the dead in any way. That didn't stop his clients from believing what they already wanted to believe though. In truth, he still doesn't understand why whenever someone comes to him asking for a higher power's help, they seem so often to get the very thing they had asked for. Maybe it's all just a game of chance or maybe there is some higher power out there that he is not privy to. Whatever it is though, it always seems to leave their eyes cold and dead, and they never leave this little town in the middle of nowhere that he calls home. Maybe he's just a lucky person who is spreading his luck to others, in fact- maybe he's a god. With that thought his eyes flick back down to the lady sitting across the table from him, clutching her worn leather purse in her hands in vice grip. He exhales a long, hissing sigh.

Because this is the story of a Mallmart Associate.

What do I remember after Hemi passed away? Well, I remember eating a lot after the shock wore off. I remember going online to spam my friends with all my distressing feelings, thinking if I just got them out of me I wouldn't have to sit with them and allow myself to be uncomfortable. I began to wonder if they ever got sick of having to come to my rescue whenever I was having a bad day, and eventually I stopped writing. 

I believe that night was when I decided to try out eel for the first time. Everyone kept saying it was rich in flavor and that I would just love it, so of course I tried it late in the night, sitting in front of my tv in a catatonic state. Legally Blonde became background noise as I sat in quiet contemplation, right up until it was time to head to work.

Getting back into the swing of working was surprisingly easy. I suppose it's just like learning to ride a bike; you never forget. The rattling of the thing that lives in the pipes, the creaks and groans of the moving shelves- these are all a new normal that the associates of Mallmart have been accustomed to. It was the social aspect I wasn't ready for. Some things you may already know;

I'm not very popular among the stocking team. I can be a bit of a micromanager, and my anal retentive personality can get on others nerves pretty quickly. Leah in particular seemed to dislike me because of this, but I had trouble understanding why. What had I done that was so bad? 

I'm not going to go far into how we got into an argument that afternoon, the whole thing was honestly a mess that started from a strange story a coworker was telling, one that I wasn't involved in, and then Leah went on to make a comment, insulting both me and my cat- my cat who had just passed away recently, in the process. "You can hate me as much as you want, but keep Hemi the fuck out of it," She was surprised by my outburst and hell- I was too. She shrunk back in fear, seeming a bit ashamed of herself but then I added on, "Are you really that small of a person?!" And then, as if my words had alit some new rage that had been lying dormant, she came back at me with renewed fire.

 "At first I thought you were getting special treatment from the higher ups by the way you just go along with whatever management says, but now I realize exactly what your problem is- you're a bootlicking idiot! You're off in your own little world, being a yes man- how the fuck can you be so naive to think they will ever, ever promote you to team lead? You may be good at your job, but no one will ever take you seriously, your blind optimism fucking disgusts me-"

"What else do I even have left to do?!" I yelled, foolishly ignoring the heat rising in the back rooms and the saliva pooling in my mouth. "I need this job, okay? I need money for Jenna and the baby and hell- I was hoping I'd at least make some friends since I don't know anybody in Niceville but fuck me, right? I'm so naive and stupid, right?" Leah goes to say something, something about how I make her feel guilty for hating me since I look like I don't even know what a tool I'm being, something about how I make everyone look bad by reaching the unrealistic expectations management has for us, something about how some of them aren't willing to completely break their bodies for this job like I am.

Some of these things might've reached me and made me reevaluate had it been in another scenario. 

Instead I abruptly pitched forwards and belched up a  vile mixture of vending machine soda and low tide on the floor between us and by extension, her shoes. As Leah screeched, I stared in wide eyed shock at the inky concoction that swirled on the ground, and slowly looked back up at Leah's expression of complete revulsion. 

"Would you like to round up to donate to St.Jude's children's hospital?" The cashier asks as Leah and I awkwardly stand in line, shoulder to shoulder. "Uh, yes please…" I mumble as I hand Leah the new shoes. "...Leah, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"Don't." Her voice is short and clipped with the sound of a warning on her tongue. I watch as she pinches the bridge of her nose, trying to rub the exasperation on her face. Maybe it's just a lost cause. Clearly I screwed up something along the way, I was just going to have to accept that we would never be friends- but just as I was off in my head thinking all this, something interesting happened. Leah apologized to me. She said she hadn't realized how bad her words were affecting me until today and that she'll try to ease up on me from now on. I apologized too for being too pushy about our deadlines. We agreed that something needed to change and that while we didn't need to like each other, we needed to at least get along. We shook on it, and I know I'm going to hold up my end of the deal. I have faith she will as well. 

This pun is hilarious, but Victor Frankenstein would absolutely not fucking say that.