For Once, A Post Not About My Roommate

Yesterday I was at the mall, by myself.

I like going to the mall by myself because when I do go by myself, I'm like a special forces soldier; I know my objective, I know the location of the target, I'm in, I'm out, and no one's the wiser. It's like I was never there, no bullshitting around, no staring at the cute chick that works at the hair salon, ... I just do what I got to do, all the while skirting the ridiculous grunge-emo kids in black parachute pants and Insane Clown Posse hockey jerseys and the sexual predator-esque T-Mobile kiosk salesman.

No, I'm not going to "just buy" that over priced fucking Blackberry wannabe, to return it tomorrow... and everyone knows T-Mobile is the shittiest of the big-three networks. I mean, I have AT&T, so I would know all about shitty phone networks, bro.

Anyway, so I'm in the mall looking for a birthday present for a, uh, friend, and a copy of Capote's "Breakfast At Tiffany's" for the roommate to hopefully inject some culture into his Volcom covered skull (granted I said I wasn't going to post anything about the roommate, but... well fuck it, there it is.).

So I make my purchases at Barnes and Noble, and then cruise over to Best Buy to browse cds and dvds, make a few selections (first season of [adult swim]'s "Frisky Dingo" which is probably the most genius show that network has ever made) and then head to the register. What was interesting about all of this was that for the first time since I can remember I had actual paper money in my wallet.

My roommate paid his portion of the bills in plain old-school-ass cash. So here I had like, 100 bucks in my wallet in various denominations: 20s, 10s, 5s... I felt as if I was playing Monopoly.

The point I'm trying to make is that, in order for me to cash out from Best Buy, all I would have to do is simply hand the correct amount of bills to the overweight blue-clad cashier and be about the business of getting an Orange Julius.

But what was hampering me was the fact that some dude, someone's dad I presume, was trying to purchase a Nintendo Wii with his credit card, and could not maneuver the little card-swipey thingie at the register.

C'mon man, I know you're old, but shit, those little machines have been around since like, 1998, if not before that. You mean to tell me, that in the last ten or more years you haven't had to fucking navigate one of these things often enough to understand that you swipe your card as indicated by the little fucking picture of the card on the top of the slide, and then when prompted, enter whatever information they want - WITH THE FUCKING PEN, YOU JAGOFF - not your fat fucking finger or ... coke nail or whatever you're jabbing at the screen with, and then sign.

I mean, even my dad... my pot-smoking, anti-technological, hippie father can figure out e-Bay. Seriously.

This ... Mayor of Doucheberg... swiped his card about eleven-hundred times before realizing it wasn't being read. Then he flipped it a few times, tried it that way, so on, until he got the right combination. Then when asked to enter is PIN or whatever, he just started punching the screen with his finger, over and over again, while giving plaintive glances to the non-pulsed cashier who clearly was only thinking of his upcoming 15 minute break so he could stand in line in front of me at the fucking Orange Julius. After struggling to enter whatever had to be entered, the cashier, still off in Oz forgot to click something on his end of things, ... fuck people, you do this shit all day everyday! Get your head in the fucking game, Kevin!

Or... Hank! Or... whatever!

So now this guy, who's created a line longer than that of which one would have to stand in to get Hannah Montana tix is told by the cashier to sign in the box.

"What box?"

"The box on the screen," says the helpful cashier.

"What screen?" And the man paws at the bag which contains his fucking Wii. The cashier leans over and touches the box. "Oh, what do I sign it with?"

HOLY FUCK DUDE! Are you serious?! Are you kidding me! ...

By now I'm sighing like Al Gore debating G-Dub back in 2000; my eyes can't roll harder. I look back at the people behind me in line, and no one seems to have a problem standing there, being held up by someone else's ineptitude.

Fucking cattle.

Finally the guy realizes there's a little electronic pen tethered to the box. Audibly expresses his discovery, and scribbles. He scurries away, not realizing he came *this close* to getting his spinal chord removed like I'm Scorpion from Mortal Kombat.

I reach the front of the line, pull out the cash that my roommate gave me for his share of the bills, and it should be mentioned that since it was the first time I've paid actual cash for an item in a while, I did fuck it up. The total came out to $41.98, so I gave the guy $41 even, and just stood there, looking at him. Conversely, he stared there looking at me, waiting for the extra dollar. When I asked him what was wrong, he kinda just looked at me like I was full on retarded and just lifted the wad of bills for me to see and count.

My thing is that, unlike an XBox 360, I'm not backwards compatible. I'm always moving forward.

Like a shark. A Special Forces Shark.