June 7, 2007
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The Daily News
1 Senility enters your life so slowly that you don't always notice it until you go into your cupboard and find the milk, let us say.
2 I've gotten used to losing my hearing, my eyesight, and my teeth. That's just from having worked at YB for so many years in a dark theatre with loud music and lots of chocolate. I still consider myself endearingly young.
3 I just can't hear, see, or eat. Those things I just notice on a daily basis.
4 But the mind is another thing entirely. Like last night I had completely failed on a mission to get all my awards done. Long story so I won't go there, but bottom line: no awards.
5 And because of failing computers mixed with rip-off paper, it was too late to get the job done. You need special paper which I purchased, and which faded the ink.
6 ANYWAYZ, I traveled all the way up the hill to work on my school computer last night, and even that one couldn't do it, so dejectedly, I headed home at around 10:30 p.m. As I turned off the freeway to go home, I thought I'd just stop at Taco Bell for some grub.
7 The last time I had gone to fast food, it was the Taco Bell over by YB, where this super-white sounding guy asked in his best Buzz Lightyear, "HI, and welcome to Taco Bell! How may I take your order?" Like I was some dignitary at the Fairmont or something. When I ordered, he suddenly turned into a normal bored worker, low-key, and he just said, "What kind of soda wouldju like?"
8 TOTALLY different guy.
9 So I just got into the old Taco Bell drive-thru line, noticing that everything looked dismal and blurry. I ordered my food and looked at this sticker on the drive-thru window. It said, "We're here to help." My senile mind didn't read that at all. In all its dyslexic slendor, it reversed the entire thing so as to read, "Wishing you were here..." I envisioned a beautiful woman, almost a painting, poised and reading a beautiful piece of literature.
10
The words then moved inside my head, and soon the song began. It played on the imaginary I-Pod in my head, and my head started
singing, "Oooo-woo-who, wishing you were (echo...wishing you were
here...oooo, oooo, ooooo, oooo...) here...You know how songs suddenly
start playing in your head, and you suddenly envision beauty and art. Well, at least MY head does that, and has since I was a daydreamer looking out windows in school. So there I was...
11 My lazy, senile brain just said, "Ah, I love that song..." when I suddenly awakened and noticed the gal at the window standing there holding two huge cups, one in each hand. She had a wart, and very few working teeth. I had my worn-out ATM card in my left hand and so I suddenly panicked. My lazy brain went into overload trying to figure out how to get the card to the lady and negotiate the drinks to my cup-holders.12 It was darned-well frightening, let me tell you.
13 I didn't want to spill on the certificates, even if they weren't made, but I also didn't want to ask for a holder, because the last TWO times (yes, you heard correctly) I did, they gave me this ridiculously under-sized and weak holder, and each time, an entire Coke or Pepsi or whatever the heck they serve spilled all over the passenger floorboards of the TOOOOOONDRA.
14 In fact, each time I go over there to open the door, I forget, and the door seems sorta stuck shut. I no longer hold doors for people, I peel them open like an report folder that might have suffered a similar spill.
15 Anyway, I looked back up at the gal who was doing the transaction, and I warned her that my ATM card has a scratch, and that it might not go through, and then she disappeared for a second, you, you know how fast-food people turn invisible and then reappear?
16 Yeah. Something like that.
17 Well, with both Wishing You Were Here AND my preoccupation with the card not registering on the little machine, I just went into a dull trance, mouth down, staring into the side-view.
18 She said something, and I was going to say, "It's okay, I'll just pay cash." But after she said something around three times I realized in my senilty and deafness that she simply asked if I wanted a) hot sauce, and b) hot or mild.19 Around twenty-six seconds later it registered, and I answered, "Oh...hot." I felt a bit like a twenty-first century Walter Mitty. She disappeared once more and then re-appeared with the hot sauce. She was smiling, when I noticed that there was smoke all behind her and little beeps going on. Inside, everyone seemed to just be working normally.
20 She disappeared one more time for something, and it occurred to me that this might be my last moment on the planet, that this place was about to blow.
21 She finally returned and I just said, "Did you know you guys have smoke in there?"
22 "Yays," she answered with a thick accent. "Outrquesedilla machine..." and she smiled sweetly. I bade her well, thanked her, looked up at the sky and thanked the Lawd for not blowing me up, and took off for home.
23 On the way home, EVERYTHING became blurry. Just slightly blurry, like some bad font. But blurry. The ARCO station. Blurry. Jack-in-the-Box. Blurry. Walgreens.
Walgreens. Some things never change.24 Anyway, I got everything home safe and sound, an adventure in senility, and tried to find the CD player that kept playing Wishing You Were Here. I actually wanted to turn the song on and listen to it, but couldn't find it, so I figured what was going on in my head would work.
25 We're here to help.
26 Wishing you were here.27 A day in the life.
28 I miss everybody.
29 Have a lovely day.
30 Peace and fog.
31 Wishing you were here.
~H~
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