Santa is The Real Thing

I will go on record as an anti-capitalist, but along with past stints as a vegetarian, Christian, poet and corporate citizen, I approach these designations with the half-est of hearts. So yes, I hate Wal-mart. Of course I hate it. What's not to hate about it? But I go there. My bohemian lifestyle unfortunately also has a bohemian salary.

This past Saturday turned out to be one of the best/worst Wal-Mart trips ever. Our friends were absent from the coffee shop, so Maya and I went directly to item 2 on the intinerary to get the oil changed. God had smiled upon me, like he does on all His appointed shoppers when the woman at the oil-change check-in tent proclaimed "Goddamn, that stupid bitch was supposed to bring me back her keys! You're going in line ahead of her as long as you don't park by those flags, and bring me you goddamn keys back!" Never one to look a hook-up horse in the mouth, I did as I was told, assured my car would be done in 40 minutes, just long enough to get everything needed for 21st century survival.

After getting the cart loaded up and ready to go, I checked in at the desk and evidently the bitch remembered her goddamn keys and edged in before me and brought a couple friends, since my car wasn't even in the garage. This was OK actually because it allowed for a couple things:

1. I got a sneak peek at what my daughter will look like all the time as a devastatingly bored teenager. The hat was given to me at one of my teaching gigs at the aluminum plant, and has been sitting unworn in the back of the car because a baseball hat makes my head look even impossibly more like a melon. I think she kinda rocked it, largely because it matched her outfit, and she's been waering it off and on ever since, and.....


2. Santa's arrival was announced in our second hour! Black Santa! That wasn't even fat, like he had to cinch his belt! On a throne made of Coke crates! Up in the Deli Section, right in front of the cheese ball island! This is pleasing to my peckerwood liberal-guilt Whitey-ass that not only does my daughter still full on believe in Santa*, but a black, trim Santa walking right by countless Santa-correct images did not throw her off her game at all. We stalked Santa as he made his way through the store, pretending to look at towels and blenders until he ascended to the Throne of The Real Thing and Maya got her picture taken.


3. I was hoping for the trifecta that my new glasses would be in, but lo, they came in today. The lens, now newly stretching into my periferal vision, is a little offputting, with reality streching around me with alarming clarity, but transition lenses are like the iPhone of glasses -they do everything! For the first time in ages, I wasn't squinting as I drove. So what if they make me look a little like fat, bearded Rivers Cuomo - if Rivers Cuomo was living right, he'd wish he looked as good as me.

* She was cying Sunady morning on the way home from a big sugar-orgy sleepover, because she heard on the news that Aqua Dots (greatest toy ever) were recalled on account of lead**, and her know-it-all booger-eating compadre told her that lead is poisonous and will KILL YOU, and she just realized that she had put Aqua Dots on the list she originally sent to Santa, and she didn't want Santa or the elves to get exposed to some poisonous lead! I told her Santa would be fine, and that he reads all those warnings.

** It actually wasn't lead, but that Aqua Dots, when ingested, acted like the date rape drug caused the recall. Her lead fears came when she heard also on the news (twice in her life has she heard the news and both times it was a personal tragedy) that some toys from China were being recalled because of lead, and her know-it-all friend pointed out the "Made in China" on some plastic vampire teeth she had. Fuck the news, yo.