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Lars'
Wars
May
4, 2002
Scandal at
Ralph’s Marina Market
Today
Kevin and I went grocery shopping after watching Spiderman at the
Columbia Tri-Star lot. I really liked the movie, but it was hard to calm down
afterwards. Then, after
we settled down and were completely out of Vodka (about 4:00 p.m.),
we decided to go to the landlord’s house to pay rent and stop by
Ralph’s on the way home.
I
felt it was going to be a strange day when I saw a woman with the
shortest miniskirt and the highest spike heels I have ever seen at
Ralph’s. It is not
uncommon to see women in see-through knit dresses and spike heels,
but these shoes must have come from a dominatrix shop on Hollywood
Blvd. They were black, six inch heels with clear plastic tops.
If one ventured a look beyond the shoes, you could see that
the skirt barely covered her panties in back, and in front, it was
about two inches short of covering the crotch. I was still recovering from the motion sickness I felt at the
movie, and so it was difficult to watch her make out with her
man-friend in front of the French rolls.
I was trying to buy an Italian baguette at the time, but I
refrained from picking it up for fear of stimulating them further.
Another woman came over to console me, as she could see that
I was having trouble with the bread, but her conversation did not
relate to what I was saying. It
was like we were having two different conversations that did not
overlap. As if that were not confusing enough, when we decided to
check out, I went to the shortest line where an older woman wearing
all black, Chanel sunglasses, and 3” chunky heels was staggering
over her cart, trying to open a smoothie bottle.
When the plastic tab finally came off, she nearly fell down,
but she grabbed onto the cart, which slid into the counter and came
to an abrupt halt. Then she proceeded to try to open another one, which she
placed next to the half-eaten salad already in her cart. I don’t remember what else she was buying, but she refused
to pay for the smoothies, saying that she had brought them in
herself. Carlos, the
bag boy, was having none of this, and so after she left, he reported
her to the manager. Carlos
told me that the last time she came in, she fell down on the floor
in front of him and started yelling, “I can’t breathe, I can’t
breathe,” but evidently, an ambulance was not forthcoming.
The checker, Jorge, told me that the reason for the commotion
was that it was a holiday, Quatro de Mayo, and he had not even seen
the woman in the miniskirt/spike heels.
There
was more to this story, but I forgot it before I could write it down.
*************
Lars goes to the Accountants' Office
2002
March 19
I’ve
decided to start keeping a diary on the computer, as it is easier
for me to write this way.
So here’s, the scoop for today, Tuesday:
This
morning I went to meet with the accountants in Santa Monica, and
I had a little trouble finding the address because they are on Lincoln
Blvd, and the numbers keep changing, seemingly at random.
Driving through Venice, they are in one order and then when
you cross into Santa Monica, the order reverses, and so I was looking
on the wrong side of the street.
I shouldn’t have been driving at all because of my Mars/Mercury
transit (or whatever Mars transit I’m having now, but it feels like
Mercury is involved), but since I wasn’t going very far, I thought
the risk would be relatively small.
Anyway, I just decided to park when I got somewhere close
and started walking because who knows where the back streets might
take me—many of them have no outlets, and I had been to one of those
on the way already.
I
think the accountants must be lesbians because it was all women
in the office, each one of a different age group and station, and
I was the only one there wearing women’s shoes (NOSE, which look
the same for men or women).
I talked with Cathy, who is probably second in command to
Gail, the oldest and most experienced and also the owner of the
company. Unfortunately,
I couldn’t understand most of what she was talking about because
my mind would wander when she started using accounting words that
I’m not familiar with. So
I told her I would send her an email with the information that I
think she wants from me so that she can quote me a price, and then
she can email me back to let me know what I’ve left out.
I was hoping I could just give her the shoebox with my receipts
in it, but J.D. told me that that would cost too much.
Afterwards,
at the grocery store, an old woman asked me if I could tell her
where the crackers with peanut butter were.
She said she had been directed to my aisle (where I was trying
to get coffee) by one of the clerks.
I looked around, and all I could see was cookies, and so
I told her that maybe she would have to buy the peanut butter separately
and put it on the crackers herself.
Then she said that it was not for her and that she was buying
it for the USO and they might not have utensils.
So I looked further down the aisle and found it for her,
but I could only find cheese crackers with peanut butter.
She bought it anyway and thanked me.
I was still having trouble finding beans, and I found out
later that they were stored in the “pasta” and “foreign foods” aisle.
I’m not sure why they are there, but I had looked everywhere
else. I guess they
just had extra space there.
Then when I checked out, I got a very talkative checker who
was 30-something, slender, and attractive.
He bagged my first two packs of diet Shasta grapefruit soda
into double plastic bags and then asked me whether I wanted paper
or plastic—he didn’t have a bagger to help at that time.
I told him I preferred paper because the plastic bags slid
around too much in my car, and then he asked me if I was a wild
driver because I reminded him of the woman in the “Where’s the beef?”
commercial. He asked
me if I remembered that commercial, and I told him I was not a wild
driver in my opinion, but that others may disagree.
For some reason, he couldn’t get the “Where’s the beef” woman
out of his mind, and I told him that I could take the one bag with
plastic and wedge it between some of the paper bags.
He suggested I use seat belts to secure the groceries, which
I do sometimes, but I told him I only intended to take back streets
to get home. I was
trying to avoid major streets because of my Mars transit.
I
thought about calling someone today, but then I thought that maybe
I should write instead, and if I keep a diary, as I used to, I could
just print it out and send to people in lieu of correspondence.
This may actually save me time in the long run and provide
evidence, if needed, such as for the doctor’s office, which sent
me a nasty notice that I received today saying that I had neglected
to pay a bill from October and that I had been sent many invoices
and please to take care of this overdue bill for $15 as soon as
possible. I checked
in my shoebox for old doctor bills that I may have filed without
opening, but I couldn’t find any, and so I called the doctor’s office
and told them that I never received any of the bills for $15, and
that I didn’t even know what it was for.
They told me not to worry and that they probably had not
sent me any—it was all to blame on their antiquated system and that
it would not happen again once they got their new system working.
They told me not to take it personally and that they had
sent these letters to lots of people and it would not affect my
credit rating. The
bill, it turns out was for a phone call I had supposedly made to
Dr. Katz at the wrong hour.
They charge $15 if your call is made outside certain business
hours, and so I was advised to call only during those hours, although
I can’t remember what they are.
The hours vary depending on the day of the week, and so it
is hard to keep track. I
don’t even remember calling the doctor, and I told the woman at
the office that I could not remember that far back, and she said
she couldn’t either—nobody could, but someone had written down that
I had called. I wish
they had also written what I said. So I’ll pay the $15 because I can’t remember, but this is another
reason why I need to keep this diary.
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