Last day as a 20-something, people...
Thankfully, The Grownups have gone to work, and Lil Bro and new SIL have gone off to do married people stuff. I told myself I was going to do some serious laying around today, since today is the last day for a while that my time will be my own, or that I will just be able to move at my usual snail's pace.
I puttered for a while this morning, watched a few episodes of the A-Team (remembered how much I love it when a plan comes together), and then could stand it no longer. I'm sort of freaking out inside that I'm not back at the house putting the last few things in boxes and cleaning the bathroom. I have this nagging feeling that I've forgotten to do something really important. The schedule is a little tight for my mental health.
So to take my mind off things, I set out for some good old fashioned Day After Christmas Exchanging. I had some boots to take back, and I needed a new cell phone battery. I went to the ghetto mall (less traffic from overcaffienated soccer moms), so the Contact With Crazies was admittedly minimal. The scariest person I met was the lady with the Christmas theme sweater at the Verizon place. (I can only imagine how many Christmas sweaters this person actually has, since it's the day after Christmas and she's still sporting one.)
They were out of batteries, but she was willing to do a little on-the-side sale because she'd bought the last battery for her son's phone. She was all, come here in the back with me. But I didn't wanna. When ladies with theme sweaters on ask me to come places with them, my usual instinct is to back away slowly. But with the big road trip coming, there wasn't time to dick around.
I went with her. It was all creepy back there. Other ladies in theme sweaters were doing things to half-dead cell phones, and I thought, Lord, this is how I'm going to go out. Was this not a cell phone store at all but some kind of front for a human traffic ring? Or worse? The headline would read: "Promising writer found strangled with snowman sweater. Foul play suspected."
She slipped me the battery and then got all whispery. "I'll take cash," she said, holding out her hand.
Realizing I had no cash on me, I looked outside and saw the Day After Christmas Exchanging traffic grinding to a halt on the highway. The ATM was across the street. How would I get there without, ack, walking? I was parked in a vortex ringed by Wal Mart, Kohl's, and a strip mall, deadly even on an innocuous day of the year, and every driver seemed to be gooned on the sugar they'd been consuming for the last 48 hours. Somehow I managed to avoid being killed (thankfully I don't drive one of those long-assed pimpwagons--it's easier to weave through holiday traffic in a little tiny chick car).
I made it to the ATM, took out $60 in cash, but figured Sweater Lady wouldn't have the change. So I popped into the internet cafe near the ATM to break one of my twenties. Big ass mistake. The girl at the front of the line apparently worked at an internet cafe in Asheville and was marvelling at how differently they do things in this one. "You put your bucket of peppermint patties out ?! We make people ask for them, so they won't steal!!" And the dude using the cafe's one computer was hassling the cashier because he couldn't get on MySpace. I think I ended up with somebody else's latte, as it was pink and had all kinds of crazy stuff in it and tasted like fruitcake.
Thirty minutes later, I'm walking out with my freaky latte and my correct change, wondering if people who spend a lot of time in coffee shops are bred in some kind of pod colony and nursed on chemicals that jack up their need for caffeine.
Sweater Lady was waiting for me. She winked at me. "I knew you'd come back. You had that...honest...look about you." The kind of honest you'd like to beat out of me with a meat cleaver, I wondered? "And ain't life weird," she said. "While you were out there getting cash, the UPS feller came with a whole box of batteries."
It was a Christmas miracle.
