Feeling Alright
7 July 2007
There was a shortage of nappies and someone had dropped grape juice in checkout lane five - business was normal at Cable SuperFood. The aisles were abuzz with idle chatter and squeaky trolley wheels; the checkout lanes turned into a musical symphony via the economic transactions taking place - the sounds of coins on coins, card swiping and the approved SuperFood farewell of "have a nice day" sometimes turned the supermarket to a site of musical beauty. Well, Dani thought so anyway. But she's the kind of girl who's impressed by how pretty bees are - everything is wonderful in her world. She gave her award winning smile (Cable SuperFood smile of the month - every single month since December 2005) to the next customer that came up to the checkout and asked if he was having a nice day.
"Everyone freeze! Hands up in the air! This is a robbery!"
For the second time in its history - Cable SuperFood was being robbed. The robber took a shotgun out of his shotgun shaped bag and hoisted it up.
"OK everyone! My name is Karl! This is the deal! I want all drawers open! I want all money out. Do this fast and efficiently! Efficiency is second only to godliness people!"
He walked down to the next checkout lane and turned; he gave a look to the customer there and shot him in the knee.
"You see look here people! This guy did nothing wrong! He was just standing here minding his own business and then all of a sudden I shot him in the fucking knee! That's what kind of crazy son of a bitch I am - shooting people that don't deserve it! Hey, what's your name buddy?"
Karl bent down to man who was crumpled on the ground but he could only manage groans.
"Oh cheer up buddy." He shoots the guy in the leg a couple more times. "Now hurry up people! We don't have all night! I personally wanted to watch Desperate Housewives!"
At the other side of the supermarket came up some shouts. Karl walked briskly down to investigate - someone else had a gun drawn and was yelling at the checkout operator.
"OK Freeze! Give over all the money in your register!"
Karl made it down to the end and pointed his gun up to the new guy. "Hey! What are you doing?"
"Robbing the place. Now get down mister shotgun man and let me do my stuff."
"I'm robbing this supermarket."
"Yeah but you're doing the whole empty all the registers thing. You won't leave any for me. All I want is this one lane."
"You can't have this lane! It's the express lane!"
"What's so special about the express lane?"
"It's where all the money's at."
"What? But people only purchase twelve items or less! There's no big purchases."
"Yes but if they make a big purchase people will use their card. Express lanes have the highest percent of cash transactions."
"Would that even matter? I thought each operator got their own little till that they took with them whichever lane they were put in. So at some points of the day they're in express lanes and other times normal lane."
"No they don't do that here. I did my research. That's what professionals do."
"Look, just give me a single lane. That's all I want."
"Fuck that." Karl shot the guy in the knees. "Let it be known to the lot of you that I do not take kindly to negotiations of any sort. It puts me in a knee shooting mood."
He walked to the customer services desk where his money had been collected. But that was when they all died.
"It's nine."
"Now let me get one thing straight, you said and I quote - 'if we don't line up right now then we won't get tickets to the Banana Boys'"
"I believe I said that."
"And here we are. Sitting outside the CD store that sells the tickets a full twelve hours before it opens because you assured me that if we didn't then we will not see the Banana Boys."
"I think I'll rather die than miss the Banana Boys."
"Yes and now if you let me make my point."
"You have a point? I thought you would have made it by now."
"We've been out here for three hours and no one has come. We don't need to be here."
"There is purpose to us being here."
"Like what?"
"It's character building."
A passerby recognised the two of them and stopped to ask them what they were doing.
"We're lining up for Banana Boys tickets."
"The Banana Boys? They suck!"
"No you suck!"
"Have you even listened to their lyrics? I mean, come on 'you are my teddy bear, come up and let me squeeze you real tight, we can dance on the clouds until the sunshine glistens and the sunflowers are full of love'"
"It really speaks to me."
"And look at these posters! They call themselves the greatest punk band ever..."
"Well. They are."
"No they're not. It's a boy band."
"They are punk! They're rebelling with their love!"
That was when they all died.
Despite education or clean clothes she managed to open her own marketing firm which has Fortune 500 companies begging to be a client of. When she was 30, she got married to the only guy she had ever loved after they spent eighteen years apart. They had a beautiful daughter Eileen who had time and time again overcome all the difficulties that life had put in front of her in a fashion that deserves her a television movie of her own. But then disaster struck, both Julia and her husband contracted leukemia at the same time - the really harsh kind. At this time Eileen was kidnapped and despite meeting all the ransom demands, they only got back her foot. Julia's husband soon fell victim to the leukemia but Julia, being Julia had stayed alive for another year which brings us to today - when she is sitting in that doctor's office - finally he came in.
"You've been cured. It's a miracle."
"How?"
"I don't know. I think I'll credit the diet I had you on."
"Nothing but oranges?"
"Exactly. I knew oranges were amazing. There is no limit to their power."
"So the leukemia has just disappeared overnight?"
"Exactly. I say the chances of it coming back is zero."
"Thank you doctor."
"Don't thank me. Thank the oranges. Thank the whole citrus family!"
She left the office and breathed in the fresh air. Never before had it smelled so fresh. So sweet. Her phone rang and she answered.
"Mummy?"
"Eileen?"
"I escaped! I showed those brutes what was what and I got out of there. I'm at home! I love you so much Mummy!"
At this point, they all died.
Brad put forward some of his lyrics "I was thinking of putting forward an anti-drugs song - I came up with 'drugs are not fun, alcohol is for losers, if you want to be like me or date me then drugs and alcoholare certainly a no no' I think the two no's at the end adds a bit of a Oscar Wilde like twist. Then in the chorus we could sing 'eat your fruit and vegetables' over and over."
"It's fantastic" said Ben, "but I thought that official Banana Boy policy was that drugs and alcohol didn't exist."
"Yeah. I mean come on guys, we're not a satanist band. Let's keep the drugs and alcohol away from our lyrics." Bryan, the unofficial band leader said in his authoritative away.
Benedict decided to offer up his latest gem, "I thought of something we haven't done before: a love song."
The others were shocked. "Brilliant" they said in imperfect harmony. That was when everyone died. Except for the Banana Boys but that's because God hates us.
Posted byBren at 10:13 pm
Labels: Cable
