Things that were Horrible about Yesterday

Yesterday morning, I ran out of milk.

It wasn't a nice morning, yesterday morning. I noticed that even before I noticed I hadn't any milk. Rain was drumming on the windows, and a wet-leaf smell had risen from the street. Bloody Vancouver winters. It's always raining, always grey, and me without a brolly. (I bought one when I moved back here, but it got lost right away. I've always had a knack for losing umbrellas. The longest I ever had one was two years--except I really just had it for two weeks, at which point I left it in Eva's wig shop. I got it back again a couple of years later, when I was back in the neighbourhood. The wig lady had kept it all that time. I don't remember having it after that, though. Knowing me, I lost it on the way home. Hell, I probably left it in the wig shop again.)

Anyway, it was raining yesterday morning, and I was out of milk. I'd noticed a wee shop across the street, so I popped out to get some. It was kind of exciting at first, scurrying about in the rain. I ducked under awnings and other people's brollies, and arrived on the other side of the road with nary a drop on me. I felt very accomplished as I squeezed into the store (and I do mean squeezed--the place was so tiny the shelves almost reached the doorway. With two sweaters and an overcoat on, I came within an ace of getting stuck).

I found the milk quickly, then set about filling my arms with canned soups. I nosed my way round the whole store, snagging cereal and string beans and a bunch of bananas--and then they didn't take Visa, so I had to put it all back. Bugger. I wasn't nearly as frisky, squeezing back out. The brolly brigade had dispersed, and the awnings thinned further down Burnaby Street. I could go home dry and milkless, or continue my quest and get soaked. I should've gone home, of course--damp weather's murder on my health, just for starters, and then there's the horrid sensation of cold drizzle sliming one's face--I should've gone home, but I didn't. Sniffling in the cold, I shuffled off to the west.

It wasn't too long before I came upon another corner store, a slightly larger one, with a Visa sign in the window. I still had to squeeze in, though; the door weighed about five hundred pounds, and wouldn't open all the way. This time, I wasn't arsed with the soup and the beans and the cereal. I got my milk, scurried up to the counter, and--

"Excuse me, miss. I ask you to open your pockets, please." (This was the man behind the counter talking. He didn't speak very much English.)

"I--I'm sorry?"

"I have to see in your pockets."

"I don't understand."

"He means you're busted!" (This was some rotten teenager--the sort who wouldn't have dared say a word if he hadn't been surrounded by five of his rotten friends.)

"I beg your pardon?"

"I beg your paah-don! I beg your paah-don!" (Teenagers again, now doing bad British accents.)

"I think you take something not belonging to you."

"I think you're mistaken! I was getting out my credit card, see?" I waved my Visa in his general direction.

"No, I see you put something in."

I must make it quite clear, at this point, that I had put nothing in--nor would I ever.

"This is--"

"Hey, do you want us to frisk her for you?" The teenagers were all around me now, getting their horrible Dorito breath in my face.

"No! Get away from me!" I must have sounded terrified, because they did back off a little. To forestall further harassment, I plunged both hands into my pockets, pulling out double handfuls of trash (keychain, various bank cards, papers with notes-to-self written on them, pens, apple bar wrappers, crinkly old bank statements, and so forth). "See? I don't have anything!"

"Show linings."

"You've got to be...oh, forget it." Depositing the contents of my pockets on the counter, I turned out the linings, in all their holey splendour. The teenagers, meanwhile, had started an obnoxious commentary on my pocket-trash. They even made fun of my name, which they read off my phone bill.

"I'm sorry, miss," said the clerk, not looking particularly sorry. "Hey, you kids leave her alone." The teenagers wandered off in search of...of more Doritos, or something, and I paid for my milk. I didn't look up once. I knew I ought to say something witty, or drop my Visa and make the clerk pick it up--anything to make him feel like complete garbage, just for a moment, but I didn't want the teenagers to come back. I felt unusually...defeated, I suppose, would be the word for it. I didn't find it funny, which I ordinarily do when something ridiculous happens to me. I thought maybe I looked like a bum, with my scuffy boots and tattered overcoat. I thought I must look half-starved, and not beautiful any more. I thought my youth was over, and all my dreams. My head went all bowed and heavy. It was a very downcast sort of moment.*

When I got home, I dropped the milk on the floor. The carton burst (of course), and Stella went through the puddle, tracking milk over everything.

Later on, I dropped the mouse on the floor, and that broke as well. Then, I messed up the picture I've been working on since mid-November, and stubbed my toe on this annoying sticky-uppy thing outside the Rat Room. (I'm not sure what you'd call it--it's a raised sort of bit, where one kind of floor tiling meets another. Every time I walk past it, I stub my toe. I hate that thing.)

At any rate, that was why yesterday was awful, and why I avoided saying anything at all about it at the time. Now, on a rather lighter note, here's why today is also awful: THE TOILET IS CLOGGED AND I HAVEN'T GOT A PLUNGER! Oh, and I poured half a bottle of Lysol in there (I don't know why), and now the water's all pink and woodland-fresh. The air is also pink and woodland-fresh. Come to think of it, so am I, and so is everything else in the Rat's Nest. Tomorrow, I suppose, I'll have to embark on an epic plunger-quest in the Shoppers Drug Mart. If anything stupid happens to me on said quest, I'm jumping in front of the Number 8 bus (or whichever bus runs along Davie). So if you don't hear from me tomorrow....**

* It's not that I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, or anything. In the world of ants, molehills are mountains.

** And if you took that seriously, I'll shove you in front of a bus.