The Daily News

1  Well! I certainly didn't see THAT happening.

2  So...the Warriors are human. 

3  How were we supposed to know that?

4  WAY off their game. Maria Madre. 

5  I don't know about any of you, but I'm never off my game.

6  Except when I dropped a Mocktail on the floor last night, glass, ice, lemons, and all.

7  To this second I have no idea how it slipped through. One second it was there, the next, it was on the floor. I put a forensic square around it so nobody would taint the crime scene. I didn't know ice could hold so still. 

8  That's that.

9  It happened. It's over. Move on. 

10  Moving On, Part One: I'm happy to report that I am once again a card-carrying member of Costco. More precisely: a card-carrying Executive Member of Costco. I already was one around ten or so years ago. 

11  Evidently my past haunts me. Allow a brief preface: I always felt intimidated by Costco, because it begs this simple question: what store makes you pay to use it? So even walking into the place makes me feel I'm trying to pull one over on someone. 

12  I walked through the front wondering how I would slip past the Costco palace guard. They had one, and he was on it. 

13  I figured lots of new members need to go through that door, but for some reason, I still felt the need to play-act.

14  "Where do we go to sign up?" we asked. He pointed off to the left. "Thanks!" I said. Pink Floyd bells chimed in my head. Footsteps. Double bass beats. You know the drift. 

15  Within seconds, I found myself standing at the Costco membership desk. The first thing the guy wanted was for me to sign up for the Executive Member card, since I was already in the system.

16  He had me write all my updated info on the back of some tri-stapled document, look across the desk to a distant camera, and cheese it up. 

17  Within seconds I had my brand new Costco Executive Member Card, and was off of a trilateral shopping spree. 

18  After a bit, it became obvious we needed a cart. I think it was the wine aisle, but we needed a cart. I volunteered, which required going outside, and then coming back with a shopping cart, all this WITH the added confidence of my Costco Executive Member Card. 

19  I now held in my hand my personal ticket to cheap cargos, tasty sushi, and flotation cocktail bars. I placed it somewhat neatly in my wallet, and proceeded to the shopping cart area, which felt like it was six blocks away. I again got annoyed by the entire scene. You walk into most stores without doing all this, right?

20  I walked the cart back to the entrance, spotted Palace Guard Guy, took out my wallet, grabbed my card AND my I.D. and smiled as I flashed all of it at the guy. "I'm legal!" I said. I moved past him with a mile-wide smile on my face. I then heard a voice. 

21  "That's your Three-A card, man!" Floyd's Money played in my head, the climax of the tune.  

22  I stopped in my tracks. He caught me. Without hesitation, I said, "Hey, it worked!" I rolled my cart forward.

23  For a millisecond I thought he might chase me. I looked back, and I was the last thing on the guy's mind. He kept smiling at customers, and showing a wonderful disposition. Us and Them segue. 

24  From there, it was all of us and the babies, moving through all the Costcoian aisles, aisles of dreams. Cases of wine for parties, packages of farm-fresh-organic chicken, and islands of sushi. Cardboard-display islands, but islands nonetheless. 

25  Not only that, a bunch of different people came over and talked to us about the babies, who had their cuteness controls turned to maximum cuteness.

26  I loved it, of course. And after all...

27  Nothing else unusual happened, but what a nice day, and what a nice walk. It helped having Pink Floyd guiding my course. 

28  And because we walked so much, I clocked my six-plus miles early in the day. 

29  Good thing. 

30  After that , I was able to pay, get home, cook some food, and set the garbage out neatly. The world righted itself. 

31  While we were gone, we had some landscaping guys come by and get rid of our tree roots, and clean up the entire front of the house. I had completely forgotten that those guys were even there. New sod. New flowers. Nice to come home to. They had just finished. Deus ex Machina. All righted itself in the end. I stood on the lawn. A lunatic is on the grass...

32  Moving On, Part Two: Late at night I still needed to go for a walk. I walked outside, enjoyed the night, and finally sat down, had some ice cream, and wrote this stuff. 

33  What happened next was funny, at least to me. The lunatic was in my head, at this point. 

34  In order to write about all of this, I needed to show my I.D.'s to myself. Make sense? I needed to know exactly what the name of the Costco card was. I needed to look re-organize my wallet so that the next time I go to Costco I will know precisely where everything is. 

35  When it was well past the 11 p.m. I began putting my wallet back in order. 

36  There is only one prob. 

37  Because of that ONE card, my wallet no longer closed. 

38  Which is interesting, because I have always controlled that. It took me a thousand years to figure it out, but when I became the Activities' Director up at EVHS, my predecessor, Jesse Griffin showed me some of the ropes. He had purchased for himself a card-holder that housed tons of people's cards. 

39  I had never really had to deal with that in the past, and I loved the entire concept. He had the thing organized alpha, as I recall, so that finding things would work. Duh. 

40  I took that entire concept and decided I could do the same thing with all of the cards I get. I always keep a bunch in a rubber band, but I liked the idea of having them all organized in a book. 

41  So it surprised me that once I got this Costco Executive Member Card, my wallet wouldn't close. I kept trying. It tested my wallet to the limit, so the first thing I need to do after launching this nonsense TODAY is to re-organize my wallet.

42  ON Garbage Day. Today. Like, right now. 

43  Can you begin to imagine how stressed this makes me?

44  Why, I'm a sodden rag. 

45  Not your worry.

46  Your job is to read this stuff as swiftly as you can, and then move on to doing more productive things. 

47  I release you to do just that.

48  Not many of these left. 

49  So I gottago. I'll see you on the Dark Side of the Moon. 

50  Have a GREAT day. 

51  We'll see you again.

52  Peace. 

~H~

fin.

Afterword

The wallet worked. All happened as it should.

Wish you were here. 

Peace.