Saturday, May 08, 2004
(1:49 AM) | Anonymous:
5000 EXP Gained! Level up! STUPID JERK SPELL LEARNED!
Somethin' about going to Wal Mart at 4 in the morning. It's a beautiful thing which gets my hunches in bunches and my jazz in the razz a ma tazz! What's more, being somewhat goofy when functioning on little sleep, that is, being nearly KAMALA-esque, even without alcohol, it's an interesting time to interact with people. Mainly because I'm a fool, who feels the need to make sure others know this.So, I went to Wal-Mart at 4:00 in the morning last sunday. I've been meaning to post this since then, but, you know, finals week. Whether it was the fact that the final I thought was monday was actually friday, or the fact that I'd just had an epic battle with the ants in the kitchen in which I singlehandedly slaughtered millions who had infested my sister's box of Ding-Dongs (seriously..they ripped open the packages and were living inside the Ding-Dongs..) and the inhalation of raid that entailed, I was in an especially giddy mood.
I went on this voyage across the treacherous Yukon night, daring to voyage past my neighbor's llamas, who I think spit at people sometimes, because I was playing Final Fantasy 8 on my Playstation 2, and didn't realize I'd need a Playstation 1 memory card to save my progress. I've had the game since I first bought my Playstation 3 years ago, but I never played it because I tend to become immersed in such games. Now, it's summer, and I'm not taking class, so the missions of Squall, Quistis, Renoa and crew are mine to partake - or at least, would be, once I got a memory card.
This was an admittedly dorky quest. What's more, the rest of my list was varied as well
- I needed a phone, because I managed to rip the chord on mine in half, and I wanted caller ID anyway, so I can avoid all those ravenous fans of mine, especially the ones who want me to consolidate my loans or answer stupid surveys.
- I needed ant traps, because..seriously, those Ding Dongs were the sickest thing I'd ever seen. I love life in all its forms as much as the next obese man, but, the degradation of a revered snack item cannot go unpunished. I also needed some security, as I've felt like ants were crawling all over me ever since. And, lord knows any Hostess treat is forever out.
- I needed Q-Tips, because I was out. While perhaps other areas of hygiene can be allowed to lapse, like..bathing, brushing teeth, brushing hair, eradicating genital herpes, and so forth, ear wax is one thing I can't stand to let go. That's not true, but all the same, I needed Q-Tips.
- I needed a gas can, because ours got a hole in it. Probably from the dirty aunts.
- I wanted to buy some of those dinosaurs that expand in water, because I've never had them, and all my friends did, and they were cool, and I thought I might get a Weblog post out of them. I didn't, at least not really.
- Bread, I was out of Mrs. Baird's Potato Bread. God Bless it.
There were probably some other various items on the list, but I don't feel like going through the archives to find the list again. Dang, I'm not one of those people who files away every little thing, including old shopping lists, but I sure as hip hop wish I was.
The thing is, this could have been a normal trip to the store. But, realizing these strange contents would have the person looking at me strange, and probably trying to find something funny about me to say to her co-late night workers, I figured - "Why not go ahead and give her a story that will enable her to be a comedian for the night. That will empower her to a place of respect amongst her peers"..that's right, Robb Schuneman, Great Humanitarian Mode took over.
I took my cue from the original point of the trip - the memory card, the stupid role playing game, the fact that I am JUST that big of a dork. She first scanned the bread, and put it in the top part of the cart. After much trepidation of whether or not to go through with the plan, I picked up the bread..and was finally like
"Ha ha ha.. You guys only charged me 1.35 for this, but..it's bound to net me a good 500 GP! Ha ha ha." I hoped she'd respond, and give me some direction in which to go, but she just looked with a "help me" type smile. Thus, I had to elaborate,
"Ha..you see...my friends and I...we like to act out our own role playing game. And..FINALLY..it's my week to be the shop keeper..ha ha ha.. I have to stock the store with various goods for the warriors, magicians and dwarves to take on their journeys against the evil monster lords of the land. So I can finally stock up some GP, and get that EXCALIBUR SPLENDOR BURST sword I've been saving up for. But, stocking everything is pretty difficult"
Various "uh huhs" and strange looks were thrown in by her throughout that spiel. But, finally, I got a laugh as, carefully planned, at this point I brought out a notebook and pen from my back pocket, and started loudly taking inventory, pronouncing each item aloud.
"Ha..the swords" I said, as she scanned the Q-Tips. In order to make it work, I actually bought three differently colored Q-tips - red, blue, and white. As I carefully explained to her as she was scanning them, the red was the simple wooden sword, it'd only set you back a measly 700 GP or so, and each person who joined our club got one free. It was good for fighting low level monsters, up to about level 5. But above that, you needed the OAK DAGGER OF FORTITUDE, the blue Q-Tips. This would allow you to defeat most monsters, but once you really wanted to gain levels and fight your higher level bosses, you needed, of course, the EXCALIBUR SPLENDOR BURST sword, the all white Q-Tips.
Next down that little converyor belt of doom, and next checked off my list, were the ant traps - AKA - THE MAGICAL POISON OF DOOM. You cast those suckers at whatever baddies were on ya, and they'd release their poison, doing MAXIMUM CARNAL DAMAGE.
Still, I wasn't getting more than nods from this lady, she seemed disinterested. There's nothing more frustrating then blatantly trying to get laughed at, and only being ignored. I went through each item, and I even bought certain items specifically to correspond to my story - I bought toy guns, I bought wrist bands, er, POWER BANDS, I bought hats for helmets, cookies as shields, I mean..I went into great detail about our complex battle system where we'd combine rolling dice with flipping coins, and trivia from Trivial Pursuit BABY BOOMERS EDITION to determine the damage done and taken from each battle, and the HP and EXP earned...it took me forever to put together this full story, and cost me something of a pretty penny too. And did this lady have the decency to laugh at me? To ask why in the heck I was doing all this? To maybe give me some possible response other than "Oh?" or "Yeah..cool" or "uh huh". Basically, I simply wanted to bring some laughter, at my expense, to this lady, the type of lady who works at Wal-Mart in the middle of night, and thus perhaps doesn't have many stories which she can look back on with laughter. Did she give me any confidence she'd ever relate the story to a single soul? No.
Then, finally, at the freaking end, comes the phone and the expanding dinosaurs. Feeling somewhat dejected, I gave up the gimmick, and was simply like, "Ah yes..and the phone..um..well..I was trying to get my phone out from behind the computer, and the chord was under a folder of cds, so I accidentally ripped it in two. And these dinosaurs..ah..I dunno, heck, I just always wanted some, something about going to bed with them all little, and gradually expanding and stuff throughout the night, till you wake up and they're all big."
FINALLY, this brought great laughter on her part. And it was merely me attempting to explain my actualy motivations behind buying the items. That's right, the tens of dollars I spent creating an elaborate hoax to make myself look like a fool failed, while a simple mis-statement which implied some sort of joke about "morning wood" cracked her up.
Dangit. It goes to show, no matter how creative you may try to get, creating wild crazy names to explain the fact that you are buying Q-Tips, declaring Gas Cans to be FLAMETHROWERS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, you'll likely get absolutely nowhere. If you want to give someone a laugh, just make some freaking cheap pee-pee joke.
We will never evolve past the 3rd grade, dangit. Never.
Oh well, I have to go save Bombadia Garden or whatever it's called from the evil sorceress's missile attack, so..like..I'll see you guys later. If anyone knows why I seem to never get experience points when I kill the bosses, please let me know - like..is it because I'm using the Guardian Forces too much? Cause if you just have to attack and attack in order to get any experience from bosses, that must take forever.
