The loss of virginity & sobriety's requiem

Friday was huge.

It started off a nice, calm morning, just Dolly & I. I petted her & she purred, like most mornings, & I told her of my anxiety over work. It’s my yearning to imagine she paid close attention, that she sympathized, but honestly I think she was only interested in my magic little fingers. Then I went to work. I had expected work to be a little crazy, but not like this. Everything in the store at 2489 Willamette was 30% off & the arseholes came in spades. By the time I showed up, 1:30ish, we had probably done $8000+ in sales, a number which is completely unheard of at this store. There were customers every where, all with the same frantic look in their eye, all rushing at top speed from aisle to aisle, all asking the same dense questions, all acting in the same ignoble fashion. “I’m so sorry to hear that you’re closing, I used to shop here exclusively five years ago, it is such a shame to... Oh, is this thirty percent off too?!?” I quickly grew to hate these people.
The closing of this store is the loss of something special, but with the way we are going out it is only comparable to the losing of one’s cherry. You’re violated & violated quickly, it hurts, stings, bleeds some, the pain lingers on in memory, amplified by this void, this part of yourself that is now missing, a part of yourself that you weren’t all that aware of in the first place & so it sorrows you just that much more.
By the end of the day the store was a wrack. The produce department, my beat, was full of holes, looked abysmal & thoroughly depressed. The roots had gone soft, the lettuces refused to stay crisp, the fruits had lost all their sweetness. But now it is done. I survived my last day, though I walked out looking not much better than my department.

But! I walked out to with the knowledge that the band I play in, enjoy your fall..., was to play a show that night! This was our first show in months & our first with violinist & overall extraordinaire, Aliza Kate Fones, the metaphorical popping of her cherry. After work, Brian, Aliza & I had a quickie practice & then piled into Brian’s gas-gulping SUV & drank Newcastle twenty-two’s, while parked outside the bar. After the sound guy figured out how to mic the violin as best he could, the three of us got on stage & indie-rocked the pants off of some of Eugene’s finest & brightest. It was like a who’s who in there that night, for no other reason than that all those in attendance picked the right bar to spend their evening & their money, listening to the emotive sounds of enjoy your fall... If you weren’t there I’m afraid you missed out.

But also! the evening climbed even further up the ‘reason-to-get-lit’ ladder when, come midnight, it came time to celebrate one faux-dike & ‘team your mom’ captain, Mary Josephine Schlapoff’s, birthday. A round of tequila was shared by all, with Aliza’s brother Ryan joining in, which we all thought fantastic of him, & then the party moved off to Sam Bond’s Garage. First another shot of tequila. Then the bartender & I spent twenty plus minutes deciding on drinks for the group, taking personal penchants & current levels of inebriation into account. We were loud. We were boisterous. We were lewd. We weren’t kicked out of the bar. We stumbled home & went to bed.

The next morning we all awoke achy & dehydrated but still knowing our lifes are blessed.
L'Chiam.