Everyone thought it was the end of the world, well, everyone but me. I knew while it was happening that it wasn’t that big of a deal, sure there was a big mess at first and then the stink! Everyone thought the stink alone was enough to kill us all, but for me, I knew we would survive. And now things are back to near normal, not all the way back to normal, you still can’t get a decent cup of coffee anywhere, something to do with the contaminates in the water supply, but they keep telling us it’s okay to drink, it just has a funny after taste. I still drink the coffee but I remember when it was much better and it makes me a little sad. I think I was happier when the air didn’t stink and the coffee tasted better but it’s been awhile now and I’m adjusting. So enough doom and gloom there’s a life to live, things that need done. Isn’t that right? Things need done, right? I got to get myself out of this pile of rags I call a bed and get to it. I remember when an alarm would go off near my soft, springy bed. The smell of clean sheets, I remember that! The first time, fresh out of the dryer, I’d take a shower before going to bed so they would stay perfectly nice. I can still feel the crispness, crawling between two wrinkleless white sheets, but that’s gone, no need to dwell on it, things to do. The shower would be hot, not so hot as to be a challenge but a little past warm, I’d shampoo once, rinse and repeat, just like it says on the bottle. A lot of people don’t realize how much cleaner it gets your hair, the repeat part, it really does and it takes almost no extra shampoo at all, just a little time. Well I’ve got time now but I can’t remember when I saw my last bottle of shampoo. No wait it was in a Kmart, I was loading up on toilet paper, I was convinced it would be the prime currency of the future. While I piled toilet paper onto a cart, a girl, she couldn’t have been more than twelve, she was digging to the back of the lowest shelf in order to get the last bottle of Sauvé Strawberry shampoo. It was all she took. She ran out of the store clutching one bottle of pink shampoo, grinning like she was going to Disneyland in the morning. She wasn’t going to Disneyland; Disney had already boarded up the gates and posted guards, waiting for better times.
david blankenship 