The King Of Hearts: Part 1

The King Of Hearts

1.) The Ice Machine

The boys, Mitch, Billy and I started drinking early in the evening. It was a 70 degree day in April and we walked out to the corner liqueur store to buy a fifth of Sailor Jerry's and a twelve-pack of Pabst. Billy had to go inside and get some cash from the ATM, so Mitch and I waited outside. I decided to climb on top of the ice machine and sit on top of it.

"Ha ha, see if I ever need to escape from the cops, I can climb up here and onto the roof!" I said to Mitch.

"Yeah?", Mich said.

"Oh yeah! I mean...I could hide up here for days I think. I could get my groceries here." I said.

"I think you might get sick of paying five dollars for stale QuickieDoo pre-packaged submarine sandwiches.", Mitch said.

"I don't know, it's made with real bread substitute!" I quipped. "Besides, they have Hot Pockets too".

I saw Billy come out, and I slid off the top of the ice machine. On my way down I got a small rip on my best pair of Levis. "FUCK-O-MIGHTY" I thought. "Oh well", I figured. "I can sew them up later."

Billy gave me cash, and I went inside to buy. They didn't have any 12 packs of PBR. "Shit!" I thought. I didn't know what else to get, so I called Mitch on mien Razr. "Yeah they don't have any 12 packs of Pabst, and I don't know if we wanted a pint or a fifth of the Sailor's?"

"Uh. . ." I could hear him talking to Billy on the phone. "Uh. . .they don't have Pabst in twelves. And do we want a fifth or pint of Sailor's?"

Soon this was the least of our problems. A 6'3 townie dweeb with terrible tattoos all over his arms came into the walk-in cooler where I had been having this phone conversation. He looked like a guy who might have been related to Penn from Penn and Teller, and had the fowl odor of stale sweat, cigarettes, and Frito Lay snacks. He smelled like Kevin Smith looks.

"Hey uh, do you want to tell me why you sat on top of my ice cooler?"

"His ice machine?", I wondered to myself. Apparently, he must own the entire chain of QuickieDos. His RANCID band-tee had somehow led me to believe that he actually did not work in corporate. How terrible would it be to be both failed hipster garbage AND an establishment shill at all at once?

"Uh, was that a problem?" I asked.


"Yeah, well you crushed the top of the ice cooler!", The Dweeb said.

"Nahh it was pretty messed up before.", I explained.

"No! I looked at it 20 minutes ago as I was coming from another store", The Dweeb said.

Did this guy really take a good look at the top of all the ice machine before he went into every QuickieDoo?

"I doubt that very much actually.", I told him.

"Well, lets go look!" said El Dweebo.

I followed him outside. Mitch and Billy saw me talking to this dude as they saw him pointing at the ice machine and they couldn't restrain their laughter.

"Uh yeah, there it is", he said.

"Eh, well it was pretty much like that. I didn't do anything to it." I reiterated.

"No! I SAW you" he said.

I thought about telling him that the ice machine had put a rip in my good denim and that we should call it good. I decided against it.

"Well, what do you want?" I placated.

"Just leave." he said with a sigh of dissatisfaction and apathy.

Well, I was going to buy fifth of booze, and some beer from this guy. Did he think he was coming out ahead with having a crushed ice machine and refusing to sell me goods from his store? I got the sneaking suspicion that this kind of corporate stewardship is why we have had Enron, and the recent Credit Crisis on Wall Street. Certainly this is the kind of decision making that gave us the Sub-Prime mortgage nonsense as well. This guy might have seemed like a shitty executive, but with the way things have been going lately, he is about par for the course.