The mission.

Gunnery Sergeant Hartman stood tall in my head. All right men, we are going to do this by the numbers, we are going in there and getting out with as few casualties as possible. Parked outside the liquor store I prayed for the big fat hairy man to be working tonight, please god don’t let it be the nice motherly lady, not her, I don’t think that I could bear it. Hyped up with purpose and desperation, I jumped out of my car; B lined for the doors and began the mission.

They say no battle plan survives the first shot, and I took a casualty when I looked at the nice older lady behind the counter. Most people get desensitized to this kind of thing when their very young, filled with piss and vinegar, and mad at the world. Being 31 and completely inexperienced at this sort of thing, I was out of my depth. I was too far into it and I knew that backing out was not an option. Ok I was going to do it, it was going to do it fast, and get it out of the way. The clock was running, I knew that I couldn’t blow this schedule; the impending fallout was just too horrible to bear. Look behind the counter, thank god that it wasn’t there, for I would not have been able to look this lady in the eye and make that demand. Ok, track and scan track and scan, I flushed it out in the medicine isle, waiting there between the aspirin and the acid relief, appropriate I thought. Wow jeesh my mind was blown. How could I make a decision, there were soo many choices. The engineering alone, wanted to grab me and pull me in. chemical compositions, human psychology, bioengineering, all of these disciplines refined into such a sharp daggers edge. I was fascinated and in love, this was sooo elegant and complex in its simplicity. The mechanics alone of one of these had my mind buzzing with excitement. Wait stay on task keep to the mission. I realized my fascination was the exact reason that I was so inexperienced at this to begin with. Letting the engineer in me have its way, I picked that mechanical marvel of bioengineering and chemical physics. I would study it under proper scientific conditions when this strategic mêlée was finished. I grabbed the new and improved, scientifically designed, just like skin, ultra sensitive, for him and her, model and began the extraction mission.

Trying to look like I knew what I was doing and that this was really no big deal, I approached the counter. The slapped and redden look on my face was a dead give away, heat radiating away from me like a 60 cal being fired for too long. This was not a situation where, cold-hearted dead eyed professionalism could win the day. I stood there in all of my organic frailty, the hairless ape, being a hairless ape. She looked at me sensing my weakness, smiling with such a grin, to me an evil grin, no just a knowing grin. I wanted to act like a big man like a ladies man, the I buy these all the time kinda man, shouting give me the extra big condoms for my harem kinda guy. I could not, it just wasn’t in my nature, plus I thought what if this lady had a daughter, what if she was faced with the idea that she may be out dating one of these simian assholes. Efficiently quietly, and without skipping the beat she rang the accusation up. As I reached for my credit card my eyes graced the “ no credit card purchases under 5.00$” sign. Performing the math in my head I realized that I was only at 2.50$. Franticly I ran around trying to find the least non needed thing to add up to the magical 5.00$ amount. OJ and breath strips then sun flower seeds. 5 yards away from the counter, the reinforcements arrived. The 2^nd division of the white middle age motherly type of infantry rushed into the battlefield, flanking me as I headed for the counter. Luckily the lady was an astute pupil of the art of war and she had stealthily placed the time bomb in a brown paper bag. Throwing things on the counter, she informed me that I had reached the 5.00$ goal. We both new what was in the bag, dancing around it like a bad child crying for attention. Finally I signed the slip of postponed debt, and performed the rearguard action of retreat. Driving home a sigh of relief washed over me, finally I was ready for the next mission.