The Spork of Damocles

Predator Press

[LOBO]

I must've stood in that WalMart entrance for a full ten minutes until the old bat showed up.

"It's about time," I says icily, tapping my foot.

"Excuse me?" says the elderly woman.

"I've been standing here for, like, an hour waiting to be greeted." I glower menacingly. "You are a 'Greeter,' are you not?"

"Well-"

"I was totally greetless!" I snap. "And as the person who specializes in it here, I hold you solely responsible for my wholly sub-par welcome."

"Sir," says the woman. "I was on break."

"On break?" I laugh. "From saying 'Welcome to Walmart'!? Oh that must be soooo exhausting. Maybe you should Unionize. You know, trim it down to 'Welcome.' Or maybe even just 'Hi.'"

Her jaw curls slightly as she eyes me.

-But I don't care. At this point, I'm pontificating fully.

"Maybe an abbreviation would make all this easier to endure." I spin around and throw my arms wide, framing the gigantic WalMart sign. "Or maybe you could just stand under this and point at it smiling!"

She taps my shoulder.

I turn.

"Welcome to Walmart sir," she says.

And then at that exact moment, she jams the front right wheel of her walker into my foot.

"Please don't," she growls softly, twisting her crushing full weight into my big toe. "break anything, or I'll cut you're fucking nuts off."

With superhuman will, I do not whimper aloud.

"Ask me what I'll cut off if you shoplift," she grins toothlessly.

A single tear starts welling in my eye.

I can't let this witch win, I thought. If I don't take a stand here, Al Queda will have finally won.

Thinking quickly, I throw an entire display of Snickers into her fat, wrinkly face. The weight suddenly comes off of my foot, and crying out, she staggers backwards covering her eyes.

Kicking the walker aside, I roll up my sleeves. "Don't mess with the bull, bitch. You'll get the ... eh ... the crap kicked out of you!"

"Please," she stammers, wobbling clumsily forward. "I'm an old woman."

Suddenly, 187 expertly-thrown 'smiley-face' pins impale my face, shoulders and chest. Reeling and screaming I seize at them desperately, but they are slippery with my own blood.

Her fist caught me square, flattened my nose, and bright bolts of light shot through my head.

I woke moments later, sprawled flat in shattered rack of inexpensively priced -yet completely viable- watches while she danced spryly back and forth with her fists up blocking her face.

"Anything else to say punk?"

Shadowboxing, I could hear her whipping fists snap the air.

"Yes," I says, holding my palm flat to her. Hefting myself up slowly using a nearby pressboard armoire, I spit a tooth. "You punch like a Dollar Store cashier!"

A look of sudden psychotic rage transformed her face, and she leapt recklessly forward. Prepared for this, I twist slightly left and she crashes full bore into a rack of Kung Fu Hustle toasters.

-Pressing my new advantage, I jam her throat against a nearby vertical support beam with my left elbow while delivering vicious blows to her abdomen and kidneys with my right.

"How do you like me now, you talentless hack?" I says between blows.  "How will the worms play Pinochle on that, bitch!?"

***   "Honey," says Terri as she nudges my shoulder. "Honey, wake up!"

I blink.

I'm in the passenger side of the car.

"We're here," she says smiling. "Did you fall asleep?"

I look around, and slowly recognize the familiar parking lot.

WalMart.

"Let's go get that barbecue grill," she says excitedly. "We've got a big weekend planned."

"And we can't go to Kmart?" I sob.