How to Ditch Your Baggage

Let’s just recap real fast.

I went to two, not one, but two, CVS’s to get my damn pop corners. Both stores were empty. Just as I was about to make the trek to a Shoprite, this bitch came rolling up in his Lincoln Navigator, the bed of his truck stocked with my pop corners, and the only thing he could do was stick his head out the window and smile?

The FUCK.

I just stare, gob smacked for a minute. He stops the truck in front of the ‘stang (I’ve just decided to name her Lo, plain Lo) and gets out real slow, with a bag of the chips in question in his left hand.

“What the fuck!” I cry finally finding my voice as I’m filled with boiling anger. You know, you get hooked on something and of course the only other person on this god damn earth happens to have the same obsession? What are the odds? Like really?

“I know!” he cries back at me like he has no clue what volume control is.

“Who the fuck said you could take all my pop chips?” I snap. “I mean seriously? Seriously?”

“Wait – what?”

“I mean,” I say as I start to pace. “There is a whole fucking earth to explore. Granted, you’d need to find a boat if you wanted to leave the US. Or I don’t know learn how to fly a plane or a helicopter. But there’s at the very least all of the US, mostly, except for like Alaska. And Hawaii. But still!

“You choose the exact location I’ve decided to plant my ass and build my home AND THEN as if that’s not enough, invading on what is clearly my state, because I’ve just laid claims to everything east of the Mason Dixon line, bucko, you decide that you’re going to take all my pop chips too? For reals for reals?”

His response is, “You’re really real.”

“Did you hear like anything I just said?” He stares at me in some fixated state. I roll my eyes, slamming the door shut to Lo, locking the car as I do.

“You’re really real,” he says again.

“And you’re really pissing me off.” I walk up to him, shoving him out of the way of the truck. He’s left the keys in the ignition. “And I’m commandeering this vehicle. At ease, loser.”

This is the part where I drive off in his truck like a badass bitch, Captain Jack Sparrow style.

This isn’t the part where I get about five paces and throw the truck into the wrong gear and stall.

How to Make a Proper Get Away
1. Know how to drive the vehicle you’re getting away in

The chip stealer walks up to the door as I cuss out the truck, and pulls the door open. He laughs and goes, “For a minute there I thought you were actually going to leave me.”

“Okay, so you clearly had higher brain function for at least a minute of your life because I was about to leave you. Still am, actually,” I say as I haul my ass out of his truck and shove past him.

“Wait! Wait. Don’t you want your chips?” he calls.

I stop. Turn back to look at him. “I wanted them about two CVS’s ago.”

He blushes. “I was going to bring them to you. I didn’t anticipate you going out to get them today.”

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the world just got interesting.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking. The world got interesting about twelve minutes ago when this kid drove into my life. I should be hip hip hooraying. I mean I’m not alone anymore. And like cockroaches, where there’s one human there’s two and where there’s two, there’s more. (Don’t quote me on that I think I might be wrong)(you get the gist though)

But please refer to #12 on the Things You Miss a Lot When the World Ends list.

Actually it bears repeating

Things You Miss a Lot When the World Ends
13. NOT PEOPLE

I don’t even know where to start.

“Let me get this straight,” I say because I really am trying to get this straight. “Not only did you steal all my pop chips, which you knew I liked, but you’ve been here long enough to know I like pop chips.”

“That, uhm, that sounds about right but I mean—.”

“So backtracking, you stole all my pop chips to what? Barter with me? Because I’ve got a shotgun and shovel, and there ain’t nobody on this earth to miss you.”

“I didn’t—.”

“Just to like set the record straight are you a stealer or a stalker? Like which one would you prefer to be your personal identifier?”

He’s red in the face as he exclaims, “I wasn’t stealing them! I was trying to bring them to you.” I turn my head, gauging the honesty of his proclamation.

He rattles on, “I saw you briefly, one day as I was passing by, at the Shoprite carting a bunch of these chips into your car – a black G-class. But I was on foot and you were gone before I could get your attention. And I never saw the car again so I thought maybe I’d made it up. But I thought if there’s a chance that someone else is alive I have to find out. So I went looking for you and I found the place where you live yesterday—.”

“Okay, so clearly you’re going to go with stalker…”

“No, I, I wasn’t stalking you. I would’ve introduced myself yesterday but it was late, and I thought wouldn’t it be better to show up with the food you like rather than empty handed?”

“So you were going to bring a cartel’s worth of pop chips as a welcome to neighborhood thing?”

He runs a hand through his curly hair, a smile too large for his face pushing his cheeks into his eyes. “Yes, but I mean, what does it matter? You’re alive. You’re a person.”

“Wow, thanks, best compliment ever.”

“Is there more of you?” he asks.

“Uh sure, yeah, no I like to keep my extra limbs in the car. My second brain’s at home in a jar.” I make pfffttt noise. Clearly, this kid was dropped often as a baby.

“No I mean like people?”

“No…didn’t you get the memo? The world ended.”

“You don’t seem surprised to see me…”

“Possibly has to do with you stealing all my pop chips and then rolling up here like you’re some black knight.”

“It’s – it’s white, white knight…”

I make a snotty noise from deep in my throat. “Your car is black.” This kid is a few crayons short, guys. Natural selection knows fuck all.

He laughs like I made a joke. I’m being dead serious, though so I don’t get why he’s laughing. He holds his hand up to his eyes, squinting at me. “I’m …ay.”

“You’re gay, cool, noted,” I say with a roll of my eyes. “Welcome to the 21st century. Nobody gives a shit if you take it up the rear.”

“No! No, I’m Shay.” He slaps his hand against his chest. “I’m Shay. Shayyyyy.”

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say right now but you’re succeeding in making me aggravated.”

“My name. I’m trying to tell you my name. It’s Shay.”

“That rhymes with gay, just sayin’.”

His laugh is like that sound you hear and immediately want to never hear again. “What’s your name?”

“I don’t give my name to strangers.”

There’s that fucking donkey sound coming from him again. Does he find everything funny or is that a nervous tick?

Shit That Annoys Me
239. Shay’s laugh if you could even call that noise a laugh

“Are you really not going to tell me your name?” he asks tone finally sounding like something I can recognize – annoyed and serious.

“Listen, I wasn’t kidding five minutes ago when I declared everything east of the Mason Dixon Line mine. You basically look like a Cali kid as it stands. Head back where you came from.”

“You want me to leave?”

“Oh dear god, tell me you’re pretending to be this slow.”

“But as far as we know, we’re the last two humans alive on earth.”

“Uh huh.”

“And you want to separate?”

“Now you’re getting it.”

“We’re basically the proverbial Adam and Eve.”

“Whoa. Hold on a second. Do you think that we in like a – yo I’m dead, you can’t possibly think that I – with you?”

He frowns. “We’re humanity’s only hope.”

“Stay away, Shay. Look it rhymes. It’s meant to be. Consider that my response to anything and everything you’re going to say next.”

“I get that this is weird. We’ve only just meant. You’re obviously suffering from some lack of human interaction mental disorders.”

“Stay away, Shay.”

“It’s not like I’m saying let’s get married.”

“Stay away, Shay.”

“But this is something close to destiny. We should at least try to get to know each other.”

“Shay, stay away.”

He’s glaring at me now. “You’re actually psychotic.”

“Oh Shay, I was wondering when I’d hear some realistic bullshit come out of your mouth. I am psychotic. And like I said – shotgun and a shovel. So I suggest you get in your truck and start heading West.”

I head for Lo, pulling the door open just to make it known that this conversation is over and I expect nothing less of him to start heading West. When it rhymes, you know it’s real (less, west, close enough).

“You’re going to leave? Just like that? Despite all the reasons we should clearly be together?”

“No,” I say through the open window. “I’m going to leave for all the reasons we should clearly not be together. You’re a stalker, Shay. Or a stealer, Shay. Either way, you’re the SS. And I don’t futz with that.”

He stares at me, clearly shocked that I’ve just called him a Nazi. The world’s ended, I don’t have to be culturally sensitive anymore. I drive off with the distinct image of his gob smacked face, grinning madly into the mirror. There’s no way I’ll see him again now that I’ve called him a Nazi.

So you can imagine my surprise when an hour later, my whole farm is an uproar when an black Lincoln Navigator rolls up onto my property.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I did not want to have to kill this kid.

Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t kill the possibly only surviving male on this earth (and I didn’t NOT kill him for procreating reasons either so stop looking at me like that too). I didn’t kill him mostly because I didn’t have a shotgun, and I wasn’t about to dig a burial plot for him.

However, I was willing to kill him if he did not get his ass off my property.

This bitch followed me home.