When You're At the Bottom

I'm not one to say I've lived a very hard life. There are individuals who have not been as fortunate as myself, and they've developed their own backwater mutant society, where weight correlates to one's position in the hierarchy. While discovery and integrity push some of us forwards, those left behind seem to flourish in greater numbers with no hint of natural selection in sight.

I grew up in a very unforgiving town. Don't let the vast number of used car lots fool you; the advanced physics behind the wheel stirred the locals into a concourse of club-wielding banshees. They accepted television very quickly as their God, perhaps somewhat in fear, otherwise as an arbitrary piaculum. Just as long as they did not have to better themselves in any way, life was perfect as is. My hometown is much like the dark undercity of a corrupted metropolis, but without the buildings. Instead of motorcycles, the local street gangs were known to operate deer.

For most, life was very simple. A parcel labeled "EBT" arrived monthly that was surprisingly not edible, but could be taken to the largest of burrows in exchange for Wonder Bread, Sour Patch Kids, and diet soda. It kept occupied the denizen collective, allowing the culture to assume a hunter/gathering tradition. They donned skins trapped from a burrow known as Wal-Mart, which they wore to the food burrows, where they exchanged the magical sliding money card for food. The most elaborate zoos couldn't simulate a more primeval environment. I played a role in this of course. Back then, I was essentially a part time zoo-keeper. I cleaned and maintained the most accessible of the food burrows; Save A Lot.

Save A Lot is a large national chain that caters to shoppers who aren't too ashamed of their lot in life to go to a Save A Lot in the first place. Once inside, you'll find knockoffs to every branded consumable you can think of. Some product names are offensive, while others range from borderline racist all the way to Asian street vendor. You'll find no shame on Save A Lot's behalf with product brandings such as Bubba-Cola, Dr. Pop, Pinaz (an intoxicating carbonated pineapple simulation for your mouth, named using red-neck's argot for a word meaning "male genitals"), Almost Butter, and Bar-S "Practically no Toes" Hot Dogs. While these brands may cater to the NASCAR watching, rifle wielding, Looney Tunes attitude oversized t-shirt wearing crowd, don't be fooled; these products are made with love. And a small portion of factory worker hair.

This is a prime example of Save A Lot's incredibly powerful audience-targeting initiative. Mountain Holler is known for it's diet Mountain Dew-like taste, but with a sustainable aftertaste that is similar to iodine. It is also clearly the radical citrus thirst blaster due to it's concentration of solar radiation. (Photo courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mountain_Holler.jpg)

For six years of my adolescence, I worked at Save A Lot. During the later half of my employment there, the store was handed over to a clan of new owners. All of the employees were fired and rehired, to bring forth some kind of feel-good relationship with the new overlords. A new nepotistical caste system was formed, granting rights to anyone of the Owner's bloodline or those who were performing secret acts of indecency for members of the Owner's bloodline in the back office, meat room, or produce cooler. While on the floor, I observed incest and gender-confusion among the customers. Inside the sanctity of the back room though, darker arts were performed. I'd use the technical term to describe them, but my editor tells me I'm not allowed.

If you take a young Save A Lot employee and stand him or her next to a very seasoned marine, you will find that the Save A Lot employee is far better versed in watching old women scoop their own feces out of their pants and stash it behind a peanut butter display. A marine might not know how to effectively stop a man from pushing the cart return area across the parking lot with his station wagon. Furthermore, the Save A Lot employee knows who the terrorists will be as they walk in the door; subtle differences in stench offer many clues that no other occupation could train a person to pick up.

It is because of these few, proud grocery store employees that my irrelevant hometown can sustain life and balance outside of the wild-game season. It turns out that the primates can in fact use applied knowledge to receive their food pellets in an organized manor. Science triumphs again.