Affecting Tomorrow

I'm the kind of guy who affects things. Okay, I guess that sentence didn't really make much sense (because everyone affects things) so allow me a bit of an elaboration here. I'm the kind of guy who causes policies to change. Throughout my life in school and in work, things were always one way when I arrived and a completely different way when I left. For example, recess at my old grade school required that only one teacher per grade be outside with the students. They changed that rule to require all teachers to be out for each recess. My friend Rodney and I made that happen by fighting each boy we could find who was older than us (if we couldn't find any older boys, we'd fight each other?we were weird kids). In high school, I got to take classes from my house because many teachers thought I was a threat (true story). At work, I'm not allowed to touch the fax machine or the copy machine because I break stuff. As I said when we kicked this paragraph off, I affect things.

And a while back, I affected a grocery store.

Okay, we're about to border on too much information here, but well, I kinda have to in order to tell this story. Please forgive me.

Every day, I take a crap sometime in the afternoon. Because I work with all women in an office that only has one bathroom, I never drop number two at work (what can I say? I'm a considerate son of a bitch). So, I drop my deuces in the bathroom in the grocery store next to my work. I had a great system going there, too. Every day, I would walk into the grocery store, buzz by the old book aisle, grab a paperback or a hardback book, walk to the bathroom, read while crapping, wash my hands, and then swing back by the old book stand and replace said piece of reading material. It was a good system. I've been doing this for years and managed to read half a Grisham novel and two Koontz novels this way (gotta love that Odd Thomas).

Anyway, about a week ago, I strolled into the old grocery store, grabbed the new Grisham hardback and began walking to the bathroom. I use the word "began" because I didn't get quite all the way there.

"Don't bring that book into the bathroom," said some old guy with glasses who may or may not be the head manager. "Unless you're gonna buy it."

Mother fucker.

I put the book back, apologized to the dude, and crapped without the entertaining benefit of reading material. It kind of sucked.

Now I have to bring my own reading material into the grocery store. And, though that may suck for me, it's much worse for the employees of said grocery store because now there is a large sign on the door to the bathroom. That sign offers the words, "No Merchandise Beyond This Point" and any employee caught taking reading material into the bathroom risks being fired.

And it's all my fault. And most of the employees of said grocery store are now well aware of how much I can affect things. And none of them really like me anymore.

Now, some of you may be wondering why I'm sharing this garish story with you. And the reason is about to become quite clear. After weeks of apologizing over the phone, via email and via text messages, I have finally had the good fortune to affect something y'all care about.

I got Stoner Chick to come back for the playoffs.

She's coming by my place Saturday morning.

Y'all welcome.

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