I'll take a short break from the van buying project here to share a little humor. Dark humor maybe, but such is the state of affairs.
On the 10+ hour flight from Japan to Phoenix on Friday evening, I thought I was going to sleep. Turned out, I was jolted awake by a very urgent need to vomit and have the backdoor trots at the same time. I'll skip the details, but I was sitting by the window when this started. Most people were spared on my run to the bathroom. At least as far as I can remember. To make it more fun, I'd taken sleeping pills about 30 minutes prior to help with the long flight, and they were working, so the whole experience seemed like a bad gastrointestinal version of the movie "A Scanner Darkly" or some other Richard Linklater favorite.
I thought the episode was just a really strong reaction to the little bit of whatever the hell washed up under the dock that Japan Airlines served for lunch. Not so lucky. Appears now to be a mild case of the flu. So, in between trying to buy medicine in an unfamiliar downtown area on a Sunday morning, working through jet lag, and napping a lot to get over the flu, I'm also trying to find and buy a van or truck. That's the backdrop.
Before coming to Phoenix, I thought, "Hey, I can stay at the Y downtown and use it as a cheap temp shopping base". Well, that is more challenging than one might have thought, based on my whole two days of experience. First, downtown Phoenix, as I'm learning, is one of those older style downtowns (though with evidence of facelift) in which almost nothing exists except concrete office buildings and pavement, and is more or less deserted evenings and weekends except by those who seem to have no other choice. Need to take the light rail train or a taxi to get anywhere. Not the place to be without a vehicle.
The Y is clean and reasonably well-run, but dorm style living with spartan rooms and one communal bathroom per floor. The residents seem to range from colorful, to catatonic, to downright crazy. Most seem harmless, at least at this point in their personal evolution. Although the Y does a background check of sorts on each applicant before allowing residence, I'm not sure how much it helps. Probably a lot, but I'm unaware because of naivety I didn't know I had.
I really came to doubt that background check process when I was forced to come out of my room late at night for a trip to the toilet, and was surprised by a no-shit 7-foot tall guy who was apparently jonesing and pissed because the windows don't open to allow illegal smoking in the hallways. Despite his best efforts to convert me into a reluctant Dr. Phil at 1am, I managed to diplomatically excuse myself. Took a few minutes to get back to sleep after that.
Then, this evening, I decided to walk over to the local Circle K convenience store, to buy a Sunday paper. I took a chance that some dinosaurs like me still put ads in there to sell used cars. Well, I walked into the store, which yesterday looked pretty normal, and it was bedlam. Crap knocked off shelves, huge puddles under the soda fountain, and creatures wandering the aisles straight out of The Walking Dead. Without thinking, I instinctively looked toward the register, for a sign of adult supervision. Nope, another cast member.
This can best be described by sharing my two attempts at conversation / investigation while in the store:
Scene opens with me staring, mouth open, at a roaming clerk who wasn't working the register ...
Apparently Senior Clerk Child: Hey, you need something?
Me: Yeah. Is it always like this in here (gesturing toward the Everglades Extension near the soda fountain)?
ASCC: Ahh, no.
Me: Think you should clean it up?
ASCC: Yeah. We're planning on it. Just didn't get to it.
Me: (obviously been that way for hours, so I tried to provide an out for him) I guess you were really busy today, huh?
ASCC: Not really. We just did other stuff.
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Register Clerk Child: Is that it?
Me: (holding newspaper) Well, I'm new here. Not sure ... is this the local Sunday paper?
RCC: I don't know.
Me: Really?
RCC: Well, I just work here. Maybe you can check the date. Maybe it is another day's paper.
Me: OK, let's start here -- regardless of date, is this the local Phoenix paper?
RCC: I don't know.
Me: What?!?
RCC: Yeah.
Me: Don't you live here?
RCC: Yeah, but I don't read the paper. I just google stuff.
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The two clerks, prior to becoming zombies, appeared to be fine upstanding specimens from the downtown campus of Arizona State University. God help us.
So, in the famous words of Inigo Montoya, "Let me sum up":
This experience so far causes me to feel various things -- disbelief, compassion, sadness, and an increased sense of urgency. I think I need to rest a bit, take some medicine, buy a vehicle, and get the (bleep) out of Phoenix as fast as I can.
Thanks for your collective help in doing that.
Vagabound
