Holiday Hit and Run
Holiday Hit and Run
You Could See it Coming
December 22, 2020
Loss Leaders
The grocery store is packed three days before Christmas. The old and the young, the fat and the thin, the short and the shoeless, they push their carts up and down the crowded aisles loading up on candy, rolls, beer, ham, cake, pies, robots, condoms, and laser pistols.
Crush Birdcount does not have a cart. He does not need one because he only needs a few things. Really, one thing: Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos. His friend, former lover, and occasional backgammon nemesis and bridge partner, Holiday Catwand, told him the grocery store has many specials trying to draw in the festive and the hungry in these final days before Christmas including Dr. Pepper for half-price and, the true star, Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos on sale for, get this, buy two get three free.
Crush Birdcount says this aloud while soldiering through the store, “not buy two get the third one free, sweet mama, but buy two get three free, as in buy two get five. Hot damn!”
He arrives at the Dorito aisle and there are all the expected offerings, Nacho Cheese, Cool Ranch, Spicy Nacho, Marco Rubio, all the good ones. But where in hell are the Spicy Sweet Chili?
He has to look close. Has some sonofawhore, Crush wonders, bought them all? It was probably Holiday! That backstabbing twat!
Then he sees them. They are buried deep on the shelf way in the back. Five bags of Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos. Crush smiles as he picks up each bag gingerly and whispers, “you are my children.”
Crush sees the post-it note on the last bag which reads,
Merry Christmas, Crush. I could have just bought these for you but this is much more fun, and sexy, isn’t it? Love, Holiday.
“It sure is, baby,” Crush says loud enough for several people to hear him, “it sure is.”
Crush carries his five bags of Doritos to the checkout line where he must wait for 40 minutes. By the time he gets to the register he has eaten all the Doritos. All five bags.
“Well I shouldn’t have to pay for them, then should I?” Crush Birdcount screams and sprints for the door. He is caught and beaten by the old lady who works at the register, the security guard, and the little girl who was standing behind him when he first grabbed the five bags and cried because she wanted just one bag for her dying uncle and Crush said her uncle was “probably faking it, toots.”
Crush is kicked in the head, punched in the balls, and smacked on the ass and is hauled away to prison, Dorito dust and blood all over him.
Just as he’d hoped, Crush is bailed out of jail by his dear, dear friend Holiday Catwand in time for Christmas. Tragically, it’s in time for the next Christmas, not this one, and after a year in prison Crush Birdcount cannot even remember what Doritos taste like.
“Maybe I’ll get some for Christmas and find out,” he says to Holiday. She gives him a half-eaten bag as she drives him through the town. He eats and looks at the Christmas lights and the fresh snow and listens to the delightful Christmas music.
“Have you learned anything,” Holiday asks Crush. “Has all of this taught you anything at all?”
“No,” Crush says. “And that’s why you will always love me.”
She cries because she knows it’s true. --TK
Tuesday, December 22, 2020