Pilgrimage

It seems like I’ve been talking to myself lately. I guess that means that I should go out and socialize before I go off the deep end.

I know. I’ll take a pilgrimage. A pilgrimage to the greatest shrine ever built to serve the masses. Split into a thousand rays of shiny lights, it hums with the energy of mankind’s greatest efforts. Stretched from sea to sea, the roads between each beacon of sparkling light become merely its web. Inside this monument, I’ll be able to find relief by the shimmering pools of clear water, I’ll watch dreams turn into realities before my very eyes, and I’ll hear the chimes when I prepare to depart.

Yes. I’m talking about Walmart.

(I usually shop in the daylight, though. So what’s the opposite of a vampire?)

Being the only respectable ray of redistributed, mass-produced corporate merchandise for about forty miles in all directions, I think the clientele in the Walmart I go to is very much a representative cross section of the populace in this area, and to another extent, the world. In other words, I’ll see people again.

After shopping for supplies, I become so happy that I’m a hermit. I’ve tested the waters again, and they are still tepid. How can we do this to ourselves?

Or is it just me?

On an even sadder note, my financial calculations are telling me that I’ll be needing to look for a job soon. I can no longer continue to struggle with all of my material addictions on the meager $28.36 a day that my pension provides. Sigh… I can hardly imagine blowing the dust off of my old resume. At my age, should I be thrilled to hear that the greeters at Walmart no longer have to assist the customers with a cart? Does anyone out there need a handy-old-man? Why have the robots saved only the rich?

Wait a minute! I think I missed a decimal place.  Yea.  I’m doing fine.  No job needed.  In other words…

APRIL FOOLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(It’s not too early in Oz)