Your mission..if you choose to accept it...

DUN DUN DUN

Well.. it is not as serious as I may be making it sound. But any sort of over-dramatization humors me.

Teehee.

My closest friend is going through a rough patch, a desert journey which can leave someone bitter and dry. Emphasis on the bitter. bitter. Ha. Perhaps bitter is not the word, but easily aggravated quite suits them. So I decided to be a good little friendy friend, and attempt to create a feeling of specialness which in turn would make it known to her that she is cared for.

After hanging out with a friend of mine that recently re-became my friend (odd I know, yet, when am I anything but!) at 3:30 in the morning, I decide to go to my friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart in BFE. The grocery list?

- One sunflower

- One greeting card with butterfly

- One plushy koala bear

These are her three favorite things.. (well not the greeting card, but the butterfly on the it!) Good thing I am a student of Fraulein Maria who became a part of the Von Trapp family, or... at least.. so says "The sound of music." You know that song that says:

When the dog bites

When the bee stings

When I'm feeling sad

Then I remember my favorite things

Then I don't feel soooooo bad

Woefully, I learn that the gardening department is closed. (game show loser jingle): wahwahwaahwaahwaahwaaaah. Sigh. So I searched for fake flowers. I looked first in the arts in crafts... dumdumdydumdum... nope. I looked in the sewing department... nada. I end up roaming the store looking through whatever ever aisle category came to mind: bedding, home decorations, etc. By this time I was thoroughly exhausted. It was 4:30am. Night night time for ordinary people, but who needs to be like that! Bah. So I decided I would forego the search for the time being to look for the right greeting card.

Apparently, if the world ran out of greeting cards tomorrow Wal-mart would be the red-cross for desperate people in need of inspiration, or perhaps just desperate. FOUR whole walls of JUST greeting cards. You would think that I would be able to find at least one with a butterfly, right? No. I was in there for over thirty minutes, scanning through every single category: birthday, love, thinking of you, get better soon, anniversary, etc. no-thing. I was ready to take my happy little derriere to the car and vamoose out of there, I was defeated. It felt as if my dial -- previously on hardcore, was taken down quire a few notches. I decided to take a peak at the more frugal section, the only ones I had ignored. Lo and behold, there it was. Two of them infact. Ridiculous.

Next on my task sheet, Koala bear. I headed over to the toy department, scanning for stuffed animals. Ah-ha! I had found them, one tiny little corner shelf way up high... hrmm.. this doesn't look too good.. First I pulled out a monkey, then a duck, a bear! Oh.. panda bear. meh. Oooo, what is this? Grey. Bear-like physique. Is it?.... It is! Scored on the first shot. What a turn of luck! Oh wait... it's a webkinz.. For those who have not caught onto the webkinz craze, let me explain my frustration.

These stuffed animals are not special in anyway. They don not use real animal skin, the thread is not made out of gold, nor is it water proof. It is a regular old stuffed animal. Yet they are priced at a minimum of fifteen dollars. As the mischevious Mindy from Steven Spielberg's "Animaniacs" used to say: "But why?" It is because it contains one teensy little difference from a "regular" stuffed animal... You can go online and name it. Wow. Now that's a good a reason as any to triple the price on a hand-sized bear if I ever heard one! Come on people! Have our senses of imagination been so skewed that now we need to hop onto the internet, and burn our precious little retinas in order to interact with the stuffed animals we hold and own in our own hands? Somebody stop me!

Ahem

So, I remained with Sir Webkins and marched on back to the gardening department, I thought to myself, maybe I had left prematurely. As I entered the gardening area I notice they have a rack of seeds, and even sunflower seeds! I thought to myself, perhaps this could be my redemption, better than nothing I suppose. A lot of other nonsense happens afterwards, looking for fake sunflowers (there were none). Then trying to find a fake flower that looked somewhat like a sunflower. Then look at cheap store white wine, because I am a HUGE wino in the making. Thankfully my budget keeps me far away from achieving that goal. Then going back to the toy department and analyzing every single toy on the shelf with a microscope in the hopes there would be at least an ameoba sized koala bear hidden within one of the many boxes there. But, to no avail. It was 5:45am and I was done for. Time to head to the check out! Three items in two hours and fifteen minutes. That's pretty good time management if I do say so my self! And I do.. so there.

Beep...

Beep...

Ruffle Ruffle...

Cha-ching...

Thank you for shopping at Wal-mart

Thanks, Good night! err.. Morning!

Now, for those of you who kept a watchful eye on what I previously wrote, there were only two beeps. Does this mean something? Yes. It means I put myself through more torture and pain by choosing not to purchace the koala bear. What can I say? I'm a perfectionist. And that the excuse I'm using so people will be non-judemental towards me to my face.

I head on over to the CVS neighboring Wal-mart... nothing. Finding a cute little white polar bear that lights up, I debated whether or not I should comprimise with my previously set goal. In a moment of delirium I thought to myself, maybe I could say on the card, "like this bear you make the room light up"... eh. Too corny. So I decide to go over to her place and hoped that maybe I would find a Wal-greens or CVS open for 24 hours. As I'm heading over I realize there is a Wal-greens 20 blocks down, and decided to take a gander at it. I arrive...

cricket cricket

Just my luck. It is closed. Ha. The score?

Koala: 3
Me: 0

Darn you koala bear! This was getting to be harder than the experts edition of "Where's Waldo?" and making me more and more unappetized towards the search. But this mission was not about me, so I pressed foward.

As I get to her house, I decided to keep going down the road, perhaps I would stumble upon one of the stores I needed. Lo and behold, a 24 hour CVS where I least expected! Exhausted, I drove in quickly, threw my keys in my purse and rushed in. As I walked over to the toy section, I crossed my fingers hoping I'd find something, anything resembling a koala. Buzzer: Eeenk.The closest thing? A grey fluffy owl. I was so desperate, that for a few seconds I was considering cutting off its beak and making fake fingers so it would resemble that which seemed unattainable to me now. That was it. I had finally given up. After all that driving.. oh well. As I reached the front of the store, the lone cashier asked me what I was looking for. My first instinct was to leave it be and tell him it was ok, I didn't need any help. Using up my last drop of hope I went against my melancholic state and in a pouty voice I replied, a kola bear. He then told me in a think indian accent, Oh BEER? We have bottle of beer in back. Realizing he had misheard me, I repeated myself, to which he replied, Oh no, if not in back, not have it. That was it, the true end of my journey, time to head on over --

What's that?

As I had shook my head in the acceptance of my defeat, something had caught my eye halfway through the blink. Was it? Could it really beeeeeeee? Yes! It was! The last stuffed koala bear on a key chain leftover from the passed valentine's day. This man was my savior. The store roof ripped open shining down a beam from heaven turning dusk into dawn. Que the angelic choir.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Can you hear it? I could. I jumped up and down in ecstacy, then slowed down from the lightheadedness only a good night's sleeplessness can bring. Thanked him numerous times and exited the store. I headed back to her house and did the following, all shown to you with the help of my handy-dandy camera phone. bawr bawr-bawr bawr!

The end!