It’s time for another amazing adventure!

     It was a morning like any other, and I was up ridiculously early and walking to my local train station to get to work.  Being the awesome employee that I am I was, of course, running early.  [I am never, ever late to work because this would be the opposite of awesome.]
     I approached an elderly gentleman who was walking in the same direction as I.  He must have been hard of hearing and had sub-par peripheral vision, for he stepped into an alleyway [the very same alleyway that I purchased a rose-smelling beverage, if you will recall] directly into the path of an on-coming, albeit slow-moving, garbage truck.
     “Look out, old man!” I called as I rushed forward and grabbed his arm.  In hindsight, I realized there was never any real danger–the truck, which was stopping anyway to collect trash, stopped a good ten feet away from the man.  But whatever, live and learn.  He was taken aback by my intrusion into his morning constitutional and hurriedly shuffled off muttering something about punk teenagers.  I was very confused, as I am clearly not a teenager, nor did I give off a punk vibe in my business casual attire.
     “I saw what you did–er, tried to do,” came a deep masculine voice from behind me.  ”It was very awesome of you.”
     “Thank y–” I started to reply as I turned around.  I lost all sense and ability to speak when I discovered that it was Gerard Butler who had spoken the words.  He looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to continue. “–you… you’re Gerard Butler.  This is so awesome meeting you!”
     “Yes, thanks for reminding me.  And you are?”
     “I’m Teri.”
     He extended a hand, shaking mine.  Only it wasn’t the right hand that he extended, as is the custom.  I’m not sure if it was because he is Scottish or because he happened to be carrying a golden retriever at the time, but he extended his left hand.  I was unsettled but determined to touch him in some way, and I extended my left as well.  I felt a jolt of electricity as our hands connected and my heart rate sped up.  I continued to shake his hand, unwilling or unable to break physical contact.
     The smile on his face became less genuine as the handshake continued.  I realized I was squeezing his hand, but couldn’t stop myself.  ”Ohmygodiloveyouithinkyou’resohoti’veseenallyourmovies,” I said [rather casually, I thought].
     “Right.  Can I have my hand back now?  This is slightly less awesome.”
     Several things happened at that particular moment.  1.) A woman on rollerblades skated by, a medium-sized poodle trotting along beside her, 2.) The garbage truck that I was currently blocking had finished its collection and wanted access to the street, and 3.) The golden retriever turned out to be a big fan of poodles but not so much of garbage truck horns.  The dog, in a state of lust-filled panic, bolted from Gerard’s right arm [seriously where was the leash on that thing?], barreled into me, and ran off after the trotting poodle.  The hand shake ended as I was knocked backward into the garbage truck where I smacked my left hand [still extended in mid-shake] a good one on the truck’s front left headlight, cracking it.
     Gerard took off after his dog leaving me with a hand contusion and a very angry garbageman.
     That wasn’t so awesome.

It’s time for another amazing adventure!

     I was walking to work this morning, trying to find the balance between going slow enough to not fall on my ass on the icy sidewalk and getting to the warmth of the train station as fast as possible, when from an alley I heard someone shout out at me.
     Usually I ignore any kind of shouting, especially that which comes from alleyways, but it sounded like the woman was yelling, “I eat llamas!” and I was intrigued.  I paused and turned in the direction of the alley.  An old woman stood, huddled against the wind in her shawl and tattered coat.  Her thinning, white hair stuck out in clumps from underneath the shawl.  She raised her dirty, mittened hand and beckoned me over to her.
     “I have something for you,” she said immediately.
     “It doesn’t have to do with llamas, does it?” I replied.
     She wrinkled her brow like she was trying to decide whether I was joking or not.  “No.”  She rummaged through the folds and pockets of her coat until finally she pulled out a vial of lavender liquid.  “This!” she exclaimed.
      “No thanks,” I replied.  “Not really into drugs, body fluids, or whatever the hell else that might be.”
     “It’s a magic potion,” she replied.
     “I’m not into those either.” 
      “Don’t you even want to know what it does?” she asked.
     I pictured all the trains that were going by, and me not on them.  “Not really.  Listen, lady, I have to get to work.”
     She paid no attention to my protest.  “This potion will do one of three things:  1.) Grant you your heart’s desire, 2.) Give you a superhuman ability, or 3.) Your taxes.”
      I snorted.  “My taxes?”
     “For the rest of your life,” she added.  “You’ll get a pretty good return too.”
     “And what does this magic potion of yours cost?” I asked, ever wary.
      “99 cents.”
     Clever marketing.  I thought over her offer.  There was no real downside that I could see to taking this potion, assuming of course that it was indeed a magic potion and not some food coloring and bodily fluid afterall.
      “Can I smell it?” I asked.
     She nodded approvingly and uncorked the vial.  “You are very wise,” she said, waving the vial underneath my nose.  The liquid inside smelled pleasantly like rose water.
      I shrugged.  Or attempted the best shrug possible while wearing three layers and wrapped in a scarf.  “Sure, okay.”  I gave her a dollar bill, nobly told her to keep the change, and took the vial.
     I was about to knock it back when she put her hand on my arm to stop me.  “But first, a warning!”
      “Shouldn’t the warning have come before you got my dollar?”
     She waved her hand, “Potato, potahto.  The warning:  be careful what you wish for–you just might get it!”
     “Isn’t that the point?” I retorted.  [I was never good with warnings.]
      “You have been warned,” she replied.  She turned and scuttled off down the alleyway, leaving me alone with my recently purchased, lavender-colored magic potion.
     I shrugged, and drank the potion.  It tasted like rose water (a fact which may or may not be unpleasant, depending on your fondness for Turkish Delight).  I myself have never cared for it, and therefore grimaced as the liquid entered my mouth.  I swallowed quickly.
     I stood there, waiting for lights to emanate from my orifices and music to fill the air.  Nothing.  Attempting another shrug, I pocketed the vial and resumed my walk to the train station.  Perhaps it was taxes after all.  I passed a Starbucks on my way to the station, and, as I passed the front entrance, a man wearing a tan trenchcoat and carrying a leather briefcase hurried out, nearly knocking me over in the process.
     “Terribly sorry,” he said, his accent English.  “I’m a bit late.  Take this, won’t you?  I’ve no time for it.”  He handed me his tall coffee and bag containing a slice of coffee cake.  Excellent.
     I put the cake in my shoulder bag, continuing on to the train.  The train pulled up as I stepped onto the platform.  “Great timing!” I thought to myself.  I sipped the coffee, flavored with hazelnut (my favorite) as I rode the train.  I had caught the right train apparently, and was able to sit down despite the fact that it was rush hour.  That almost never happens.
     Finally I get to work, and as I sit down my boss approaches my desk.  “I just wanted to let you know that we’re giving you a promotion.”
     “Wow, that’s great news.  I am honored.”
     She leaned in and lowered her voice.  “It’s the weirdest thing.  I was going back and forthbetween you and Steve–I think you both would have been great for the job–but suddenly you walked in and I thought to give it to you for being here first.”
     I nodded.  Good timing, once again.  “Say, would you like this coffee cake?”
     “I adore coffee cake,” she replied, taking the Starbucks bag from me.  “Thank you!”
     Looking back on the morning, it would appear that the magic potion has granted me some kind of superhuman good timing.  I guess I shouldn’t complain, but it’s not really the first thing that comes to mind when you think of superpowers.  At least let me fly or see through people’s clothes or something.

Life is boring.  That means it’s time for another Amazing Adventure!
 
This morning my train was attacked by zombies.  Usually, I’d think something like this would be really cool, but I had a lot of work to do at the office and was annoyed that my arrival would now be delayed.  People around me were panicking and trampling each other.  I knew I needed to get to higher ground, so I climbed over some of the seats and perched myself in a window ledge and waited for people to either calm the hell down or all kill each other–whichever came first.
 
You’d think it would have been the ”calm down” route.  It wasn’t.  Within minutes, me and this really fatguy were the only ones alive/conscious in the train car proving, once and for all, that the term “survival of the fittest” is a grave misnomer.
 
I didn’t have much on my person with which to defend myself.  My shoulder bag held an umbrella, a paperback novel, a bottle of aspirin, an iPod, and my wallet and keys.  I briefly considered fashioning some sort of McGyver device with my iPod headphones and the umbrella, but then noticed that one of the dead and/or unconscious bodies was that of a policeman.  The fat man was preoccupied with trying to pry open a side door, so I moved to the fallen officer.  I took his sidearm, his handcuffs, and, for good measure, his pepper spray.  I tried using his radio, but it must have gotten stepped on in the pandemoniacal stampeding of the train passengers because it didn’t work.
 
Now, the thing that really bothers me about people in zombie movies is that they have never seen a zombie movie.  This obese man (as any zombie-fan will tell you) was Prime Grade-A zombie food–there’s a lot to go around, and it’s not hard to catch.  Since I have seen zombie movies, I moved away from the man and looked for an alternate means of escape.  My best chances were on the train, not the darkened tunnel surrounding it, and so I moved to the head of the car and went through the door that led to the next train car.  My plan was to make my way to the head of the train and exit to the tunnel from there, if the train itself was inoperable.  The next station had to be pretty close.  I thought I might be able to make it.

The other train car was in a similar state to mine–although there didn’t appear to be survivors, not that I was going to stop and check.  Again, I’ve watched zombie movies, and know that the injured will only slow you down. I ignored a few moans of pain and quickly crossed over into the next car.  One of the side doors was open to this car, and a zombie was sitting crossed-legged on the floor of the train, eating someone.  He turned to look at me as the door shut behind me.  He struggled to stand, and I thanked God that these were more old school zombies and moved slowly before reaching for the officer’s gun.  I had a limited number of bullets and didn’t relish the idea of a loud gunshot announcing my presence to anything else, so I waited until the moaning Undead was within striking distance before braining it with the butt of the handgun.  He dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes, and I promptly dealt another serious blow with the heel of my dress shoe.  I wasn’t about leave an “assumed dead” zombie behind me, thank you very much.  I was making damn sure.

The rest of the train was devoid of life (or unlife, if you want to look at it that way).  As I entered the conductor’s booth, I was feeling pretty good about myself.  I had been having a good hair day, and it seemed that I could hold my own against zombies.  Who knew?  My mood dropped a little as I looked at the train controls, which were totally fried.  It appeared that something rather large had busted its way through the windshield, destroying any chance of operating the train along with it.  I climbed through the empty glass frame and listened.  The tunnel around me was completely still.  Every twenty feet or so there were dim halogen lights embedded into the walls and the way looked clear.  At least, as far as I could see.

Wondering if it were possible that only one zombie could have wreaked all this havoc, I carefully jumped from the train to the ground below.  I held the gun out in front of me, sweeping the tunnel as I walked like I knew what I was doing (I didn’t).  With every step I was growing increasingly optimistic that I would survive this.  Then I came around a bend in the tunnel.

What do you call a bunch of zombies?  A pack?  A herd?  A warren?  I like that one.  As I rounded the bend, I came face-to-face with a warren of zombies.  They were partying with (i.e. eating) all the frightened train passengers that had managed to avoid trampling and had escaped from the train.  Everything stopped as every zombie, and there were at least fifty, stared at me.  I stared back at them, motionless, trying to come up with a plan.  I don’t know anything about guns, but I’m thinking the one in my hand didn’t have fifty bullets.  Well, better make that one hundred bullets (I have really bad aim).  I adopted a doped-up expression and began moaning, trying to act like I was batting for their team.  “Braaaaainnnnnnssss,” I moaned as I staggered toward them, coincidentally also toward a red-illuminated exit sign just visible on the other side of the warren.

Okay, so this is the one instance where watching zombie movies will not help you.  They didn’t buy it.  Unfortunately, I was inside the crowd before realizing this.  I managed to get a couple shots off as they grabbed me, dragging me down.  I felt one sink its teeth in my upper arm, making me drop the gun.

Clearly, they didn’t eat me, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to write this documentation of events.  I am, however, now a zombie.  You know, it’s really not all that bad–a little make-up and you can’t even tell.  I even went to work afterward.  Now if you’ll excuse me, my roommate just got home.  I’m going to go eat him.

Time for another amazing adventure!

     I woke up around noon today, very confused.  First of all, I was not in my room though I vaguely remember going to sleep in my own bed last night.  I was in a dumpster.  It was bright green and filled, not with trash, but with confetti.  Let me tell you, a dumpster filled with confetti is not nearly as entertaining as it sounds.  Confetti got everywhere–my clothes, my hair, even inside of my socks.  I managed to crawl out of the dumpster, landing quite unladylike on my butt on the sidewalk.  The small alleyway in which the confetti dumpster was located was deserted. 
          I headed left out of the alley and turned the corner to see a small bakery and coffee shop.  Figuring coffee could only help my situation (because coffee makes everything better) I entered the shop.  “One grande iced french vanilla latte with soy, please,” I ordered. 
          The woman behind the register gave me an odd look, probably because there was still a large quantity of confetti on my person, but rang up the order.  “Four ninety-five,” she replied. 
          I reached into my pants pocket for my debit card, but the card was gone.  I checked both pockets and turned them inside out.  Confetti fell to the floor all around me, but I paid it no notice, too intent on finding my debit card.  Could it have fallen out of my pocket into the dumpster?  Why was I so sure it had even been in my pocket to begin with? 
          I sneezed in frustration, shooting a good-sized puff of confetti from my nose in the process.  The woman working the counter looked at me in horrified disgust as confetti landed on her face and in her hair.  She brushed her shirt off and repeated, “That’s four ninety-five.”
          “I’m sorry,” I said, wiping confetti from my nose.  “I must have lost my debit card.”
          Without another glance at me, she cleared the order and left the counter.  I kept my head down as I left the shop, trying to avoid the gawkers who sat at the pretentiously small tables.  In my embarrassment, I didn’t even try to clean the confetti from the floor.  I just had to escape.  I headed back over to the dumpster and peeked my head over the edge.  A homeless man wearing torn and dirty clothing occupied the dumpster.  The smell of rotten meat and many years of sweat met my nose and I made a concerted effort not to gag in front of him.  He glared up at me.
          “Whatd’youwant?” he slurred. 
          “Is my debit card in there?” I asked, trying to be polite.
          “Getouttahere,” he replied, somewhat less politely.  
          “No, you don’t understand.  I was just sleeping in here, and I believe I may have left my debit card behind.  Would you be so good as to feel around for it?”
          “Youdon’tunnerstan,” he shot back.  He sat up to bring his face closer to mine.  If I thought his clothes smelled bad, it was nothing compared to his sour breath.  “GETOUTTAHERE!”
          As much as I wanted that debit card, I couldn’t really argue with that.  I got out of there and when I got home, I just called the bank and canceled the blasted thing.  Turns out, the homeless guy must have had my card and had managed to purchase $300 worth of donuts only moments before my phone call to the bank, leaving me stuck with the bill.  
          Stupid homeless guy.

I wish I had more exciting of a life.  Because then you would have a more exciting on-line journal to read.  I suppose I could start making up exciting things that could have happened to me today.  Like this morning, when I walked to 7-11 to grab a French Vanilla Cappuccino and while digging through my wallet looking for exact change, a hooded man came in through the front entrance, brandished a gun, and shouted for everyone (being me and a seventy-year-old woman buying several packages of honey roasted peanuts) to get down on the ground.  We complied, and he approached the man at the cash register, who had just finished soiling himself.

“Give me all your gosh darn money!” the gunman screamed.  Cash Register Guy nodded and shakily pressed a button to open the money drawer.  He handed over what few bills were in the drawer, mostly fives and ones, I noticed from my limited vantage point on the floor.
The gunman was upset with the tiny loot, but remained unfazed.  “No one move until I have safely made my escape!” he yelled again.  Though, really, we were all within feet of each other–the yelling was very unnecessary, even for the seventy-something.  He fired a shot into the ceiling to let us know he meant it, and ended up hitting one of the store’s sprinklers–which proceeded to drench us all in a sudden downpour of water in angry retaliation.  

“Crikey!” the gunman shouted, and bolted from the store.  I stood and, after helping the woman to her feet, approached the cash register.  I gave him a five for the coffee.  He looked at me apologetically, both of us knowing he couldn’t give me the correct change.  I shrugged.
  
“Keep it.” I said.

Hey, it could happen.  Except for the gunman’s cheesy dialogue.