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| Discount Suicide by Ray of Light 12/21/2004, 10:33pm PST | ||||
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| I grew up in a small town. A couple of years after I left it forever, a guy goes into the Canadian Tire, which is like a Wal-Mart with no clothes, a week before Christmas and asks to buy a box of shells. The clerk hands it to him, and guy says, absentmindedly like, that he's also thinking of a new gun, and could he see that 12ga. behind the counter?
Clerk hands that to him. He loads the gun and heads out, only to be intercepted by the manager, who I went to school with and remember as the guy who shifted his car into reverse, on a dare, while travelling on the highway, at highway speeds. It was an old GM boat of some kind; it stalled and, without power steering or brakes, he had no choice but to paint a guardrail and nearly kill everyone aboard. Finding himself, once again, in command of a life-or-death situation, he tells the customer not to leave. The guy answers that he intends to kill himself and, if barred from leaving, he'll do it in the store. Now wise from years, the manager says the parking lot will be fine. Guy sits in a snowbank and does the deed while last-minute holiday shoppers look on. I'd tell you they were horrified, and unless you grew up in a small town, you'd believe me. Three days later, I arrive home for Christmas and go shopping at the Canadian Tire. There's a huge bloodstain in the snowbank, which I go over to inspect. My Mom had told me a guy killed himself, but not the how or where, and I didn't think anything of it because townsfolk are always offing themselves. It's probably a theme in shitty little towns everywhere. So I'm staring at this huge stain, looking for deer parts or some other clue to its origin, when this female employee ambles over, having just finished work. "Unbelievable, huh?" she says. "Yeah," I reply, jovially, "looks like the holiday suicide season is finally here!" She begins to weep. I stand there for a few beats, wondering where my joke went wrong, and decide to take my business elsewhere. Ray! |
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Wal-Mart: come for the anti-psychotics, stay for the life-ending firearms. by 12/21/2004, 9:15pm PST  Discount Suicide by 12/21/2004, 10:33pm PST 8/10. NT by 12/22/2004, 12:28am PST What if I tell you the guy was black? NT by 12/22/2004, 12:21pm PST it's a good thing Wal-mart doesn't sell these people explicit cd's by 12/22/2004, 1:59am PST Suicide: the Straight Dope by 12/22/2004, 3:53am PST Fascinating by 12/22/2004, 2:44pm PST |
