Hey Buddy! Can You Spare a PS4?

by Rose A. Valenta It was a dark and stormy night, a bit of purple prose, I know; but in this case it is highly accurate. My five-foot frame almost blew across the parking lot when the predicted "small gust" caught the hood of my jacket. At this point, the color of my parachute turned light ashen, just like my face. I groped around in between cars like Helen Keller hoping for a real car door handle, instead of those little slits automobile engineers have brilliantly put just under the side windows, to keep me grounded. Humph! I thought, they do the same thing with headlight assemblies so what do you expect, it's a conspiracy; they use three different types of screws to install them and make you use three different tools to remove them. I know, because I broke one once and tried to play stealth mechanic in the back of my driveway, so my husband wouldn't find out. It took both a flathead and phillips head screwdriver, plus a hex wrench to remove the screws. He caught me dropping the F-bomb at the hex wrench. Slowly, I inched my way towards the store. I could see the bright lights, it wasn't a mirage, I told myself. I'll get there. I started to rise off the ground like an old Life Buoy commercial, then an old parked Chevy attacked me from the rear and I had to use leverage at the bumper. I felt like Harry Potter's Aunt Marge. I swear, this is the last time I wait until Thanksgiving to go Christmas shopping, I lied to myself. My husband had a good excuse for not coming with me bringing the rope and mountain climbing equipment; he was home watching the Washington Redskins finish up a record-breaking losing streak, just like me in this parking lot. Finally, I arrived at the door of Best Buy. All the employees looked as if this was a wake; no one was in the store. All the other customers used common sense and stayed home. Some of the stock boys were in the back of the store entertaining themselves slinging paper clips with rubber bands. Two guys in the front looked at me as if they wanted to ask if I knew the deceased. I went over to the customer service counter and asked the $64,000 question [drum roll]: "Do you have a PS4 console in stock?" I asked confidently. "Hahahahahahhahaha" The manager responded. "Listen, lady, the line starts at 3:00 a.m. on Sunday, be here." I stood there looking out the window at my car, which was being pelted with empty battery boxes and flying receipts. It wasn't that far, I lied to myself, and besides none of these guys would really want to put me in one of those renegade shopping carts and wheel me over to my car for $5, would they? I think I'll stay here a while till the wind shifts and sail over there. All I want for Christmas is to kick Sony's ass.