Before telling what happened yesterday, it must be acknowledged that I'm an ass and what I did only hurts myself. You don't need to scold me; I've already scolded myself.

And yet, when Dollar Tree has only one cash register open, as 21 people stand in a line stretching back to the $1.25 toilet paper and paper towels… I'm leaving. So I left.

It didn't matter how much I needed those four frozen cheeseburgers, and two big bottles of fruity water, and five mid-size sacks of chips at an unbeatable price. Everything was left behind, like atheists come the rapture.

Now it's Monday, and I must face the consequences: Today, tomorrow, and until I repeat that same trip to the store but actually stay and pay, my sack lunches will include no chips. Two peanut butter and Buddig sandwiches, by themselves, without anything salty and crunchy between the bites? I'm sad about that, even as the sandwiches are slipped into a sack.

It's my own damned fault. I had nowhere else to be but home alone, tilted in my recliner. If I'd simply sighed and waited in line however long waiting in line might have taken, I'd have chips today.

And I'd written the above before reading and re-typing [a similar story from 27 years ago](../Pathetic Life/PL-15#a-fountain-of-news), for the latest stale Pathetic Life. On that day in 1995, just like yesterday, I walked into a store to buy something I wanted, got pissed off instead, and walked out without what I'd walked in for.

The point is obvious, isn't it? I'm the same shitty man now that I was then, impatient, full of idiotic indignation about the tiniest things, when I ought to be mellow and patient.

And I'm the same shitty writer, too. Half of everything I write is about what a business, a bus driver, a boss, my mom, or some stranger did, and how it pissed me off. It's all real, but it might as well be copypasta.

This website will end, I predict, shortly after I finally make an appointment to see a doctor about something scary, after letting it fester far too long because I hate doctors. Maybe it'll be headaches so powerful they've cracked my skull like an egg. Maybe it'll be a blood- and pus-leaking lump on my kneecap. What the heck, let's make it both — the cracked head and the pus-leaking knee.

Months after I should've, I'll make an appointment to see a doctor, some specialist in skulls and pustules. I'll be sitting in the waiting room, fuming because my appointment was supposed to be 45 minutes ago and I was on time, so where's this damned doctor? I've already read the clinic's copies of Modern Goiter and Carcinogen Update.

Well, I'll show them — by stomping out of the clinic, limping to the bus stop, riding home, typing a few funny paragraphs about it, and dying in my recliner a week later.

8/8/2022