Beer and Toking on the Campaign Trail

Considering the sun began to rise not more than an hour after my little run-in with the cardboard king and his home-deprived Lolita, there was still a great deal of work to be done. After retreating to my boxcar as if I were being chased by the conductor himself, I set about designing the most beautiful pamphlets a pre-school dropout could imagine with only a blue crayon and a mess of littered paper scraps at his disposal.

Twenty minutes later, I emerged victorious with nearly two-hundred pamphlets (scribbled writing on sugar packets and dirty napkins) bearing the slogan: "Quint McGuinley for President or he'll bash yer heads!" The scrapper began saying that perhaps I shouldn't be so aggressive at such an early stage, but I think he noticed my hand raise in the air as if to slap him again, and he immediately caught his tongue.

So, with no time to waste, I equipped the scrapper and his skank with several packets and sent them to the west side of the town, whilst I traveled east towards the coast. After a quick detour so that I could swing by the local "open 24-hours-a-day" porn shop and peruse the latest in quality entertainment, I headed directly for the first of many supermarkets that I would be visiting that day.

The first place was a fairly large establishment owned buy the Bergin Bros, or so the named suggested. There was an area directly to the left of the entrance where people would have to grab a shopping cart if they so desired, and I figured that would be as good a place as any to set up shop. I leaned against the wall in a welcoming manner, dug my hand into my jacket pocket and grabbed a pamphlet...err sugar packet if yer the picky type.

As I think back, it probably wasn't a good idea to show up at 7 in the morning. Not many people seemed willing to shop at a closed grocery store and I guess I can't blame them. Before long, though, my luck changed for the better, and a few employees showed up to open the store. I hid myself behind the shopping carts in case they would mistake me for a hobo and call the police - believe it or not, that happens a lot.

By the time everything was set up, the parking began to fill with automobiles of every sort. One of the first vehicles to park in front of Bergin Bros was a tan '87 Buick, which spewed forth a lanky old man and what I can only assume to have been his wife, for it was obvious that she was no less experience in aging than her husband. Normally, I might have advanced on her and tried to acquire myself accompaniment for that evening, but seeing as how I was there on professional business, I figured I would contain myself for the time being.

As the couple approached the carts, I rose from my hiding place and ejected my arm, practically tattooing the sugar packet of information into the old man's face. Startled, he jumped back and nearly sent his wife to the pavement, but her reflexes were apparently sharper than her wrinkled skin, for she latched onto his arm and shot me a look of both terror and what I can only assume to be longing for ole Quint.

Without even so much as a glance at the packet, the old man asked me, "What do you want? How much?" I began to think that maybe this campaign thing wouldn't be as difficult as I thought. "How much?" I asked. "Well, how much do you have?"

The old man grabbed his wife's purse and handed it over to me. I reached inside and found a petite sequined change purse that beheld a treasure of more than $200 American dollars. The way I figured it, if everyone else I talked to that day continued to donate even half that amount, I'd have a pretty substantial means for getting around the country in no time at all. I took the cash out of the purse and handed it back to the old man. "This should do nicely," I said. "You're doing your country a great service."

I did not find the look I received very obliging, but I shrugged it off thinking that perhaps I was reading into it too deeply. Either way, as the old man led his wife inside the store, I overheard him whisper something to her about "calling the cops", and whilst I saw no crimes being committed in the vicinity of Bergin Bros, I decided to depart for my next supermarket anyway. My previous run-ins with the law would fill a book, and if the cops couldn't locate any other suspects, they'd surely be willing to settle for ole Quint.