Today’s soundtrack:
Tom Thumb, Tom Cushman or tomfoolery
I’m dating women on TV with the help of Chuck Woolery
Today at 8:02pm: digging through a box of screws


Anytime I wander into a Target or a Wal-Mart or a Home Depot, I am immediately reminded why other countries hate us: We have everything. I mean the fact that our president’s a douchebag’s got something to do with it too, but the bottom line is, we have everything.

We have more than the French, more than the Russians, and we damn sure have more than the Iraqis now that our leader has thoughtfully helped them reconfigure their inventory with uninvited bombs. We have everything. Right or wrong, it simply is.

All of NYC’s superstores in Queens, because they can’t fit the damn things in Manhattan. Home Depot is so fucking big that being inside feels like you’re still outside. It’s so big that within its walls they have their own movie theaters and bowling alleys and governments. Anyways I’m dead flat broke, so I’d have no business being inside or outside a Home Depot if it weren’t for the gift certificates in my pocket.

The local phone company keeps me loyal with bribes in the form of Home Depot gift certificates, and after I’d amassed 45 dollars worth I got in the car and drove to Queens. Forty-five bucks is enough to refit my closet and with no work coming in, I don’t have much else to do but use the power drill I bought back when I was making money.

I pushed my orange cart around and after locating the proper aisle--which took slightly less time than it took Frodo to find Mordor--I grabbed the brackets I needed and threw them in the cart. Over in the wood section, I waited my turn at the saw and hacked two 56” segments off a twenty-foot pole. I could’ve bought galvanized metal rods but they cost twice as much and it’s all the same shit. I mean I’m building closet rods, not the space shuttle.

Several aisles away some guy saw the wooden poles sticking out of my cart and asked me where I got them. He looked frantic, like he’d been in there for days. I gave him some water from my canteen and pointed him in the right direction. He didn’t say thank you so I silently cursed at him.

Back in my apartment I mounted the brackets and hooked up the closet rods. My apartment lacks proper closets (it’s a converted sweatshop) so ever since I’ve lived here I’ve been keeping all of my clothes hanging on abandoned garment racks I found on the street. It’s one step away from using milk crates for furniture. I’ve been dying to get rid of these shits and now, thanks to the competitive nature of the telecommunications industry and gift-certificate incentive programs I could.

I transferred all my clothes from the garment racks to the new closet rods, swept the plaster dust off the floor and had a celebratory bowl of cereal while reading Newsweek. Around this time of day I’d normally eat something with meat in it but money’s a little tight. Anyways midway through my bowl of granola I heard a loud noise that sounded suspiciously like all of my clothes and a new wooden closet rod crashing to the floor.

I continued eating and tried concentrating on the article, chewing slowly. After I finished I went into the bedroom, picked all my clothes off the floor (removing errant chunks of plaster) and examined the wall, where the anchors had ripped themselves free under the weight of clothes older than I cared to remember. It would be nice if I could just mount the brackets to wall studs, but I live in an old shitbox building whose walls are thick plaster covering what feels (to a drill bit, anyway) like cement.

I grabbed a fresh handful of anchors, drilled new holes in slightly different places and hooked the whole thing up again, with an extra bracket for good measure. This time while hanging the clothes up I carefully scrutinized them for items I haven’t worn in over a year, or bought more than ten years ago, and threw them into the corner to lighten the load.

The rejected clothes I put into a bag to take to the local homeless donation center. Because in this country you can have everything, but most of the time you need less than half of it.