Tokens, Pizza, and Booze

It was sunny today with nary a cloud in the sky.

Today's mission was one great urgency; something that might define our future, whatever that may be here in Chesapeake. Brian woke at 9:30, while I took the much needed opportunity to sleep in till 11:00 o'clock. As I previously stated vivid dreams have been causing a stir in my attempts to snooze. I love them and hate them at the same time. Last night was a shoot out between me and an old foe in the surreal locations of an abandoned Main Street, Beacon. He was armed with a paint ball guns and the bizarre assistance of the police. I was a lone protector with nothing more then a pellet gun and my wits. I don't know how it ended, but it was a frustratingly long battle.

But I digress...

Our mission was to hand in our stacks of job applications in hopes of procuring some form of income. Brian was vegged out to some Discovery Channel special while I scribbled away the same job history over and over and over and over again. Phone numbers, names, and addresses I never wanted to remember are now burned straight into my frontal lobe. I finished, nursed my wrist a bit, chugged some delicious Ocean Spray cranberry and hit the road, jack.

Chesapeake and the Hampton Road area is becoming oddly familiar like something I saw when I was younger and forgot I forgot about. Its only been 3 days and I already feel some comfort in my surroundings. Thats a positive thing. Brian drained some of his last dinero into his gas tank and we went from one depressing retail store to the next hoping for some glowing response from the management. Most were uninterested in outsiders to the state trying to take jobs from other hard working Virginians. One girl behind the counter at a hotel gave our applications gold stars to signal importance to the management. Regardless things were looking low.

Then, thankfully, I met a lovely woman named Tara who seemed more then happy to take our applications.

"What're y'all applying for?" said the semi-sweet assistant manager of Lone Star (a charmingly schlocky steak house)

As if planned, "Anything that pays money!" Brian and I said in unison. She smiled and set us up with second interviews tomorrow at 3 with the hopes of hiring us as servers. By this time tomorrow I could be a waiter in a charmingly schlocky steak house. I can't find any reason to argue with that.

As much as I'd like to count all the eggs I had in my one basket at the time there were many other hens waiting for their unborn young to be snatched. (Is that the proper way to turn that aphorism on its head?) So we moved along, trying to keep our spirits high, and kept selling our selves to uninterested people.

Now things are different in Virginia, this I know, but try this bit of proverbial fat to chew. Keep in mind that Chuck E. Cheese is an arcade aimed at children ages 8 to 14. Its spokesperson is a large mouse or rat who seems to have an affinity for pizza and video games. They usually host birthday parties to slews of kids hoped up on pitchers of coca cola looking to run rampant through the ball pits and slides. Its the typically tacky children's restaurant America does best. Nothing weird just yet.

So Brian and I, in a positive manner, charge the doors. We flirt with two middle-aged locals who are seemingly there to play ski-ball and finally meet the manager. He's was about 26, overweight, and sporting a pinky nail longer then the finger itself. (I was gonna follow this sentence with I'm not here to judge, but I'm a writer... Who the fuck am I kidding?) Trying to keep my attention off his pristine coke nail by focusing on his gawdy gold necklace the man lets us in on a new hurdle to over come: In Virginia you need a license of sorts to work with food.

It'll cost us $45 to get. I guess you gotta spend money to make money.

So while he continuously flipped our applications over back to front feigned some sort of false interest Brian nudges me from behind. It takes me a second, as my eyes were preoccupied by the outrageously bright pizza menu, by finally I find the strangest thing I've seen in the south so far. It was more bizarre then the Christian only bookstore/cafe. Weirder then the Arby's called Arby's Roast beef sandwiches are delicious. There, as if as normal as breathing air, was a beer tap. I can not make this shit up.

In Virginia... Chuck E. Cheese... Serves beer....

I'm slowly adjusting. These things are starting to feel commonplace. I'm not saying its wrong just saying its weird.

Brian