On the Block

Even though I'd heard that Patrick Kennedy sleep drove while on Ambien, a few months back my insomnia made me desperate enough to fill the prescription my shrink gave me.

Side note: Don't do it. The Ambien, I mean.

Side, side note: Maybe the adverse reaction to Ambien was just the nuances of my own particular brain. Xanax has saved my life what with my own truly awful panic attacks. I think that Xanax is the shit.

You just have to control your intake. A lot. If you want to be able to take it for panic attacks and not get all Valley of the Dolls.

Anyway, after having a Friday night, twelve hour dream wherein I grew a third nipple on my shoulder and the Zimbabwe peace faction talked me into breast feeding Estelle Getty back to life I woke, toked, took a shower and decided to leave the house for at least an hour.

Naturally, I hit the Marshall's at Atlantic Center.

Not to shop but to take pictures and then to create a narrative photo montage for my friends.

The Atlantic Center Marshall's is like a flea market run by a recovering meth addict whose own dreams include Jacob's Ladder, The Rapture, and a Lita Ford video from the 80s.

Its merchandise is new yet visibly pawed over and disgustingly marked, dirty but still new.

Whenever I'm there and pick something up, nine times out of ten, I hold it aloft, stare at it and then throw it down, disgusted.

It's not unlike when I was a little kid and my brothers would leave their worst, skid-marked briefs under my covers as a special goodnight surprise.

An errant shoe hangs out in the detritus of the luggage, which is also where most of the women's lingerie seems to congregate. Maybe women are approximating how many bras and panties can fit into a certain piece of luggage.

More realistically, a fair number of the ex-con types cruising around in there are taking bras and panties from the Intimate Apparel section and jerking off with them in the luggage section because it's the least frequented area at Marshalls.

Half-used, off-brand hair products tip over on their sides next to Perry Ellis America ties. Slow cookers hang out next to shower curtains and can openers. Badly selling Pilates bands keep company with Nicole Miller makeup cases.

I fucking love it.

To be fair, about a year ago they got a new manager. Presumably, their headquarters were tired of being flooded by thousands of calls on their 1-800 number.

Things have gotten slightly better since.

Meaning, you no longer find shit-filled diapers in the shopping carts. Only used tissues. (Phlegm? Cum? Who knows?)

The new manager, God bless him, installed a new concept in Junior Wear, dubbed "On the Cube" which is evidenced by a huge pink cube heralding the arrival of fashions with labels like Pretty Girl, Teaze, and Hot Stuff.

In my photo series to friends I like to call it, "On the Stroll."

Before you think I'm being elitist, half of my wardrobe is Pretty Girl, Teaze, and Hot Stuff. Which I buy from the Cube when I'm stoned. Which is pretty much the only time I shop.

A while back, I tried to take a guy there on a Sunday morning.

"Let's go," I begged. "We'll get stoned and you will die laughing. It's incredible. I take pictures and send them to friends with captions."

I could make him seem like the villain with a dismissive kicker but he didn't do anything like that.

He was a nice guy, really. Boring but nice.

Just not a weirdo.

Good for him. Really.

He just shook his head, smiled, and said no.

He wanted to go to an exhibit at the Whitney.

I sat back, deflated.

"Fine," I said. "Okay."

We could've gone to a found object exhibit at the Atlantic Center Marshall's and I knew I'd be way more into it but I was trying to be a good girlfriend.

We broke up a month and a half later.

The Sunday after we broke up, I found a used condom in the Home and Housewares section.

It was nestled next to a Suzanne Sommer's Thigh Master.