The Procurement of Cheese

Once upon a time I went to the local Gas-N-Grab store, knowing that the next day was cheese day. The night shift cashier was a rather unattractive young lady, in her size 8XL stretch pants and orange smock she stood behind the grime-streaked counter, horribly lonely, so I chatted with her a while.  I offered some greenish smokable matter and talked about life.  LaQuintata was bored, and I was a good listener as she spun tales of weird customers, failed attempts for a better career and offered varied personal complaints.  After about an hour she glanced at the clock, saying that her shift was just another couple hours, but the manager would be coming in quite soon.  I'd better be on my way, she added, as Mr. Jim the bossman disliked loitering punks whose mohawks and jangling leather coats frighten the elderly clientele buying a single can of cat food at five in the morning.  She gathered up a large paper sack of forty ounce malt beverages and a carton of stale newport cigarettes I could take if I'd come back and see her real soon.  I'd gotten the required materials, and would be back to see her as promised.  I'd need more cheese-aquisition supplies next month and some forties of my own in between, might as well visit my new friend to get them.  When I got home, it was already starting to become early cheese day, I'd been chatting with LaQuintata the Gas-N-Grab cashier a very long time.

I woke my cohort upon returning to the squalor of our shared loft.  Luloo woke with a grumbling snarl, as usual, and I packed the car with our supplies.  Smokes and forties stashed safely in the trunk of Luloo's beaten old station wagon, we headed off to the bureau of bastards and baby's mammas to begin the celebration of cheese day.

Luloo was a genius sometimes, she'd learned to juggle certain things, though not fire like she'd tried for initially. The juggling got the young bastards interested.  Kids love a cheap parlor trick, and the baby's mammas all let their kids linger a bit to watch after the fun morning of waiting in the cheese line. Luloo juggled a few packs of smokes, while I leant back on the car's bumper displaying our trunk full of ill-gotten forties and the remainder of the carton. Be damned, we got some cheese!  They traded us block after block of fabulous government cheese and some assorted large cans of fruit juice and other sundries for our beer and stale newports. It was a glorious cheese day, we turned homeward to feast like the filthy rodents we really were.