Why run with the buffalo when you can fall out of the sky trying to fly with the eagles?

Fear and loathing in my world; a happy smile on my face while my soul is singing the blues.

Lines of people, look at me and wonder how I stay so happy, on the outside I'm smiling but on the inside I'm crying, life seemingly passing me by as I stand waiting for the bus to downtown to pick up a bottle of Jack and a bottle of coke.

Chasers, a good title for a book about my life, rings in my ears. A woman from the north side waits with me. We small talk. You ever been to Peru?

No she says smiling. I reply the same. Conversation skills have always been my greatest weakness.

A cop drives by.

He waves.

He knows better than to stop, might have to get involved.

The bus finally shows up, fifteen minutes late, a new record.

They say in Hell the beer is free, but here in the living world, it ain't free but it ain't bad.

You know you are living life to the fullest when the gal at the liquor store not only knows you by your first name but your entire life story.

She has heard it twice. She always laughs at the right spots. Sad frown at the other spots.

She becomes a friend.

You ask her out; she says maybe someday.

It is even sadder when the folks down at the unemployment office know the full details as well.

Your life choices seemingly didn't matter no matter what your fifth grade teacher told you.

"Even if you're nice and kind and eat all your vegetables, you'll get push down face first into the mud!"

The things they can't tell you; the truth, for fear of losing their job cause the Man wants you to work harder not smarter, make sure you kiss the right spots on the right person as you try to move up the Corporate Ladder only to be pushed down to the bottom rung, flash forward, you're a cashier at Kmart, smile, you're on Candid Camera.

If you ever felt down and out in Poorville Anywhere, welcome to the real world, the place they don't tell you about in classes or lectures in fear you won't want to move on to level two of a living hell; few people get the winning story line, rock stars, movie stars and sometimes they don't even get the full winning line, see Behind the whatever documentaries now airing.

Cocaine killed the video star; vodka the movie star, found in a closet, a rope around their neck, all the money in the world couldn't make them happy.

"But they seemed so happy, all that talent..."

What about us talentless hacks, out here, living, thinking about that closet?

Nobody says anything, maybe in the obituary, donations can be made to the Happy Land Asylum where you were situated for five years before they found you in that closet at the Holiday Inn.

A sad day indeed for your brother Carl.

Life is what you make of it.

Isn't that what the professionals say to you, therapy, you going to be alright, you got talent, or a dog, a dog who looks at you wondering when you're going to get up and feed her.

It 7:30 AM, you're late fat ass!! GET UP!! She mentally says to you.

The only thing keeping you alive is your dog's schedule; breakfast, lunch at 11:35 AM, dinner between 4 PM and 5:46 PM, before night night watering and a trip outside to potty and converse with the neighbor's dogs through the fence. FENCE WARS erupts; daily thing, anytime.

The Wars are won lost, ties sometimes, and there I am, the neighbor is out too, we both nod, knowing full well that the world's fate is dependent on who wins these battles.

Cats could care less, you're only there for food, water and cleaning up their litter boxes, no fence wars, cats could care less, they look at you as a food source; dogs do too but not in the same way.

When you die, alone, in your boxers, dogs will mourn, wait for days before eating you.

Cats will try to murder you if you're five minutes late with third breakfast.

So you sit, waiting, looking at the clock, your dog is upstairs watching telenovelas as your cats sleep, waiting for fifth lunch, this is your life Walter Mitty, you believed the hype and it failed you miserably.

Where did you go wrong?

Your mom and dad met and that's where it all went wrong.

They weren't a Kennedy or a Rockefeller, they were a Smith, the wrong kind of Smith, or a Miller.

They were the day dream believer and the homecoming queen who picked the movie club geek instead of the high school quarterback hero who played for Notre Dame but in retrospect he wouldn't have been the right choice either, injured Sophomore year, kick to the knee, never played again, now sells shoes at a dying JcPenny in Georgia.

Why run with the buffalo when you can fall out of the sky trying to fly with the eagles?

Some old man, a medicine man, once told me my tribe name would have been "Crazy white man who ran with scissors while drunk!" it fitted me, I had to admit.

I met him on my journey down the street to buy cheap high alcohol percentages per volume in the state of Delusion also known as Rapid City, South Dakota.

He said his name was "Crazy red man who ran with scissors while drunk!" and that in the eyes of the Great Spirit, no matter our skin colors, we were both brothers, but unluckily our family was destined to be poor.

"Our family spirit animal is a dead racoon, ran over by a United States government vehicle as driving by Corporate America!" he laughed as I told him, it fitted as the government had taken my land too, sold it to rich white folks, to be used to store portapotties between uses!

"I tried to fight them, even used my war face, but in the end, there I was, outside looking in!"

"Maybe you are native!" he added, patting me on my back.

Sadly, he passed away in the tradition of my people; the famous Napaj Indians, found dead in a culvert pipe, trying to shelter against the ice cold winds of the Black Hill winters, finally identified a few years after discovery of his body, his spirit finally at peace.

I was once homeless, for a few months in Butte, Montana.

Again the government of Montana taking my parents' home after my father's death, payment I guess from their "generous" Medicaid to support his last years in a nursing home.

In a turn of fate though, they got screwed as the house had some liens, back taxes and when the house was first giving city water lines back in the 1930s, it became the hub for a ten block radius so they couldn't just cut the water off until major expensive updates to the lines were made.

In the end, they got stuck with more expenses then they the house was even worth let alone the money they spent on my father(both my parents served in the military, Air Force rats or flying buzzards, I don't know, pop got enlisted as a medic, even though he never even touch a bandage, let alone removed a Cather (that poor soldier felt an ungodly pain as my dad tried to remove it before deflating it!) and my mom was a secretary (they gave her the aptitude test, she excelled in electronics but being born as a woman back in the day, she was told, sorry but here is an electric typewriter! Next time be born a guy!!!)

Karma I guess won out.

True story.

Most of this story is true.

Even the parts that seem to be made up.

I don't know why I wrote this, maybe somebody will find it, say yeah, I know that feeling and will smile and then go off to their cashier job at some grocery store, a noble profession but one that people look down at for some reason.

"This is why you stay in school so you don't have to do manual labor!" some old woman who use to go through my line told her granddaughter every time.

I once broke down, "I went to school, got my degree, sometimes you gotta do stuff if you want to eat!!"

She huffed. Offended that a "lowly cashier" would dare speak to her. But for some reason, no matter how many people were in my line, she would show up, glaring, belittling old fart, trying to make herself feel better I guess.

I guess I was the only cashier who wasn't smart enough to quickly shutdown my register for break when she approached.

My boss noticed stating, "How you are able not to kill her is amazing!"

I know. I'm amazing at imagining their heads imploding with my mind tricks though.