Why Abortion Must Be Kept Legal

Dear God, let me have the strength to go on.

It all started yesterday. I was on my lunch break and in a rush because I had a shorter lunch. I was on my way to the post office, and I got to that four way intersection at 2nd and C in Eureka. You may know it. Only the east and west streets have a stop sign. North and south streets get to go as normal ... unless you are the lady in front of me. She stops at the intersection while there are cars stopped at the east and west streets. The drivers of those cars were waving her on. Perhaps she thought it was trick. She wouldn't go. I laid on my horn and shouted out the window, "Fucking go!"

And she did.

I turned up 3rd and immediately got behind an SUV filled with young women. No problem, except they were stopping every ten feet for nothing. Not a slow down, but a full stop. It was time to yell out the window again.

"Fucking move!"

And they did. Turned at the next right. Another woman got in front of me ... and did the exact same thing!

I think the trick was being played on me. Where the hell was Alan Funt? Ashton Kutcher? Jesus?

"Move!"

And she did.

I made it to the post office only to behind a woman with a brown bag. In the bag was a present. She wanted to ship it in the brown bag ... which wasn't sealed and had no address. Isn't there some sort of post office test you have to take before you can step inside the building? No? There should be.

I got out of there and made it back to work in time to eat some spicy ramen that I made spicer by pouring in a ton of crushed red pepper. I keep several packets at my desk for this sort of thing.

Flash forward to today and the Bayshore Mall. I wanted to look for a video game for my daughter and see if FIFA '09 was still on sale for the PSP. It is, but before I can get to that store I have to make my way through the zombies.

In front of me is a mom and three loathsome children. The mom looks like her she got too close to a candle and her face started to melt into this sad puppet-like semblance of what was once human. Her glasses are dark to hide her dead, milky eyes. She has the strong aroma of coffee and cigarettes coming off her. Her children are dressed in the height of mall fashion. They range in age from toddler to teen. I find it hard to believe someone mounted her, but everyone's got a fetish. I'm stuck behind them as we weave through the aisles of Sears.

Dead stop. Boom. Right in the middle of an aisle too small for me to make my way around them. Mom looks around as if she's just smelled barbecue. She looks up. "We need help," she says to her oldest. She sure does. Lots of it, and not the kind you can find in Sears. "We need to find someone to help us."

Instead of walking in some general direction. She stands there as if waiting for the angels to fall out of Heaven and into her scabbed cleavage. Help is not coming. I'm close to delivering pain, though.

"Excuse me," I say. I'm polite. Almost always polite at first. Give a benefit of a doubt. You know, act civil even though I'm not confronted with civilization. Civil people don't stop in the middle of an aisle as if they are the only ones in the corn maze. (Or is it maize maze?)

"We're looking for help," she says as if this explains her blocking the aisle.

"I just want to get by." I could turn around ... and probably should, but I'm sick of this shit. I'm sick of people thinking they are the only folks in the universe. It's annoying, selfish and child-like. And to think these people are raising children. What are those kids going to turn out like?

"Well, I'm looking for help."

The kids feel my rage. Perhaps they've felt the same thing coming off mom when she's downed a bottle of JD after her favorite is voted off American Idol. They move out of the way. Unfortunately, the woman has the stroller and she is still blocking my way. I try to get by. She doesn't move.

"I'm looking for help," she says again. It's starting to sound like a plea. It's about to.

I push my way past her. I don't touch the stroller. I make sure of that. The kid will have enough problems in life. I do use my body to wedge past the woman. She is not easy to move.

She mumbles something. I think I heard "rude" in there. It wasn't rude. It was as civil as I could be while still maintaining my sanity. I didn't turn around and confront her. She wouldn't understand, and I don't want her to play the victim card. I just keep going, telling myself it's just the zombies in a holiday mood. It isn't. It is always like this when dealing with the walking dead. There's just more of them out because it's the holidays.

I made it out alive. I'm going back tomorrow. God help us all.