Paladin
If you do good deeds, if you hold the door for people, or if you drink bottled water, then you have an inner paladin. An inner paladin will push you to be lawful and good. My inner paladin encourages me to be kind to strangers and make friends with people. It is a little bit scary to meet new people, especially when there are so many personalities out there and you never know who is going to be offended by what. But my inner paladin says that if I am kind and courteous and remember peoples’ names then everything will be fine. So today I was at Peet’s coffee and I saw a dude that I know from Starbucks and I said hi to him and he is such a funny guy. He was asking about my science fiction story. But the thing is that he laughs a lot so it is never a dull moment. And he was with his friend who I barely know and when I said hi to him, he was like, “Who’s this guy?” And me and the other dude thought that was really funny. And then the other dude was asking about my dog and he said, “Forget your dog! I’ve got a business proposition for you!” And I was sipping my latte, which I wasn’t sure was a good idea because I’m trying to cut back on dairy products but hey, just one won’t hurt right? So I told him I was all ears and he said, “I’m talking about a ‘Hot Dog on A Stick’ in Corona del Mar!”
I thought the idea was cool and funny at the same time. But then I said to the other dude, “Hey didn’t Hot Dog on a Stick go out of business in Fashion Island.” And he said, “Yeah man, I don’t know if that’s the best idea.” And I said, “I think it went the way of Sbarro and friends.”
Then I tossed out the idea of a Tanning Salon for Dogs. But that didn’t make a whole lot of sense because dogs have fur. So who is going to see the tan anyway, right? Kind of a waste of money.
Overall, the conversation we had was a lot of fun and I am glad that I took the time to talk to those guys. I always see them around town and they are cool dudes. But if I didn’t follow my inner paladin and be friendly to those dudes then I probably would have missed out on a lot of laughs.
Today when I went grocery shopping at Gelsons. I noticed a couple things. First, Gelson’s does some serious subliminal mind control pricing. Don’t believe me? Go in Gelson’s in East Bluff and take a look at the prices they have for their items. You won’t believe this but every 3rd or 4th item you find in the store is priced, “$3.99!” Everywhere I went, if I wanted a smoothie drink, it was $3.99. If I was looking for some Ivory Soap, it was $3.99. This obviously is part of some kind of conspiracy. They want to be like, “Oh! It’s only $3.99, I can afford that!” But then after you fill your shopping cart full of items that cost $3.99 then you will realize that you just spent your car payment at Gelson’s.
So I was in the soup isle looking for chicken bullion and then I found it. But there was a man who was searching around in the isle in that area and he was taking forever. And since I have better things to do than hang out at Gelson’s my inner paladin instructed me to say, “Hi, do you mind if I squeeze by there and grab some Chicken Bullion?” And the man briefly turned to me and watched me take a few jars of Chicken Bullion off the shelf. And then for some reason he picked one of the bullion jars up and in a gruff voice he said, “What’s so good about this stuff?” And I casually replied that it supposedly tastes better than the Knorr versions. And while I was walking away he said, “Hey! This stuff has got 300 milligrams of sodium!” And I tried not to laugh and said, “Yeah, that’s a real problem. You gotta watch out for that.”
What a funny couple of days.
-Tyler