My name is Tyler, and I am an addict. Oh, it's not something taboo, or risky, or even worthy of societal scorn. You won't see 15 year-old runaways strung out on it in some seedy, dilapidated shack behind the abandoned auto-parts store. You won't see it peddled by washed-up Hollywood stars and starlets, still clinging pathetically to a small glimmer of hope that one day the public and casting directors alike will fall in love with them all over again, but in the meantime, they're too fucked up to notice that they're wearing sandwich bags for shoes. Nobody is going to get caught in the bathroom at a party with some guy who's been up for 96 hours, and all he wants to talk about is how stellar of a car salesman he is, only to have him break down crying by the time he gets to how much his kids hate him.
They're just Slurpees. And I love them. My friends, especially those who had the pleasure of working with me at the Students' Union, know of my seemingly unnatural love of the cold, semi-solid beverage. At the time, I didn't think that it was too much to have two or three in a 7 hour period while "working", especially since I was getting them for free at the SUBmart, using extra volunteer coupons for myself. But four months straight? Seems excessive now as I look back, but my Slurpee-addled mind can only become extremely jealous of the Tyler two years ago, and try to think of ways to travel back in time. I tried to cut down on my slurpee intake while at Ticketmaster, and the roughly two excruciatingly long blocks to the nearest slurpee slinger did help the cause. It would not last however, despite my blood sugar's insistent cries that it must.
Working once again for a student association, I find myself as close as ever to a slurpee pusher - the MacEwan convenience store. The slurpees are plentiful, and cheap on Tuesdays! I have reached Valhalla, and it has spoon straws. Now, you can only imagine my horror today, as I saw that the machine that time and time again brought me so much joy, alleviated so much pain, and got me away from work for those few precious minutes a day, was broken.
Out of order. No service. Nothing. I was thunderstruck.
The silver box hummed and swirled, but the slurpees themselves had been reduced to nothing more than a twisted sugary liquid, too dark for consumption, too painful to look at, too much for this grown man to bear. "WHY?", I cried. "Who's to blame for this injustice, this travesty of confectionery delights? The worker who guarded over the refrigerated wonder machine could only muster a slow, sad glance of forced acknowledgement, and a trite apology. Confusion and anger waged a war of attrition in my emotional core, and I was unable to decipher which one I wanted to win. It was all I could do to not simply give in to raw, unbridled anguish and fall to the floor in a quivering pile of humiliated human being.
So I left, empty-handed and somewhat tired. I walked the slow path back to my office, a trek comparable in suffering to the Bataan Death March or Dr. Zhivago. I sat back at my desk and had what some addicts call a moment of clarity in that small sliver of lucid thought between hits. An epiphany. I would stop having slurpees everyday. I could not bear to go through this maddening event once again, to feel amounts of disappointment that could make the Grand Canyon an easy walkover. I would be born again.
My detox lasted 3 hours. Damn you 7-Eleven. Damn you to hell.
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