As the score stands: Th: 1, E: 0.

I surrender. I'm taping a napkin to a stick from my backyard and I'm waving it furiously at Team Thursday. I'll go quietly, I swear. Just please, don't put an assault rifle to my forehead.

Yes, I do realize that it's only 2:30 in the afternoon, and that there is still a lot of day left. But I'm throwing in the towel now. Why, you ask? Because I ventured out into the world today to accomplish things, to be productive, and I almost died. Metaphorically, I guess. Well, I actually could have died. (Thanks only to the light blue minivan with a Jesus fish on the back that cut me off in a feeble attempt to make a right-hand turn into the Sonic parking lot. Was that necessary? It wasn't even Happy Hour yet...)

So my day got off to a slow start, because I hate the grocery store. I really do. The parking lots are always littered with pedestrians, meandering aimlessly around; some, in my opinion, with the sole intent of getting in your way. Then you have to push around those bulky carts and the aisles are never wide enough. Oh, and also, a big 'eff you' to whoever's idea it was to rearrange everything inside the store. I know you have signs, but I don't want to read them. I want to go to the bread aisle and you know what I want? I want there to be mother-effing bread there. Not asian cuisine. Not vitamins, and absolutely not organic juice.

Why else do I hate the grocery store? Because everyone is always in the way, and no one moves. Like, lady with your three kids, all I want is some shredded cheese. But I cannot get to said cheese because 1. you have a giant shopping cart with half a car attached to it to house two of your three miscreants. and 2. where's your third one? The one that you aren't watching because you're debating over oven-roasted turkey and smoked turkey? (Which taste the freaking same, by the way) Well, miscreant #3 is making a tower of cheese right in front of the spot where I would like to be standing. So I finally get to the cheese, and I reach OVER the child, and you know what? I even say excuse me. And what happens? The kid looks at me like I'm in his way. And then the mother looks at me like I'm gonna steal her stupid kid. Do I look like someone that wants a kid that talks to himself and annihilates the cheese section of the refrigerated aisle? I don't, I swear.

So I get through the store. My shoulders are tense, my frozen foods are melting, and the decibel level of soccer mom chatter and their offspring's shouting makes my brain feel like it's going to collapse upon itself like a dying star. I get to a checkout line, and I wait. The old gentlemen in front of me is buying twenty cans of tuna, and wants to pay in change. I kid you not, there wasn't a single paper bill involved in his transaction. The checker is disgruntled, and takes it out on me, because I am neither old or threatening in appearance. (You never know what those old guys are capable of. They've been to wars. The closest I've ever come to violence was walking through East Oakland around twilight.)

So she's a bitch to me. And I'm so flabbergasted about the carts, and the small aisles, and the cheese kid, and the bean thread where my bread used to be, that I completely forget to say paper instead of plastic. And lovely Miss Stink-Eye has already bagged everything, and if I ask her to re-bag it, I honestly believe that she would stab me, right there in the middle of checkout stand 14. So I pay with my debit card, and she asks me, with a classy roll of her death-stare eyes, if I want my receipt. Seeing as how I just gave her sixty dollars that I will never see again, yes, I'd like proof that I got something for it. And at this point, I want to flip out. Because she exhales, pointedly. Are you kidding me, woman? Is it really the most awful thing any one person has ever done to you, to ask you for a receipt? You don't have to add up anything, you don't have to print it, all you have to do is reach over, with just one hand, and grab the pre-cut receipt from it's printing vessel and give it to me. I can see how my presence has taxed you to no end. My eternal apologies.

So this is why, with my makeshift flag, I am surrendering to Thursday. You win. I tried, I failed, and I know when to give up on saving the ship and just float around on a door. But you'll be back, Thursday, and we shall duke it out again. I'll be ready for you, next time. Count on that.