An hour of my life I'll never get back

For those of you who don’t know, the finger puppet doesn’t drink. Ever. Except for those rare occasions he wants a drink. And before I tell you what he drinks, I’d like you take a moment to empty your hands of any liquids that might spill onto your computer and/or small children who could be harmed when you start laughing. When he drinks, the boo loves…Zima. In case you missed that, I said, ZIMA. What can I say, he’s a lady.

So tonight was one of those rare nights that he wanted to get his drink on. I should have known something was up when he was rubbing his ass up against me like a cat on a tree. He said, very sweetly, “Boo Boo Kitty Fuck, would you like to go on a quest for me”? HELL.YEAH! A quest! I’m ALL about a quest. I says, “Sure Kit Kat Patty Whack, whatchoo need”? And he says the one word that sends me into a fetal position…”A Zima”. What.the.ever.loving.fuck? I meet the one self-proclaimed bear with a tiara.

Since I love him so much and will humiliate myself any way possible for him I slip my Crocs on over my socks and head out into the blustery cold night in search of my KKPW’s Zima. Not before, though, checking on the interwebs to verify that the shit is even still being made. Sadly, it is.

STOP 1: Gaysian liquor store near my house: Quick scan of the refrigerated section reveals no Zima. No problem. As I’m about to make my quick ninja like escape the man behind the counter asks, “Can I help you find something”? I whisper “Zima”, cuz there’s a ton of drunk rednecks standing at the cash register. “Excuse me”, he asks? I say, “Zima”, again. “FOR YOU”, he chortles? “NO! NOT FOR ME”. He tells me he hasn’t carried it in years since “the gay stop shopping here”. The ONE GAY in Austin stopped shopping there and now my BBKF can’t have a god damn Zima.

STOP 2: Triangle Liquor Store: SURELY the Triangle Liquor Store will have Zima. They’ve got my people’s fucking symbol in their name for god’s sake. Quick-though-somewhat-lingering scan of the cooler, no Zima. I ask the very sweet woman who works there (who I believe MAY be from India or Pakistan) who is DESPERATELY trying to communicate in English, “Can I help find you something”? I tell her I’m looking for Zima. She asks what it is. I explain to her it’s similar to the Bacardi coolers. She asks me if I can spell it, and it’s at this point that I realize if I have to spell it for her then it’s probably not going to be in her store. So I leave.

STOP 3: Twin Liquors in my HEB Parking lot. I walk in, there’s a very large, loud talking man arguing with the cashier. As I’m approaching the cooler I A) don’t see it immediately, but B) the arguing is getting louder and I have visions of a shoot out resulting with my dead body being found underneath a million shattered, shot out bottles of rum and vodka clutching a six-pack of Zima to my chest. So I don’t bother finishing my search. I walk across the parking lot to my HEB.

STOP 4: I knew the grocery store wasn’t going to have it. I don’t even know why I bothered to check. Nine-times-out-of-ten that fucking grocery store is out of Diet Dr. Pepper and ONIONS! What made me thing TONIGHT of all nights they’d have ZIMA!

STOP 5: I stop by the Texaco (Shell, whatever, sue me) by our house. They used to carry this stuff all the time. About 18 months ago, the last time BBKF scratched his ass up and down my leg, they were out, so I wasn’t too hopeful tonight. They were still out. Probably permanently.

STOP 6: Lastly, I ran to Spec’s. If Spec’s didn’t have it, NOBODY in Central Texas would carry it. Spec’s has EVERYTHING. And I mean…E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. I walked down the quarter mile of refrigerated section looking at every case. NO.FUCKING.ZIMA. A Spec’s employee walks by and he asks if he can help me find anything. I tell him I’ve been sent on a quest to find some Zima. He says, “No problem. I’m zertain we have zome Zima”. I love a clown with a sense of humor. So he walks up and the aisle and we’re not finding it. He walks over to the front counter and LOUDLY announces, “THIS GUY BACK HERE IS LOOKING FOR ZIMA. I THOUGHT ZERTAIN WE HAD ZOME”. The manager assures him they carried it and “zuggested” some places for him to look. He looks in all his suggested places and finally says, “Man, I’m really, really sorry. I can’t believe we’re out. Nobody drinks that ztuff anymore. We should have zome. Iz there something else she would like”? I laugh and say no. I thank him for his time and excuse him before he can make any other clever words by replacing the “s” with a “z”.

I’m crushed. In part because I’ve let my BBKF down, and in part because now I know this means I’m not going to get sprayed by the feral cat tonight. So I call him up and tell him my tale of woe. How hard I’ve tried to make his night of magic happen. I ask him if he would like anything else. He says, “Yeah. Sure. Surprise me”. Fool me once, shame on … well, however the hell that goes. Rather than “surprise him” (because I’m seriously NO GOOD at that game) I start reading off a bunch of different options. “Do you want beer? IPA? Something malt liquorish”? He stops me at malt liquor and says, “Yeah, just get me something girlie”. I start reading off the titles of the Bartles & Jaymes flavors: Mojito, no. Sangia, no. I get to, “Fuzzy Navel” and BBKF shoots back, “I said girlie, I didn’t say I wanted a vagina”! With that I couldn’t contain my laughter. I told him I’d surprise him and got off the phone. I picked out a six-pack of Mike’s Cranberry Hard Lemonade. The Spec’s zemployee zaw me walking up to the counter and zaid, “Good call. I think she’ll really like that”. And I said, “Yes, I think she zwill”.