Lettuce Asshole Dirk (and Cronus)

[skeppsbrott]

Or: An Adventure in Referencing Obscure Brittish Movies of Questionable Quality. (Warning for NSFW and morally skeevy content in the link)

Found this gem from August 2014 in my old chats. I can't remember who the Dirk was, I know they were a tag regular. I was Cronus in this two-reply roleplay if that wasn't clear. Enjoy!

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Dirk is exhausted.

This is something that he finds himself quite frequently seeing as he is in the nasty and unhealthy habit of substituting coffee for sleep so he can stay up for 72 hours on end before conking out for an entire day. It has been 48 hours since his last sleep and he is in desperate need of supplies.

He has no idea what supplies he needs. Coffee? He probably has some already at home so that's not it. Oil? Do they even sell mechanical oil in a convenience store? Dirk doesn't know. Maybe he wanted soda. Or just some air. He's not sure how he ended up here really, standing in the middle of the convenience store holding only a lettuce.

Wait.

Why the fuck does he have a lettuce?

Dirk stares at the lettuce. The lettuce would probably stare back only it doesn't have eyes and he's not so sleepy that he's hallucinating humanoid lettuces yet. When did he even pick this up? Where did he pick this up? He has no idea but there is a niggling feeling of deja vu in the back of his head that this isn't the first time he's found himself in such a predicament.

He stares at the lettuce some more. Does he need a lettuce? Dirk cannot see any conceivable reason for why he would need a lettuce. What do people even use lettuces for? Soccer? Pest control? Oh yeah right people make salads. Dirk isn't a fucking nerd who eats salad though unless you can put salad in a bag of doritos. Therefore he has absolutely no reason to buy this lettuce.

He decides not to question his motives for picking up the lettuce any further. Past him probably had some bullshit reason for doing it and wow there's some more crippling self loathing at 1 am. Wait is it 1 am? Yes it is. Thank god for 24 hour convenience stores because Dirk lives for the night life as long as it doesn't involve nocturnal animals or partying. Partying is for losers without social issues but it doesn't stop Dirk showing up at random places like yo where's the party at okay thanks now I know where to avoid like the plague.

Yes he really needs to stop thinking about bullshit and put this fucking lettuce back.

But where does he put the lettuce? He can't remember where he even picked it up. He stares at it for a moment longer before deciding, you know what, fuck it and dropping it into a metal crate filled with footballs in the centre of the store. Haha let's see some dumb kids try and play soccer with that, Dirk knows what lettuces are REALLY for now.

He proceeds to walk a few feet away from the metal crate, feeling absolutely no guilt for being such an inconsiderate ass and not putting the lettuce back where he fucking found it. That fricking frick. When will he learn? When will he learn that his actions have consequences??

It's hard being a young, budding artist trying to make it in the world. It's hard and no one understands.

Which is also the short of why at three in the morning, Cronus is trying to calculate the exact amount of calories per bean in a Heinz can versus the exact amount of calories per bean in the store's own brand of baked beans. The long of it isn't very different. His girlfriend broke up with him what, a month ago? Since then he hasn't really slept. Which meant there were suddenly all these hours of his life he had nothing to do with because fucking nothing is open at night and his muse is as good as dead so really, what's a guy supposed to do?

The night shifts at the convenience store are unbelievably boring. It's as if it is a separate pocket of the universe where absolutely nothing happens, as if time pass around it but completely forget that it exist most of the time. Causing one hour to feel like five. But hey, he wouldn't be doing anything anyway so he might as well get paid for it. So really, who was the winner of that breakup? Haha. Bitch.

But really, it's almost like watching the world from behind a mirrored glass. He should find these people interesting, he really should but they just aren't. They're glossy-eyed with their make up smeared, they've eyebags deeper than his, they're in suits and buy cup-a-noodle's every other night and wearing a wedding ring but you just know that it won't last and sure enough, one night they come in without it. It's mindlessly boring, he haven't written a decent song in months. It should be inspiring, a chapter of hardship in his life to work as a muse like in that movie Cashback which he only watched because the main character was played by some guy named Sean Biggerstaff and REALLY.

It could be a mirror of his life, except he can't stop time and even if he could what the fuck would he be doing with that? He's a musician not a draw... drawer? Painter? It's not like he could crouch in yet another fold of time and undress and write songs about the people who come in because even then they're not beautiful or interesting, they're just all different levels of vaguely annoying and make the time he could spend doing absolutely nothing and get paid for it a hassle to live through.

Such as that one guy. Cronus spotted him a few moments ago and he already know he's going to hate the guy. He's holding a head of lettuce, looking at it as if it just told him his REAL mother is from another planet. Cronus already know what is going to happen, which only makes time move even slower because there's nothing he can do until it does. He's leaning on a shelf of disgusting mints which are sold for a dollar because they NEED to go.

The guy's eyebrows kind of furrows a little behind the shades (a casual notion: what the fuck, what the actual fuck, who even wears shades at night? Who wears shade that ridiculous looking at all? Especially when they're shopping? At midnight?) when he (endlessly slowly) look at the clock on the wall above the dairy products. It's a familiar feeling, that irritation which his entire body is now tinging of. So utterly meaningless, at least rage gives him energy to deal with things, this kind of annoyance with someone does absolutely nothing and only serves to frustrate him. Insufferably slow and as if it was the most hilarious and natural course of action in the known universe, the hand holding the lettuce reach out and as if the world moves in slow motion it sets the lettuce down among the footballs, dropping it just a few millimetres before it actually touches the balls and Cronus can see that short tiny distance it falls to settle itself down where it clearly doesn't belong and the annoyance he feel about it is at such a perfect resonance that it could shatter glass if translated into sound.

The irritation is so perfect it's as if the entire universe came together just to make it happen, just to create this perfect wavelength of annoyance and lack of energy, he has never felt a feeling so strongly before as this overwhelmingly intense sensation of mild inconvenience and frustration with a person he will probably never again think of in his life. The stars have aligned to create this perfect douchebag and cause this perfect annoyance. Just enough that it's not enough to hate him or even dislike him a memorable amount, just enough that he can only barely see the horizon of the potential joke that is a head of lettuce among footballs.

Then, as if watching himself through that mirrored glass, Cronus see himself give the guy a perfect glare of mild irritation so sublime he might get a shiver but never realize why or where it came from before it's forgotten, before walking over as in slow motion, grab the lettuce with his left hand (he can hear the high definition sound of the faintest of crisp under his fingers as he grab it) and bring it back to it's home among the other lettucke heads. The perfect annoyance is gone as soon as it came, another facette of brilliant pointlessness making it soon forgotten and not even useful for inspiration or a rather boring funny story.

And then time begin again, as if it made much difference. Because it still moves slower in this store, and there are three hours which will feel like fifteen left before he can go home and pretend to sleep for an hour or two and he will wake up and feel mildly annoyed and have no idea why.