Thursday, Part 2

We arrived at Page 3 a smidge after 1 PM, which is when Scott, one of the employees, told us he’d be coming on that day the last time we were at the store. He’d made an arrangement with Heath to sell him one of his Mirror Force cards (see below) for $40 since the store didn’t have any singles of their own in stock. $40 for one card is quite expensive, but it was still better than the Internet asking price (anywhere from $45-$50) and it was cheaper than buying tons of Metal Raiders packs (the largest set in Yu-Gi-Oh! that exists) and hoping luck would cast a big smile on you.

Heath was unable to come with us that day, so he’d given Curtis the money. We made the purchase outside (as I imagine it’s illegal to do in-store). In addition to the Mirror Force, I bought a Dark Armed Dragon (affectionately referred to as DAD among Yu-Gi-Oh! buffs) for $20 – the most I have ever or will ever spend on one single card, I assure you. After the money and cards exchanged hand, we quickly stashed the $60 pieces of cardboard and holo-foil into my Jeep, and returned to the store.



I ended up getting about $28 in store credit out of the 7-8 movies I traded in and a handful of crap cards, which was not bad at all, especially when coupled with the fact that due to a store error I still had $15 remaining from the last time I visited the store. $43 in imaginary money is loads of awesome!

I bought about $5 worth of common Yu-Gi-Oh! Cards (50 different cards, essentially) and all the issues of the Blackest Night comic story arc that is occurring in the DC Universe that I cared about reading; Blackest Night #1, Green Lantern #43, Green Lantern #44, Tales of the Corps: Blackest Night #1, #2 and #3. It was a good day for nerdness, I assure you.

The others finished their purchases and we left in search of food. Our restaurant of choice – Burger King, always. There has only been three times that I’ve went out of the county with friends that I can remember not eating Burger King while we were gone, and all three were with Corey Howell. Together once, we found out Sonic really sucks.

We headed home soon after eating. When we arrived at my place, the only difference in scenery was that the woman downstairs had woken up and was walking around the house and the woman in my bed had disappeared and my dad had taken her spot. The woman who was up and about is Amanda Mills, someone who’s been semi-living with my dad and I for 2-3 weeks. Huge pill whore, no doubt about it – the eyes say it all.

I believe it was Curtis who called Heath and told him to come over to my house cause we were going to hang out. I suppose Heath’s definition of “hanging out” didn’t include coming up to my room, which looked like an F5 tornado had touched down dead center, and watching my dad snore obscenely in my bed in nothing but his tighty-whiteys. Regardless, he stayed and together we packed.

There was an odd feeling attached to the whole experience of me packing up my belongings. On one hand, I knew it was something I would have to do within the next month due to my moving to Lexington. There’s no way I would have left anything valuable in my room, whether it be monetarily valuable or just worthy as a memory. Either way, it would have ended up pawned for drugs, I believe.

I suppose the circumstances are what painted the whole afternoon and evening with a feeling of displacement. I already knew that Curtis’s mom wouldn’t mind a bit for me moving in with them for the remaining month of summer, so it wasn’t like I didn’t have a place to go. And even if they had minded, there were all kinds of people I know who would have gladly taken me in – and that’s not even counting my mom (I really didn’t want to spend my last month before college in Huntington without my pals, or I would have gladly moved there)!

No, it all felt strange because you just don’t wake up thinking “I bet I’m going to come home and have to move out because it appears your dad cares more about his drugged up fuck buddies than he does you”. Now, if they were nice, pretty or in any form or fashion attractive in any sort of human way, maybe I would have understood. Maybe.

I called my mom and warned her about the situation, telling her she might want to come and get some of her things. My dad left with Amanda soon after that, and we packed in peace for about an hour or so.

We got the call from ARH around 8:45 that an Amanda Mills had been checked in and had a concussion from a car wreck and they were seeking my dad for an insurance statement, or something along those lines. I told them I wasn’t my dad and left it at that, but was extremely curious about what had unfolded after my dad left. My mom showed up while this phone call took place.

Everything played out surprsingly well over the next two hours. My friends acquainted themselves with my sister’s new boyfriend, Mikey (Sturgill, I believe) from Tolsia, who we all unanimously agree is better than her previous guy. I reminisced continuously in addition to catching up with my mom and sisters a tad as I packed item after item…

- My NBA action figures – specifically, my Dwayne Wade, Ben Wallace (Chicago Jersey) and Allen Iverson (Denver Jersey) figures – which are linked to a day where Corey, Curtis and I ended up in Paintsville, Prestonsburg, Pikeville and Williamson all in one day, and we almost died at least twice, once due to an “imaginary” red car popping up out of nowhere. Yes, imaginary.

- A fair amount of soda and juice bottles and cans. Call me crazy, but I consider nearly anything a keepsake, and those were no exception. I have numerous Jones Soda bottles, which I kept either for the memories associated with them, or for the funny artwork, or both. I’ve got the last can of Venom (an energy drink) I will ever drink, which I recall buying once on a “let’s try this crap” binge with Curtis. It’s terrible stuff. Also among the collection was the last liter of Mountain Dew: Pitch Black II I’ll ever get to drink – I loved it, but it wasn’t popular enough to stay around, unfortunately.

- My computer. This machine’s been through a lot – from viruses to soda spills, it’s been there with me for the past six or so years. I know people who’ve gone through three or four computers in the same time period – not I! And with a dial-up connection for most of it! Ah, 56k – there’s something I won’t miss.

Those are just some of the memories that went into boxes that day. Each and every item had some significance behind it. A person’s possessions say a lot about them, even if you don’t know what it is, whether it is something big or something small. Sometimes it’s even a secret, but I have no doubt that it always matters.

My mom departed and soon we would. We’d just finished our next to last load of stuff (all of which we were taking to the storage unit we rent), and were packing up our last load for the night. The moment Curtis’s car and my Jeep were stocked as full as they could be ( I had my Nintendo 64 in the front seat, barely keeping steady thanks to the computer being placed underneath it), around 11:30, we were set to take off. Then, a white tool truck backed into the driveway, obstructing our exit path.

The day could already be described as insane. It was about to go to a whole new level.


Prince Batman, AWAY!!!
Joshua Aaron Moore

Quote of the Day
"Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever." --- Keri Russell