The Eulogy Disguised as a Rant

I posted this 'eulogy' of sorts on a website forum a week or so ago that doesn't know who Julie Faulk is. I thought I'd dress it up a bit and post it here. Thanks.


Bad day at Publix rant and other stories

So, I decided to take Seth, my nearly 6 month old baby to the grocery store with me tonight. I hardly ever take him out with me and thought it would be fun. Paul, my husband, says its just because I want to show him off and that's absurd! That is such an immature and distasteful reason and of course, 100% the truth. I figure I can use the special pregnancy parking space because its for moms who are pregnant and who have infants. I found this out for sure by asking the manager a few months ago if mothers with infants applied and he said "Absolutely!" They have 2 stork parking spaces and really the chances of 2 pregnant women and/or women with infants shopping at that store at the same time are rare. (The surrounding neighborhoods are all blue-hair villages.) So, I actually get excited about this and once again Paul VICIOUSLY accuses me of just wanting to park there to help draw attention to the fact that I have a cute little baby in tow, which once again is ludicrous and terrible behavior for a mother, but of course, once again 100% true.

So, we get to the parking lot, Zain, Seth, and I and as I circle the section where the stork parking is located I notice THEY TOOK THEM OUT!! Ohhhh I was LIVID! I was OUTRAGED!! RAWR ARGGH RAWR!!! How DARE THEY!! I'm writing someone!! I'm talking to a manager!!! Never mind that the space I did end up parking in was closer than where the old stork space was! Never mind that the reason they got rid of them is because they added new cart returns in the middle of the lot and needed the extra spaces to make up for the ones these new returns take up. Never mind that 2 weeks ago when they first put the new cart returns in I thought it was a FANTASTIC idea and didn't even notice that the stork parking disappeared. I was PISSED!!

I needed to show off my baby and if it wasn't going to happen with the parking space, it was going to happen when I walked around the store until I found a manager to talk to about this terrible injustice gosh dang it!! (I wouldn't actually cuss at the manager.) Well, on my rounds through the store, in my search for some poor sap to feel the fury of this woman scorned, I stopped by the deli to ask my old friend, Dawn, who usually works evenings, what the hell she did to the old stork spaces! Dawn's an old rough-neck buddy that I used to hang with in my wilder, Moon Laker days in jr high and early years of high school and before I could start my rant to my old pal, she starts to tell me about this other, even wilder, girl that used to live 2 trailers down from my trailer *spits out chaw* named Julie. I cringed at that name because that chick was so damn wild! I tell you what. She was from Texas originally. I have no freakin' idea what area, just Texas... anywho she just didn't give a flying fuck what kinda trouble she could get into doing the things she did, she just wanted to fucken do 'em!! (I'm sorry, I have to cuss now because that's what she does.) I was very good friends with her starting from the moment I met her in 7th grade (she talked about head-butting at concerts and Ozzy Osbourne eating rat-heads) and stayed very good friends until mid 10th grade, hanging out every morning on the way to school (we skipped together a LOT and had some really wild times!! Some of the best in my life), every evening after school and almost every weekend during this time period.

My friendship with her ended up spiraling into something I had to let go of because it was actually a bit dangerous. Yeah, seriously! That's how fucking cool this chick is! She's too dangerous to stay friends with. (She's mostly harmless, just too wild and can always be expected to NOT be the one to bail you out of jail because her dumb ass will be stuck in there with yours.) I have seen her from time to time over the years. She had a couple of kids with some asshole, had some problems with said asshole that spanned from TX to FL and ended up settling back in FL raising her kids on her own. Anyway... as this flash of what she represented in my memory works its way to my frontal lobe (mostly good stuff) Dawn says "yeah its so sad did you hear what happened?" Oh shit, I think, I just know what's coming next... please don't.... "yeah, she died of cancer last year, I saw her brother, he has her kids with him now" oh man COME ON!!!

My heart breaks, of course. I'm in a bit of shock and just start thinking of every crazy ass thing I ever did with that wild ass chick and am loving the memories! Obviously, I forget the drama for a second and I'm just standing in the middle of the deli with Zain and Seth as Dawn whisks away to get back to work, so I decide to order some sandwiches. Zain got the turkey and cheese, which is very exciting for us, especially him, because we previously believed his 'poop problems' were caused by some sort of reaction to dairy, particularly cheese so I didn't let him eat it. His pediatrician 'prescribed' him an over-the-counter children's laxative and he can have cheese on his sandwiches now. You've never seen a happier kid. The rest of us get the Ultimate, which has turkey, roast beef, ham and swiss on it. The guy gave me Boar's Head brand for the same price as the generic Publix brand... woo hoo! As memories of Julie head-butt my ability to focus on ordering the sandwiches I think back to her car... It was this AWFUL puke green dirty old mustang mach 3 or mach 2 or warp 8 or what the hell ever and she freaking LOVED that thing. It was a 'rare' classic muscle car, in horrible condition, but she didn't care! Her dad got it for her on her 16th birthday and let me tell you that's when we really started to break bad. All hell broke loose at the wheel of that old bad ass bucket of bolts!

I finally manage to finish ordering our sandwiches and on my way out of the deli I walk over to where Dawn's stocking the fridge cases with macaroni and cheese and I say "you know, one thing about Julie, she sure knew how to live!" and we both just floated through those old crazy memories together by nodding our heads and going "oh yeah!" it was very cool.

RIP Julie, my very dear old friend. (but too damn young to be getting your ass kicked out of hell already!) <3

Carpe Diem