Okay, So This One Time At Band Camp.

Sometimes I get these weird feelings and I'm never sure who I've talked to about them. I can never remember if I told my psychiatrist, my psychiatrist's nurse, if I was talking to myself in bed, (which I do a lot,) or the owner of the liquor store down the street who is from Iran and doesn't speak English, -not because he's from Iran where they speak Persian, but he refuses to speak it because hates their rugs- but because he's Albanian and he only speaks Malagasy from Madagascar which is pretty weird since he's never been there and swears he's never been anywhere near South Africa, plus he wears a Dastar which is a Sikhs' head wrap but he's says he doesn't trust them because they run up really high cell phone bills. And whenever I go in there he's always yelling at me that I buy too many condoms -which is crazy, I don't even use the fucking things- and gives me a free package of Hostess powdered sugar doughnut gems with my bottle of JD.

The owner of this oasis of insanity is Dhimiter Belushi. Dhimiter meaning: "Good Day," in Albanian, (Not fucking likely,) and Belushi meaning he tries to bullshit everyone into thinking he was related to the late John Belushi. Now I don't know if it has anything to do with being from another country or from watching Deliverance too many times but why do all liquor stores have a glass cases full of mini titties key chains that the nipples light up on, $5 Jason Voorhees Signature Series knives, lighters disguised as guns, guns disguised as lighters, pen guns, ring guns, nipple ring guns, and eight different sizes of ejaculating Silicone Butt Plugs. As well as every kind of liquor from Bacardi Zombie to a $260 bottle of 28 year old Willet, Single Barrel Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey. (Good shit.) Whatever happened to a six pack of Coors, a bag of pork rinds, and some beef jerky? You want variety? Coors Light. Get in the fuckn' car and roll that thing will ya.

I asked Dhimiter one day if he agreed with the hypothesis that a 350 pound comedian dressed up like a samurai who's tag line was “No Coke' but died from snorting it was representative of all Albanians.

He screams at me that I'm too fucking cheap to go see a real doctor. And how the fuck should he know anything about the hypothalamus. So I lit his Tic Tac display on fire and laughed my ass off while he used a bottle of Fruit Punch Gatorade to put it out and ruined all the rolling papers in the display next to it. He tried to hit me with the empty bottle but I ducked when he threw it and it hit the little girl behind me right between the eyes, and her mom comes unglued and is screaming at him and he's screaming at me and the little girl was just looking at me and screaming while she stuffs Kit Kat bars and Life Savers in her pockets. So I gave the kid a minute, lit a cigarette, then pulled the woman aside and tried to explain to her that he was Albanian and that seems to piss her off even more so I asked the kid what the fuck was up with her mom? And she told me that last year her mom had taken her to a petting zoo and that a Koala Bear had molested her. I tell her that sucks and asked her what the bear did to her, and she said she didn't know, her mother refused to talk about it.

So again I explained to the woman that he was Albanian not Australian, and she calmed down and said that she totally understood and left.

Dhimiter gave me a giant pretzel with extra mustard and told me to get the fuck out of his store. Which I didn't do until he gave me one of the Jack Daniel's mini bottles as well. Nothing goes with free pretzel like a little Jack & Coke.

Patronizing this store is like walking into a Gillo Pontecorvo film already in progress. People who come in for the first time usually have their first twinges of uncertainty when they realize the guy behind the counter is doing more yelling than your average Semtex strapped terrorist who just busted though the perimeter at the ranch in Crawford. By the time they get to the candy aisle they're expecting Carlos the Jackal to jump out and hand them a MilkyWay bar and when they reach the beer cooler wonder if all they're going to find is Arafat Double Cross Stout and Bin Laden Stone Age Ale.

I guess the strange feelings I get are not so much feelings as they are questions. Like how is it I am able to understand an Albanian from Iran who only speaks Malagasy, why does he charge me for matches when I buy cigarettes but gives me free doughnuts when I buy whiskey, why didn't I get that Koala Bear's number? And how much are these cherry flavored Zig Zags?

Keep The Faith.