She Was Never Scene Again, Part 2.
I then called my dad to come up pick me up in front of a Ralph’s. He kept getting lost and I had to call him a few more times, at one point yelling at him because of how much I wanted to go home. He told me I was bad at giving directions and that’s why he got lost. When he finally got to where I was, the back of his car had one of those bike-holder-thingies attached to strap my wheels on. He asked me what I was doing around in this area when we were driving away. I told him everything, then asked if we could go to this other Hot Topic at Burbank Town Center. He said yes, though I really don’t know why.
The next day we pulled up in an above ground floor of the mall’s parking garage. The elevator nearby took us down. We entered the mall proper by passing through a clothing store. Inside we looked at the mall directory for a minute or two but still got a little lost. Trying to find the store almost felt like trying to beat a graphical adventure game for the PC-98 without a guide.
Inside the store I suddenly felt too anxious to ask an employee if they sold any band patches so I had my dad do it for me. They told him they didn’t have any, so I settled for some random skull patch. Dad was also insistent on buying these random pins he was never gonna use. Intermediately, I was traumatized by something fucked up I saw.
I saw a Black Sabbath shirt with E-girl sleeves.
Having my eyes subjected to this absolute poser excrescence, the spiritual horror of the garment made me feel despair at the implications of it’s existence. I could picture it in my head: E-girl #3801328931290810296479196349724507820178230917480626267359652419827490827410895720179508915790348175904671239064907612907758925789485 showing off her new corporate-approved garb on TikTok while patting herself on the back inwardly because of how special she is for liking “classic rock”, while hardly having heard a note of Iommi’s genius. I likened my excruciation from seeing one of my favorite musical ensembles being anti-intellectually devalued to that of the communal ravishing of two kidnapped young women at the hands of the Hell’s Angels on a dark beach outlined in pages 13 to 14 of Hell’s Angels by Hunter S. Thompson. And I recited these feelings to my father as we walked out of the store.
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